Pages

▼

Tuesday, August 10, 2021

08/10 Links Pt2: Diaspora minister: ‘We may lose US’ if liberal Jews continue backing BDS, BLM; The bride is beautiful: An irresistible anti-Zionist story; When Hitler’s Mufti Gave a Press Conference

From Ian:

‘We may lose US’ if liberal Jews continue backing BDS, BLM — Diaspora minister
Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai warned last week that if liberal American Jews continue supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and Black Lives Matter movements, Jerusalem may lose the support of the United States altogether.

Making a guest appearance on the American Jewish Committee’s People of the Pod podcast, Shai said he recently briefed fellow members of the Israeli government on the status of American Jewry, telling them that “if we see more of the radical left and progressive liberal Jews continuing to support BDS and Black Lives Matter, and similar to the Palestinians… relat[ing] to Israel as a genocide state or an apartheid state, we may lose America.”

Israel has long identified the BDS movement as a significant threat against which millions of dollars have been invested, but the lumping of the boycott movement together with the Black Lives Matter movement is less common.

Some major Jewish organizations in the US have expressed opposition to statements and positions made by some BLM activists. However, the movement has won the support of many US Jews, and the Anti-Defamation League has spoken out against portraying its supporters as “violent extremists.”

Over 600 Jewish organizations, representing the majority of American Jews, signed a letter in support of the Black Lives Matter movement that was published in a full-page New York Times ad in August 2020.

Shai said “there were ideas to rely on other groups in America today” for support, instead of American Jewry, but that he rejects such proposals. He appeared to be referring to recent remarks made by former Israeli ambassador to the US Ron Dermer who suggested that Israel should prioritize the “passionate and unequivocal” support of evangelical Christians over that of American Jews, who he said are “disproportionately among our critics.”
Israel Advocacy Movement: Are progressive Jews abandoning Israel?
The data suggests that Reform Jews are less likely to be emotionally attached to Israel than Orthodox Jews and more and more appear to take more hostile positions on Israel.

We explore whether this is the case and what can be done to strengthen the bond between Diaspora Jews and the State of Israel.

We're joined by Rabbi Haim Shalom, Rabbi Lea Mühlstein and Josh Howie (@joshxhowie)


75 years on, harsh British detention of Holocaust survivors in Cyprus remembered
After surviving the Holocaust, trekking the Alps in winter and crossing the Mediterranean in an overcrowded boat, Rose Lipszyc clearly remembers her months incarcerated in harsh British camps in Cyprus.

“After all that, we were back behind barbed wire again,” 92-year-old Lipszyc said, speaking 75 years after British soldiers began imprisoning Jews on the eastern Mediterranean island, dark events whose legacy resonates today.

Lipszyc’s family, from the Polish city of Lublin, were among the six million Jews the Nazis massacred during World War II.

She escaped death using false papers, working as a forced laborer in Germany.

After the war, she walked to Italy. Then, joining an exodus of thousands of traumatized refugees dreaming of a Jewish nation, Lipszyc boarded a rickety boat in Venice bound for British-run Palestine.

“There were 300 of us squeezed into the boat,” Lipszyc said. “We were like sardines.”

But as the shores of Palestine appeared on the horizon, two British warships powered out.

“The English soldiers — who I would have kissed the feet of for liberating me in Germany — were leaping into our little boat with batons,” she said, her voice trembling.
When Hitler’s Mufti Gave a Press Conference
By the 1960s, however, Husseini’s position had deteriorated considerably. Rejecting peace and any accommodation with Zionism, his forces had tried — and failed — to destroy Israel during its 1948 War of Independence. Husseini no longer had a great power patron and was reliant on support from Egypt and later Saudi Arabia. Nonetheless, he lived in comparative luxury with a retinue of staff, including a driver for his limousine, and constantly plotted against the Jewish state and the West.

Meir wanted Gideon Hausner, the Israeli Attorney General and prosecutor at Eichmann’s trial, to tie the infamous Nazi to Husseini, and thereby “link Israel’s Arab enemies to the Nazis.” Hausner had Avraham Zellinger, who did research for the trial, investigate the relationship between the two men. Zellinger found an entry in the Mufti’s diary which speaks of the “best of the Arab friends” with the name “Eichmann” written underneath it. But the court, Klagsbrun noted, “went no further than to recognize that Eichmann had met the Mufti once, with no evidence of a close relationship between them.”

It was against this backdrop that Amin al-Husseini held a March 4, 1961, press conference in Beirut. The Mufti, CIA cables reveal, “categorically denied any connection with the persecution of Jews in Germany during the Second World War.” He claimed that “all allegations in this respect were baseless and they were prompted by Zionists’ enmity toward him and the Palestinian national movement.”

The Mufti also distributed a statement in response to a recent book on Eichmann by the American journalist Quentin Reynolds, which alleged that Husseini had several contacts with the SS officer and had toured Nazi death camps. Husseini “said that he did not know Eichmann and that he had no connection whatsoever with him.” Further, “neither he nor any other Arab had plans in the past or at present to annihilate any race, Jews or others.” Husseini closed out the press conference by asserting that “what the Jews have done” in Israel “is similar to what the Nazis did to them in Germany” — a libel that is still echoed by antisemites today.

Husseini’s press conference was replete with lies.

Husseini was well aware of Hitler’s plans for European Jewry. Indeed, he hoped to replicate them in the Middle East.

In his own memoirs, the Mufti recorded a November 28, 1941, meeting with Hitler: “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews.”

“The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours.’”

Many apologists, journalists, and academics spent decades denying that Husseini visited concentration camps, but in 2017, conclusive photographic evidence emerged showing Husseini touring the Trebbin camp near Berlin.


The bride is beautiful: An irresistible anti-Zionist story
In the prologue to his popular history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (first published by W. W. Norton & Co., 2000), professor Avi Shlaim of Oxford University claimed the following (p. 3):

"The publication of [Theodor Herzl’s] The Jewish State evoked various reactions in the Jewish community, some strongly favorable, some hostile, and some skeptical. After the Basel Congress [i.e., the First Zionist Congress, in 1897] the rabbis of Vienna sent two representatives to Palestine. This fact-finding mission resulted in a cable from Palestine in which the two rabbis wrote, 'The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man.'”

Though stories incorporating the phrase “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man” lack a primary source, and though there has been no basis for recounting them, including the one above, as historical events that occurred during the early years of the Zionist movement, different versions of this story have appeared in many articles, books, and films.

University of Exeter professor Ghada Karmi, for instance, based the title and thesis of her 2007 Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine—in which she argued for the dissolution of the Jewish state—on a version of these stories. Former Swedish diplomat Ingmar Karlsson emulated her with his 2012 anti-Zionist book Bruden är vacker men har redan en man: Sionisme—en ideologi vid vägs ände? (The bride is beautiful but there is already a husband: Zionism—an ideology at the end of the road?), which was funded and distributed by the Swedish Arts Council.

Often, as with Shlaim and Karmi, no source at all has been provided for these stories in the published writings of those who have told them. At other times, a specious one has been put forward: In the opening paragraph of his 2011 article “Cry No More for Me, Palestine—Mahmoud Darwish” (College Literature 38:4, pp. 1-43), for example, Mustapha Marrouchi cited Henry M. Christman’s The State Papers of Levi Eshkol as a source for the version he told, though there is actually no story with the phrase “The bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man” in Christman’s book:
Marrouchi wrote: "Shortly after the First Zionist Congress in 1897, the Rabbis of Vienna sent two of their own to the then British Mandate of Palestine to explore the possibilities for immigration. 'The bride is beautiful,' they cabled home. 'But she is married to another man' (Christman 2000, 45)."

In 2014, Marrouchi was fired from the University of Nevada at Las Vegas for repeated plagiarism—but when at a loss for a passage to lift about Israel/Palestine, he was also not above making up a reference, too.
Mayor of NJ Town Where Unilever is Headquartered Urges Them to “Reconsider” Ben & Jerry’s Decision
Mario M. Kranjac, the mayor of the Englewood Cliffs, NJ, urged Ben & Jerry’s parent company, Unilever, to “reconsider” Ben & Jerry’s Israel decision in an August 9 letter. Englewood Cliffs is where Unilever’s United States headquarters are located.

Kranjac wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by the Journal, that Ben & Jerry’s decision to cease operating in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory” was “disturbing” and violated the state’s law against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

“I strongly encourage you to reevaluate your company’s position and to treat everyone fairly without the virtue signaling that ultimately creates unfair treatment,” Kranjac wrote to Unilever CEO Alan Jope. “While we are grateful for the presence of Unilever in our community, discrimination of any kind will not be tolerated.”

He went on to call Israel “one of the most democratic and free countries in the world” as well as “a beacon of freedom in the Middle East, and one of America’s greatest allies. It concerns me that your company is so quick to chastise Israel, while continuing to support and profit from other countries and movements that daily commit substantial human rights violations, genocide, unlawful imprisonment, forced ‘re-education,’ and race-based classifications.”

Kranjac concluded his letter to Jope with a call for the company to live up to its mission statement of adding “vitality to life” and said that Englewood Cliffs “stands with Israel” as well as “anyone that is wrongly targeted. I strongly encourage you to reconsider your decision on this matter and to add vitality to all lives.”


A cold war over a very hot topic
The colorful exterior of the Ben & Jerry's factory in Beer Tuvia stands out in the gray industrial zone. Freezer trucks stand waiting to transport the cold product nationwide, including Judea and Samaria. Inside, the pipes on the production line are covered in a layer of ice. Upfront, a shop sells ice cream and branded merchandise, a brand that is now in the eye of a storm.

On July 19, Ben & Jerry's international, owned by the Unilever corporation, announced that it opposed Ben & Jerry's icce cream being sold in what it called the "occupied Palestinian territories."

The time that has passed has not brought calm to Avi Zinger, CEO of Ben & Jerry's Israel. He sees the declaration as an attack on the country, as well as on him personally.

"They take the most fun, tastiest thing there is, and bring in politics. What does one have to do with the other? You shouldn't mix politics and ice cream," Zinger tells Israel Hayom.

Zinger, 69, brought the Ben & Jerry's brand to Israel and started manufacturing ice cream 35 years ago. He has refused to comply with the global company's demand that he stop selling over the Green Line. In response, Ben & Jerry's International decided not to renew his franchise license, as it has been done automatically every 10 years since it was first granted. His current license expires at the end of 2022. The company has also announced it will seek other "arrangements" for its continued operation in Israel.
'End Jew Hatred' to protest against Ben & Jerry's decision in NYC
A march to protest Ben & Jerry's decision to stop selling ice cream in Judea and Samaria has been coordinated in New York City by the grassroots movement End Jew Hatred and is scheduled to take place this Thursday.

The march will gather at the New York Public Library and then proceed to go to a Ben & Jerry's store in Times Square.

"Ben & Jerry’s illegal boycott is the biggest act of corporate antisemitism since Airbnb," the press release on the End Jew Hatred website reads.

"Ben & Jerry’s act creates an atmosphere where Jew-hatred is legitimized, and emboldens violence against Jews. Just this past weekend, mobs demanding global violence against Jews took to the streets of Brooklyn," The website reads, referring to the "Globalize the Intifada" protest that took place in Brooklyn.

This comes after several different towns, including Hempstead in Long Island, formally announced that they will be cutting ties with Ben and Jerry's and their parent company Unilever due to the decision.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has warned Unilever that the state will not invest any funds in the company unless they "reverse the decision to stop selling ice cream" to Judea and Samaria.
NGO Monitor: Why is Canada’s government funding Oxfam-Quebec’s demonization of Israel?
In 2020-2027, Oxfam-Quebec is slated to receive up to CAD 50 million in funding from the Canadian government, of which 10% is earmarked for “volunteer placements” at NGOs based in the West Bank and Gaza. Therefore, it is disconcerting to see the organization advocate for BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) against Israel.

In July 2021, Guilia El Dardiry, Oxfam-Quebec’s Policy and Campaign Analyst, published an op-ed, “In Gaza, Canada’s Words Won’t Be Enough” (French). The article calls for Canada to suspend arms sales to Israel. El Dardiry, who blames Israel exclusively for the conflict, claims this will “reaffirm [Canada’s] reputation as a world leader in the defense of international law.”

Unsurprisingly, and reflecting Oxfam-Quebec’s repeated use of double standards against Israel, blatant violations perpetrated by Palestinian terror groups, are ignored. During the May conflict, Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired thousands of rockets – each one a war crime – at Israeli population centers. Yet, in contrast to its demands regarding Israel, Oxfam-Quebec advocates for the restrictions on Gaza to be lifted – a move that would certainly lead to more weapons being smuggled to murderous terror groups.

As documented by NGO Monitor, Oxfam’s support of BDS initiatives is hardly new. This destructive political advocacy directly contradict stated Canadian policy, which recognizes “Israel’s right to assure its own security” and to take the “necessary measures…to protect the security of its citizens from attacks by terrorist groups.” In 2019, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rightly condemned BDS as antisemitic and contrary to Canadian values. In other words, Oxfam-Quebec, which is receiving millions of dollars in Canadian government funding, is also undercutting Canadian policy.
CAMERA Op-Ed: Time to Put the United Church of Christ on Trial for Antisemitism
The evidence to support these charges is simply overwhelming.

In 2005, the UCC’s General Synod passed a “Tear Down the Wall” resolution, which asked Israel to dismantle the security barrier it constructed to stop terror attacks from the West Bank without asking the Palestinians to stop the terror attacks that prompted its construction.

In 2015, the denomination’s General Synod passed, with great fanfare, a resolution calling on the church’s investment managers to sell their stock in specific companies that do business with Israel’s defense establishment and operate in the West Bank. As it turns out, the staff who manage the denomination’s pension fund and other holdings were legally obligated to ignore the Synod’s call — a fact obscured in the fanfare surrounding the passage of the divestment resolution.

In 2017, two years after the denomination’s General Synod passed the divestment resolution, the body passed a resolution condemning Israel’s alleged mistreatment of Palestinian children detained in Israeli jails. The same resolution remained silent about Palestinian abuses of children, including the use of child labor to build smuggling tunnels between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, and Fatah and Hamas summer camps and other programs that give children guns and teach them to murder Jews.

To achieve approval of the resolution, anti-Israel activists in the UCC went so far as to coach teenagers into demonizing the Jewish state at the microphone on the floor of the General Synod. During the proceedings, one youth delegate asked, “How can we be paying an incredibly high amount of tax dollars to a country that values the torturous interrogation of children?” The denomination is teaching its children to demonize Israel, and to be voyeuristic bystanders to violence against Jews.

Jews and Christians alike must reach out to the lay members of the denomination about the misdeeds perpetrated by a coalition of anti-Israel extremists who have fomented hostility toward the Jewish state and the Jewish people for far too long.


USC Faculty Group Decries ‘Cruelly Alienating’ Statement on Israel Endorsed by Department
On Sunday, 53 University of Southern California (USC) faculty issued an open letter objecting to a “cruelly alienating” statement on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict shared by the schools’ Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies.

The statement — “Gender Studies Departments In Solidarity With Palestinian Feminist Collective” — was signed by the USC Gender Studies department, along with over 120 other faculties from around the world, following the May conflict between Israel and Hamas. It accused Israel of apartheid and ethnic cleansing, and called for “the end of Israel’s military occupation of Palestine.”

Sunday’s faculty letter called it “inflammatory and misleading,” alleging “numerous distortions of vital factual information concerning the historical and contemporary reality in Israel/Palestine.”

“Although, as a group, we hold wide and diverse perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and related issues, we all believe that the errors and polemic tone of this Statement are cruelly alienating to many students, staff, and faculty, who are members of the USC community,” the letter said. “It is also particularly troubling that the Statement was endorsed by a USC department on behalf of all its constituents.”

Addressed to USC President Carol Folt, Provost Charles Zukoski, and Chairman Rick Caruso, the letter also said that as a departmental declaration of political support, the Gender Studies Department’s endorsement was “unethical” — arguing that it appeared to speak on behalf of students, faculty and staff at the department, even those who might disagree with its content.
An Open Letter to the Leadership of USC
Dear President Folt, Provost Zukoski, and Chairman Caruso,

We, the undersigned faculty of USC, write to express our objection and dismay regarding an inflammatory and misleading online "Statement" that has been publicly and officially endorsed by USC’s Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies [1]. The Statement contains numerous distortions of vital factual information concerning the historical and contemporary reality in Israel/Palestine. Although, as a group, we hold wide and diverse perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and related issues, we all believe that the errors and polemic tone of this Statement are cruelly alienating to many students, staff, and faculty, who are members of the USC community. It is also particularly troubling that the Statement was endorsed by a USC department on behalf of all its constituents.

Nearly a year ago several of us signed an Open Letter protesting the personal attacks against Rose Ritch, an undergraduate student who felt compelled to resign her post as a Vice-President of USC's Undergraduate Student Government because of her Jewish-Zionist identity [2]. Now, we see similar hateful political attacks supported by an entire USC department. This Statement has been refuted already by many [3], but it is still supported by USC's Department of Gender and Sexuality Studies.

We do not know whether such departmental declarations of political support are legal, but they are certainly unethical [4]. They have nothing to do with freedom of speech of individuals; rather, they fall under compelled speech [5] because they appear to speak on behalf of all members of the department (e.g. faculty, staff, and students), many of whom are untenured or supervised by more senior members and thus not in a position to openly disagree. Most concerning, this signing implies endorsement by USC itself. Thus, we call on USC leadership to publicly rebuke the practice of USC departments (or units) making statements for specific political agendas that have nothing to do with the University’s educational and research missions. The Statement above contains extreme, indeed fabricated, claims that criminalize the very creation of the State of Israel and, by implication, indict all its citizens and supporters, including us. Not doing so, would make USC complicit in comments within the Statement that describe the State of Israel as "settler colonialism", "ethnonationalist violence", "ongoing ethnic cleansing", and "apartheid". If USC’s implicit support stands, many Jewish students and others who believe in Israel’s right to exist will be reluctant to attend our university.

Moreover, taking a one-sided position on such a complex issue as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict undermines the role of the University as an educational institution of open inquiry and thoughtful debate. Instead of creating an environment of mutual respect, diversity, and inclusion that should characterize all academic discourse, proclamations of departmental political positions create an unwelcoming, even toxic, atmosphere for students who disagree with them. Without strong and clear disavowal by university leaders, students will assume that USC stands behind this specific Statement. Inaction by the university leadership on this important matter is particularly harmful in the current context: antisemitism is undeniably on the rise around the world, in our country, and on our campus [2]. Recent days have seen many recorded violent anti-Jewish incidents [6], fueled by anti-Israeli rhetoric and the one-sided view on this complex issue exemplified by this Statement.


After Pushback, University of North Carolina Defends Anti-Israel Incitement in Its Classrooms
On August 3, I reported that this coming Fall, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) will offer a recurring course titled “The Conflict over Israel/Palestine,” taught by PhD student Kylie Broderick.

Broderick promotes the view that Israel should not exist, has publicly demanded that “everyone at UNC … boycott Israeli products,” and believes students should be taught to reject Zionism.

Broderick urges graduate students to “speak the f*** up” against what she calls the “ethnic cleansing” of “Palestine,” and declared that a student who failed to do so is a “coward.”

Broderick has publicly stated that boycotting Israel is “the only choice” and expects “university Middle East academic programs and centers” to issue “solidarity statements” with Palestinians.

But despite Broderick’s clear anti-Israel bias, the university is defending its decision to have her teach a class on the topic this Fall.

On August 3, Voice4Israel of North Carolina launched a campaign asking “UNC to stop the anti-Israeli hostility and intolerance.” Many Jewish leaders and community members responded with strong letters of concern to UNC, with some arranging meetings with university officials.


Prominent Anti-Semite Attends Obama Birthday Bash, Jewish Comedian Snubbed
Al Sharpton, the prominent anti-Semite and verbally challenged MSNBC host, was among the "sophisticated crowd" of guests who attended former president Barack Obama's 60th birthday bash on Martha's Vineyard over the weekend. Jewish comedian Larry David was not.

David was not the only prominent Jew disinvited from the party, which was reportedly "scaled back" due to concerns related to the COVID-19 pandemic but appears to have been a massive gathering nonetheless. Former Obama adviser David Axelrod, who is Jewish, was also cut from the invite list, according to the New York Times.

Sharpton, who was photographed arriving by private jet, was a central figure in the Crown Heights riot of 1991. His anti-Semitic rhetoric and inciteful actions fueled what would become the worst outburst of anti-Semitic violence in modern American history. Yet "Reverend Al" remains a ubiquitous figure within the elite subset of liberal activists, Democratic politicians, professional journalists, and other celebs.

In 2019, Sharpton's American Action Network defended a Jersey City official who suggested Jewish "brutes" were to blame for an anti-Semitic shooting at a kosher deli that left six dead. The local official, Joan Terrell-Paige, also invoked an anti-Semitic trope by suggesting that Jews were "selling body parts." Sharpton affiliate Carolyn Oliver Fair came to the defense of Terrell-Paige, urging her critics to "shut their mouths" and falsely claiming the gunmen responsible for the shooting were Jewish.
Telegraph Israel 'under fire' for giving booster shots to over 60s
Moreover, it’s important to note that though Israel is offering boosters to its 1.4 million citizens who are 60 or over, nations with much larger populations, such as the US, UK, Germany, France and Russia, have already started providing boosters to large segments of their populations – including the elderly and those who are immunocompromised – or announced their intention to do so.

But, there’s also another way that the Telegraph’s Israel angle misleads: To say that the 1.4 million booster shots Israel is delivering to their 60+ residents wouldn’t make a dent in the global demand, especially in poorer parts of the world, is a profound understatement. So far, even with COVAX and other international programs to distribute vaccines to the under-developed world, only a fraction of the roughly 11 billion doses WHO said is needed to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population (the threshold needed for herd immunity) have been administered.

Even the recent promise by the G7 (UK, USA, Canada, Japan, Germany, France and Italy, plus the EU) to deliver one billion vaccine doses to countries in need won’t come close to meeting the overall demand.

Though Israel has been one of the most successful countries in terms of vaccinations per capita, in terms of the total quantity of vaccines administered, the country (due to their small population) isn’t even in the top 35. To give you a sense of scale, whilst Israel has administered 11 million plus doses, the US, China and India alone have administered a combined 2.5 billion doses (which accounts for 55% of the total quantity of doses delivered throughout the world).

So, not only is the Telegraph’s specific claim that Israel “has come under fire” for its booster shot roll-out not accurate, but the broader suggestion that Jerusalem’s decisions on COVID vaccine distribution policy impacts the global vaccine gap is similarly unfounded.
Pandemic Has Brought ‘Normalization of Antisemitic Conspiracy Theories’ in Germany: Study
As cases of COVID-19 once more begin to rise in Germany, a study released Monday detailed how the pandemic has fueled antisemitic conspiracy myths, holding German Jews responsible for the spread of the virus and for government measures to contain it.

Working with the American Jewish Committee Berlin (AJC), the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS) recorded a total of 561 antisemitic incidents connected to the COVID-19 pandemic between March 2020 and March 2021. Almost 60% of the incidents were related to antisemitic statements found in speeches, slogans and posters, seen at demonstrations taking place throughout Germany but especially in Bavaria and Berlin.

“We can only urgently warn against underestimating the incidents and participants at coronavirus demonstrations and the protests themselves,” said Remko Leemhuis, director of AJC Berlin. “It needs to be emphasized that even if the protests were largely dominated by right-wing extremist forces, a not to be underestimated number of people from the bourgeois spectrum also took part, who were either not bothered with the apparent antisemitism or even spread it themselves.”

“The normalization of antisemitic conspiracy theories and Holocaust relativization will not easily be reversed with the end of the pandemic,” the report warned.

The study found that despite the absence of violence, these incidents often involved face-to-face situations targeting specific victims. According to a number of conspiracy theories, state measures to contain the pandemic were openly compared or equated with the persecution and murder of Jews during the Nazi regime. At demonstrations, flyers were distributed showing the gate to the Auschwitz extermination camp with the inscription changed from the Nazi slogan “Arbeit macht frei” to “vaccination makes you free.”
Frenchwoman faces antisemitism trial over sign calling prominent Jews ‘traitors’
A teacher in eastern France will go on trial next month, accused of seeking to incite racial hatred, after brandishing a sign at a protest against new COVID-19 restrictions that police said was clearly antisemitic, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Cassandre Fristot, 34, was seen at the protest on Saturday in the eastern city of Metz holding a sign denouncing President Emmanuel Macron’s enforcement of a health pass in France to encourage people to get vaccinated.

The sign contained the names of several prominent politicians, businessmen and intellectuals in France, most of them Jewish, and police said it “had a message that was manifestly antisemitic.”

The sign’s headline said: “But who?” in an apparent reference to a June interview given by retired general Daniel Delawarde to the CNEWS TV network, in which he was asked “Who controls the media?” and answered, “The community you know well.”

The sign also declared “Traitors!!!” while listing a series of names, including French President Emmanuel Macron, Hungarian Jewish billionaire George Soros, Jewish intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy, Jewish economist Jacques Attali, Jewish former Health Minister Agnès Buzyn, French-Israeli telecom magnate Patrick Drahi and World Economic Forum Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab.

Fristot, a former local councilor for the far-right National Rally (RN), was detained on Monday and her home was searched. Metz prosecutor Christian Mercuri said her trial would start on September 8. If convicted, she risks up to one year in prison and a 45,000 euro ($53,000) fine.
Sixty Percent of Jews in Australian State of Queensland Have Experienced Antisemitism: Survey
Jews in the Australian state of Queensland are experiencing an upsurge in antisemitism in both its neo-Nazi and anti-Zionist varieties.

A new survey conducted by the Queensland Jewish Board of Deputies revealed that a full 60 percent of community members had experienced antisemitism.

Australia’s Jewish population is estimated at 113,000, of whom just over 4,000 reside in Queensland.

Board of Deputies vice-president Jason Steinberg told the Brisbane Times on Monday that among those Jews who reported antisemitism, “half were either abused, harassed, intimidated or bullied simply because they are Jewish and, distressingly, many of these incidents occur in the workplace.”

Steinberg added that 15 percent of Queensland Jews “also reported hate-fueled incidents that related to Israel and/or Zionism.”

He said the community had in addition seen “an increase in activity by white supremacist, neo-Nazi and other far-right extremist groups whose members seem to act with impunity, as well as anti-Israel activists targeting local Jews.”

Several outrages targeting Jews in Queensland have been reported both this year and last, including “ZIONISTS F*** OFF” scrawled in chalk outside an Israeli restaurant in Brisbane, social media messages sent by a stranger to a member of the Jewish community calling for “another Holocaust,” the Nazi slogan “blood and soil” spray-painted on a Brisbane train carriage, and the words “ZIONIST PAWN” scrawled over a campaign poster of Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

The Brisbane Times quoted several members of the Jewish community who were on the receiving end of the hatred.
Israeli-Founded Cloud Protection Firm OwnBackup Nears $3.35 Billion Valuation
US-Israeli cloud data protection firm OwnBackup said on Tuesday it raised $240 million in a late-stage funding round to bring its valuation to near $3.35 billion.

The round was co-led by Alkeon Capital and B Capital Group, and included a secondary investment in the company by BlackRock Private Equity Partners and Tiger Global. Existing investors Insight Partners, Salesforce Ventures, Sapphire Ventures, and Vertex Ventures also participated.

OwnBackup has raised a total of nearly $500 million, while also announcing plans to expand its backup and recovery solutions across other cloud platforms later this year, beginning with Microsoft.

It said it has close to 4,000 customers including Aston Martin, Guidewire Software, the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Medtronic, Navy Federal Credit Union, Singapore Economic Development Board, and the University of Miami.

OwnBackup is based in New Jersey but was founded in Israel, where it retains a large presence.
Israeli Company to Supply IED Jammers to Spanish Ministry of Defense
The Israeli company Netline Communications Technologies announced on Monday that it will deliver 87 improvised explosive device (IED) jammers to the Spanish Ministry of Defense in November. The delivery is part of a five-year contract signed with Spain for the provision of 334 jammers.

Netline delivered 51 of the systems in 2020.

According to a company statement, the system—known as C-Guard RJ—is designed to be mounted on vehicles.

Netline described the C-Guard RJ as a “highly flexible” and “resilient” jamming system that deals with “an extensive range of threats,” adding that the system “constantly scans the spectrum and responds to any detected transmissions by focusing the jamming signal and power to defeat the threat.”

Under the contract, Netline is also providing the Spanish Army with training programs and maintenance. “Despite the complex period we are in, Netline is meeting all the project requirements, including keeping to the delivery schedule,” said its CEO Yallon Bahat.
Tarantino to honor Cannon Group at Jerusalem Film Festival
Master film director Quentin Tarantino and his wife, singer/model Daniella Pick, will be guests of honor at a tribute to the films of the Cannon Group at the Jerusalem Film Festival from August 26-28, in which eight movies selected by low-budget connoisseur Tarantino will be shown.

The Jerusalem Film Festival will be held at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and other places around the city from August 24-September 4.

The Cannon Group was an extraordinarily successful Hollywood film company specializing in genre movies, founded by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, that had its heyday in the ‘80s.

After producing some of the most popular Israeli films of the ‘60s and ‘70s, such as Sallah Shabati, the Eskimo Limon series and Operation Thunderbolt, they started Cannon in America and made blockbuster action movies with such stars as Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone. They jumped at every trend and ran with it, making movies about the Breakdance craze, the occult, martial arts and much more, sometimes selling movies based on a story idea and a poster. While some dismissed them as schlockmeisters presiding over an empire of cheap exploitation movies, others — such as Tarantino — feel their movies are classic crowd-pleasers.

They also nurtured arthouse directors, producing films by Jean-Luc Godard, Andrey Konchalovskiy, Roman Polanski and others.
Did archaeologists find the Trojan Horse?
Archaeologists who claimed they had unearthed remnants of the legendary Trojan Horse in Turkey have now found significant evidence that further supports their claim, according to an article by the Greek Reporter.

Turkish archaeologists excavating the site of the city of Troy on the hills of Hisarlik have discovered a large wooden structure that they believe are the remains of the Trojan Horse. These excavations include dozens of fir planks and beams up to 15 meters (49 feet) long, assembled in a strange form.

The wooden structure was found inside the walls of the ancient city of Troy.

Now, Boston University professors Christine Morris and Chris Wilson believe that "the carbon dating tests and other analyses have all suggested that the wooden pieces and other artifacts date from the 12th or 11th centuries BC."

Morris and Wilson believe with a "high level of confidence" that the structure is linked to the iconic horse. They say that tests have only confirmed their theory.

“This matches the dates cited for the Trojan War, by many ancient historians like Eratosthenes or Proclus. The assembly of the work also matches the description made by many sources. I don’t want to sound overconfident, but I’m pretty certain that we found the real thing!”

The Trojan Horse is associated with the Trojan War, written about by Homer in his epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad closes right before the war ends, so it does not feature the legendary horse.
Girl finds 1,500-year-old coin at Talmud-era Jewish village in northern Israel
An Israeli girl found a 1,500-year-old bronze coin at the site of an ancient Jewish village near the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel on Tuesday, the Nature and Parks Authority said.

The Yitzchaki family from the West Bank settlement of Har Bracha visited the Korazim archaeological park and played a scavenger hunt game involving the unique building style of the Talmud-era village, the parks authority said.

During the game, the girl found the ancient coin on the ground. She handed it to park staff.

“This is an ancient bronze coin that, according to initial estimates, dates to the Talmudic period between the 4th and fifth centuries CE,” said the archaeological park manager, Dekel Segev. “This was the peak period of the Jewish village in Korazim.”

Segev praised the girl for immediately handing over the coin to the park authorities.

“The girl and her family showed good citizenship and handed us the coin since it is a national treasure,” he said. “The coin will be passed on to the Israel Antiquities Authority for further research and preservation.”







at