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Tuesday, August 31, 2021

08/31 Links Pt2: A Growing Threat: Antisemitism on College Campuses; The Economist Excises Religion from Extremism…And Whitewashes Hamas’ Gaza Tyranny

From Ian:

Survey: Nearly All Jewish Students and Alumni Cite Campus Antisemitism as a ‘Problem,’ With Half Saying It’s ‘Getting Worse’
Virtually all Jewish university students and alumni now feel that antisemitism on college campuses is a problem, according to a survey released on Monday by Alums for Campus Fairness (ACF), with nearly half of respondents saying that the issue is worsening.

The survey of 312 enrolled students and 194 alumni of varying Jewish affiliations revealed a “shocking growth of antisemitism,” ACF claimed. 95% of respondents said that antisemitism was a problem on their current or former campus, with three-fourths characterizing it as a “very serious” problem.

Nearly 80% of survey respondents reported experiencing or hearing first-hand accounts of antisemitic hate speech; 69% avoided certain places, situations, and events for fear of being outed as a Jew, and 47% believe antisemitism on college campuses is getting worse.

ACF Executive Director Avi D. Gordon called on universities to support Jewish students and “rid their alma maters of hate.”

“These finding illuminate the troubling reality on U.S. campuses — antisemitism is increasingly a pernicious threat, with Jewish students under siege,” he said.

“Today’s universities take great pains to embrace and protect students from all races, religions, and backgrounds,” Gordon continued. “But Jewish students are often left to fend for themselves against discrimination. Administrators must take immediate steps to remedy this situation, and alumni should work with administrators, students, and allies.”

Dubbed “A Growing Threat: Antisemitism on College Campuses,” the ACF survey also included written accounts of anti-Jewish harassment, intimidation, and assault.

Said one state university student in the Midwest, “I was having a conversation with a guy with a guy in my dorm and when I mentioned I was Jewish he made a joke about gassing me and when I explained that it was hurtful and not funny he spit on me.”

“Professors often made out of hand comments that supported antisemitic conspiracy theories against Israel,” said a 25-year-old, who graduated from a private college in the southeast. “[They said] that Israelis harvest Palestinian organs or use Palestinian children as target practice.”


Canary Mission: Report on SJP University of Illinois, Chicago (August 2021)
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) has a long history of anti-Semitism.

Canary Mission's 2021 investigation of SJP UIC has revealed disturbing levels of anti-Semitic activity as far back as 2015 in the following three categories:
1. A campaign to attack and malign Chicago’s largest Jewish charity
2. An effort to bully “Zionists”
3. Spreading anti-Semitism, support for terror and hatred of Israel on social media

This report exposes the actions of 32 SJP UIC activists whose individual profile links can be found below.

SJP's Attack on Chicago’s Largest Jewish Charity
In February 2021, SJP UIC embarked on a two-month-long campaign to malign and isolate Chicago's largest philanthropic Jewish organization, the Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago (JUF), Chicago’s Jewish Federation.

JUF provides food, refuge, health care, education and emergency assistance to 500,000 Chicago residents of all faiths, funding a network of over 100 agencies, schools and initiatives.

The pretext for SJP UIC’s campaign was the JUF-funded Israeli Visiting Scholars program at the School of Public Health (SPH) that featured professors from Israel's Ben Gurion University. In the course of their attacks, SJP UIC maligned the JUF, branding them as Islamophobic, racist, transphobic and homophobic.

On February 2, the SJP chapter slammed the event scheduled for February 17 featuring Israeli Professor Gabi Bin Nun. Their Instagram post urged followers to email SPH with template text [slide 3] protesting Bin Nun’s talk.


Radical Professor Uses Moderate Islam to Attack Israel
Hamas is “represented in a hysterical way,” stated Fordham University associate professor of modern Islam Sarah Eltantawi, during an August 20 webinar on “The Nexus of Anti-Palestine Campaigns and Islamophobia.” Her apologetics for Hamas were just one of several disturbing aspects in her discussion with Salam al-Marayati, the radical president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), an Islamist organization.

Eltantawi, who noted that she became MPAC communications director on September 1, 2001, spoke as part of MPAC’s online lecture series “The Palestinian Struggle: A New Approach.” Marayati recalled that Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks occurred little over a week later, after which the federal government shut down several Islamic “charity” organizations for terrorism financing, often to MPAC protests. “Most of the charities had to do with Palestine, even though Palestine had nothing to do with 9/11,” he said, although Israel’s destruction is a longstanding Al Qaeda objective.

Hamas’ 2017 public relations ploy of supposedly abandoning its genocidal charter symbolized for Eltantawi the moderation of this terrorist group, which she said served “to distract us from the bigger picture” of Israeli actions. Thereby she claimed that “moral outrage about what was happening to the Palestinians” should be “natural.” While discussing “political Islam,” she wondered absurdly “how is Hamas different in terms of some kind of idea of religion and politics” than non-terrorist Christian Zionists, who defend Israel’s right to exist.

The vehemently anti-Israel Eltantawi took a dismissive attitude to threats to Israel while discussing the late California Democratic Congressman Tom Lantos’ views on Islam’s prophet Muhammad. Lantos created in August 2001 a “big scandal because he cited the Treaty of Hudaybiya from the Prophet’s time” wherein “Muslims went back on a treaty that was signed with a Jewish tribe,” she said. Lantos correctly worried that this treaty signed with pagan Arabs could serve as a canonical Islamic precedent for betraying Israel, as Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat himself had argued. Yet she was shocked that Lantos had “argued in the U.S. Congress” that “it is impossible for Muslims to negotiate fairly with Jews” and “you can’t really trust what they say,” despite a long record of Palestinian duplicity demonstrated by Arafat.


Honest Reporting: Media Bias Provides Cover for Rashida Tlaib’s Disregard for Link Between Returning Bodies of Palestinian Terrorists and Increased Violence Against Israel
Legal justification for Israel keeping deceased terrorists
While Rashida Tlaib, in particular, and, more broadly, the international media have seemingly turned a blind eye to the ramifications of Israel returning the bodies of dead Palestinian terrorists, the country’s High Court of Justice has addressed the matter.

In 2019, it ruled that the military has the legal right to keep the bodies of slain terrorists. The justices determined that doing so is a matter of national security and that the practice was not illegal under international law governing armed conflict.

The ruling was effectively a judicial seal of approval of a 2018 parliamentary law that allowed district police commanders to determine whether to release terrorists’ bodies for burial. The law made stark that praise has repeatedly been lavished on dead terrorists at their funerals, which, in turn, has served to incite additional attacks.

Indeed, what Tlaib overlooks and what the media continually downplays is the culture of “martyrdom” that pervades Palestinian society.

For example:
Street names being named after killers of Israelis
Over 30 Palestinian schools named for terrorists and Nazi collaborators
Camps named after terrorists
Terror payments from the Palestinian Authority’s “Martyrs Fund”: monthly stipends to the families of terrorists killed, hurt, or imprisoned for attacking Israelis

Myopic media enable delusional Tlaib
The same news outlets that focus almost exclusively on the recurring tit-for-tat military exchanges between Israel and Palestinian terrorists give little consideration to the roots of the violence that the Jewish state must counter. In fact, the leadership in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip — the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, respectively — have brainwashed many children to believe that the loftiest goal in life is to become a martyr.

The media’s failure to adequately report on this undeniable reality has contributed to the emergence of a distorted zeitgeist, in which influential public figures such as Rashida Tlaib can advocate without fear of consequence on behalf of Palestinian terrorists while slamming Israelis for defending themselves.
New Zionist Congress: In Conversation with the Creators: "The Conspiracy Libel"

'Antisemitism has mutated': Jewish students, leaders worry over UNC-CH instructor's comments
There are accusations of antisemitism on the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill's campus, specifically in an academic discourse surrounding Israel and the Middle East, and an alleged blindspot for it -- spurring a new complaint filed to the U.S. Department of Education.

"I think it's so offensive because it invalidates a lot of Jewish history and my personal identity," sophomore Abigail Adams told ABC11. "Just replace Zionist with Jew and it's pretty obvious it's anti-Semitic."

Adams, a political science major, hoped to enroll in a course entitled "The Conflict Over Israel and Palestine" this fall. Like many students before signing up for a class, Adams looked up the course's instructor - Kylie Broderick - and uncovered a series of posts on social media that immediately caught her attention. Among them, references to "Zionist dirtbags" and the U.S. as an "imperialist death cult."

"It feels very unprofessional to me, and not that all graduate students and professors have to be professional, but it felt very violent and in your face," Adams explained. "I want to learn about different perspectives. That's why I wanted to take the class in the first place, but I don't think it's fair for any student to worry about getting a lower grade because of their opinion in anything, even if it wasn't such a complex geopolitical issue."

Broderick has since deleted her Twitter account, but several screenshots of her past posts obtained by the ABC11 I-Team also show unabashed support of the "BDS" movement, which advocates for a boycott of Israeli products, divesting from companies that do business in Israel, and sanctioning the Jewish State (The North Carolina General Assembly passed a law outlawing state agencies from endorsing or promoting BDS). She has also expressed support for the notion that Israel should not exist.

"It feels very similar to how Jews have been talked about in the past, especially with violent antisemitism in the Holocaust," Adams added. "I think it's just a new mutation of what antisemitism is today."


UK Labour Party Councillor Who Referred to ‘Jew Process’ Facing Expulsion
In another development in the UK Labour party leadership’s current struggle to purge antisemitism from the party, a Labour councillor who made antisemitic statements is facing possible expulsion.

Jo Bird was warned she might be expelled from the party due to her membership in the far-left group Labour Against the Witchhunt, which is working to prevent antisemitic members from being expelled.

The group is mostly composed of supporters of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, under whose tenure, many claimed, the party became institutionally antisemitic.

Corbyn resigned as leader after Labour’s crushing defeat in the 2019 elections and was replaced by Keir Starmer, who has made cleansing the party of antisemitism a top priority.

Jewish News reported Sunday that Bird has called the anti-antisemitism process in Labour a “Jew process” and warned a focus on prejudice against Jews could harm other groups.

“One thing that worries me is the privileging of racism against Jews as more worthy of resources than other forms of discrimination such as against black people, Muslim people and people who have crossed borders to this country,” she said.

She has also appeared to compare herself and similar activists to the victims of the Holocaust, rewriting a famous poem about Nazi persecution to say, “They came for the anti-zionists, and I stood up because I was not a target, I stood up in solidarity. And then they came for the socialists but they couldn’t get us because we were having a party, the Labour Party.”
The Economist Excises Religion from Extremism…And Whitewashes Hamas’ Gaza Tyranny
An August 28 article by The Economist describes how the “ripple effects” of the Taliban’s swift takeover of Afghanistan will be a boon to Islamic fundamentalists and terrorists much further afield. The piece describes how jihadist groups will be emboldened by the Sunni militants’ return to power in Kabul; this, as United States-led forces withdraw after intervening in 2001 to oust the Taliban, which harbored the Al Qaeda leaders that coordinated the 9/11 attacks.

The article argues the US’ drawdown, described as a “humiliation,” will send a clear message that “wretched rulers” can be toppled.

What is most striking, however, is that in a feature focused on the global threat of jihadism, the word “Islam” is not mentioned once.

While in Arabic jihad can narrowly refer to “struggle,” the term is widely associated with extremists whose overriding aim is to take over by any means, including violence, a territory so that they can impose Sharia (Islamic) law.

However, according to The Economist:
Most jihadist groups are motivated primarily by local grievances: a predatory government, an ethnic or sectarian divide, infidel intruders. Yet they also tap into a global narrative. On their phones they see daily evidence that the oppression they face at home is part of a wider pattern of persecution of Muslims, from the gulag of Xinjiang to the hellscape of Gaza.

That the situation in Gaza is lumped into the article without any context is tantamount to journalistic malfeasance. Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by most Western countries, rules over that ‘hellscape.’ Its hand in both creating and maintaining the situation in the Palestinian coastal enclave has repeatedly been exposed by HonestReporting.

A ‘Hellscape’…of Hamas’ making
Furthermore, none of the mitigating factors cited by The Economist are applicable to Hamas, but, for argument’s sake, they shall be considered in turn.

First, Hamas is not subjected to the whims and mistreatment of a predatory government. The facts are that Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip in 2005 – a move that despite leaving the Jewish state vulnerable to rocket attacks, was specifically designed to encourage Palestinians to lay down their arms and work towards building a more prosperous, peaceful society.
CNN’s “Jerusalem” Series on the Six Day War When Jews Are Shelled, Arabs Suffer
On August 22, CNN finished airing a six-part series on “Jerusalem: City of Faith and Fury,” concluding with a distorted narrative of the Six-Day War, a topic CNN has a history of rewriting. As CAMERA has already documented, and will document further in the coming days, the series has been full of factual errors and historical revisionism.

In addressing the Six-Day War, CNN accentuated even further its habit throughout the series of distorting events to portray Arabs as powerless victims. In some cases, this narrative is laid absurdly bare, such as when the narrator tells viewers “[t]he [Jordanian] shelling is meant to target Jews in West Jerusalem, but it’s the Palestinian Arabs living in the area that are left defenseless.” Yes – CNN suggested that when Arabs were trying to kill Jews, it was really Arabs who were the victims.

Just minutes later the same kind of inversion occurs again:
(Narrator) “Once Ammunition Hill is under Israeli control, the Israeli Army brings their fight deeper into Jerusalem. But it’s the Palestinian Arabs that are left vulnerable.”

(Fadi Elsalameen) “They see, contrary to what they were hearing on the radio at the time, you know, ‘we will defeat the Israeli presence,’ and all of a sudden it’s completely the entire opposite. People started getting frantic, and again another wave of refugees started marching towards Jordan.”

Again, CNN portrays the Arab attempt to remove Jews from their presence in Jerusalem – for that’s what happened in parts of the city conquered by Arab armies – as truly a tragedy for the Arabs since they failed in the mission. The question is why CNN would create a narrative in which Arab attempts to drive the Jews into the sea as unproblematic, but Jewish survival and self-defense as a tragedy for the Arabs.

Beyond creating perverse concepts of victimhood, CNN butchers and slants the history in a number of other ways, including the below examples.
CAMERA Letter to the Editor in the Washington Post Don’t Let Islamists Hoodwink Journalists
The Aug. 18 front-page article “Afghanistan’s future hinges on whether Taliban’s new face is real” noted that Taliban operative Zabiullah Mujahid claimed that the group had “changed” and “would refrain from retributory violence and respect women’s rights,” as the article put it. Yet the terrorist organization’s “new face” is merely a mask.

The Taliban wants to assuage Western concerns and secure aid, support and even diplomatic recognition. The Taliban, like other Islamist terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, view the media as a means to their own diabolical ends.

Accordingly, the group is putting on a show, holding news conferences and even sitting for interviews with female journalists.

But the Taliban hasn’t changed. It remains a movement with a medieval ideology. Footage has already emerged of the Taliban whipping women and hunting down, torturing and murdering suspected “collaborators,” as well as anyone who doesn’t abide by the Taliban’s twisted worldview.

As the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a D.C.-based think tank, has documented, the Taliban has even continued to collaborate with al-Qaeda. Twenty years after 9/11, the United States can’t afford to be hoodwinked by Islamist terrorists. The costs are too high.
NPR Promotes Palestinian Narrative on Jerusalem
CAMERA has recently pointed out the noticeable tilt in NPR’s Middle East reporting this summer. The public radio network obsessively focuses on the Palestinian narrative and grievances against Israel while Israel’s positions are marginalized, their context concealed.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in NPR’s coverage of Jerusalem. The media outlet aired two broadcasts and published an additional article during the month of July that focused entirely on the concerns of Palestinians who built illegally in the King’s Garden area of Silwan. The article and broadcasts highlighted their concern about their houses possibly being demolished by Israeli authorities but suppressed the fact that these structures were built on centuries-old conservation land not zoned for and therefore lacking the infrastructure for residential properties. Instead, the broadcasts and articles presented the false Palestinian claim that those who built illegally were forced to do so because Israel allegedly denies Palestinian construction permits as a form of ethnic cleansing from Jerusalem.

These misrepresentations about Israeli policy in Jerusalem were followed in August by an item that bolstered the Hamas pretext for rocketing population centers inside Israel – namely, the “defense” of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa.

The battle cries “Defend Al Aqsa!” “Defend Muslim holy sites!” and “Defend Jerusalem from the Jews!” have been used for almost a century as calls for violent jihad. They originated in the 1920’s with Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem from 1921-48, who established a successful strategy to consolidate Muslim support around him by pronouncing any attempt by Jews to exercise their religious or historical rights in Jerusalem a threat to Islam. The false charge that Jews were trying to take over the al Aqsa mosque was the pretext to foment the 1929 Hebron massacre which resulted in the deaths of dozens of Hebron’s Jewish residents and the end of its historic Jewish community there. Husseini and his followers portrayed themselves as defenders of the Muslim faith, using the defense of Muslim holy sites as a pretext to kill Jews in the name of Islam and garner a wider following in the larger Muslim world. Hamas has followed suit, invoking the “defense” of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa as the reason it was waging war against Israel, targeting population centers deep inside the country with rockets and missiles.
BBC’s Palestinian territories timeline inaccurate on dates of ‘key events’
The BBC News website’s Palestinian territories timeline – which is presented as “A chronology of key events” – includes the following entries under the sub-heading “Progress towards self-rule”:


The events described in that first entry could not of course have taken place on the given dates because the Oslo Accords Declaration of Principles was not signed until September 1993 and the Gaza-Jericho agreement was signed in May 1994. The Palestinian National Authority was established pursuant to that latter agreement and – as the BBC itself reports elsewhere – Arafat arrived in the Gaza Strip in July 1994.

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Arafat, Rabin and Peres in October 1994, with the ceremony taking place in December of that year – rather than the year before they signed the 1993 Oslo Accords that were the reason for the award, as claimed in this BBC timeline.


Antisemitism: Jews target of 58% of all religiously motivated hate crimes in US
Jews in America are the target of 58 percent of all religiously motivated hate crimes in the US despite constituting a mere two percent of the population, newly released FBI statistics for 2020 have shown.

The data also showed that Jews constitute the third largest target of hate crimes out of all minorities in the entire country, more than, Hispanics, Muslims, Asians, and virtually all other groups.

Only anti-black or African-American, anti-White, and anti-LGBT attacks were more numerous than anti-Jewish ones.

In total, the FBI received information of 7,759 hate crimes committed in 2020, submitted by over 15,000 law enforcement agencies around the country.

Of those, 4,939 attacks were motivated by race or ethnicity, 1,174 by religion and 1,051 by sexual orientation, with the remainder based on hatred for disability, gender, gender identity and multiple biases. Of the religiously motivated hate crimes, fully 676 were committed against Jews, some 58% of all such attacks and 9% of the total number of hate crimes committed across the US in 2020.
US won’t seek death penalty for California synagogue shooter
Federal prosecutors said that they will not seek the death penalty for a 22-year-old former nursing student charged in a deadly shooting at a Southern California synagogue on the last day of Passover.

The decision was disclosed Monday in a one-sentence court filing in federal court in San Diego. It comes less than two months after United States Attorney General Merrick Garland halted federal executions while the Justice Department conducts a review of its policies and procedures.

In July, John T. Earnest pleaded guilty to murder and other charges in state court. The San Diego County district attorney’s office said at the time that he agreed to serve the rest of his life in state prison without the possibility of parole. Sentencing is scheduled for September 30.

In the federal case, Earnest submitted a conditional plea agreement for consideration by federal prosecutors in June 4, the terms of which have not been disclosed. A hearing in that case is scheduled for September 8.

Earnest opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle during the last day of Passover services in April 2019 at Chabad of Poway. The attack killed 60-year-old Lori Gilbert-Kaye and wounded three others, including an 8-year-old girl and the rabbi, who lost a finger.
Dutch Jews Protest ‘Disgusting’ Sale of Nazi-Era ‘Jews’ Star’ at Military Memorabilia Fair
A Dutch Jewish leader has filed a legal complaint against an auctioneer specializing in military memorabilia after discovering that it was offering two examples of the “Judenstern” (“Jews’ Star”) — the yellow Star of David which the Nazis forced Jews to wear on their outer clothing — for sale.

“One person’s death is another person’s bread,” commented Ronny Naftaniel, the head of the Dutch Jewish organization CIDI, after seeing a Dutch television broadcast on Sunday that exposed the sale of the items.

“It’s disgusting,” Naftaniel said.

According to reports in the Dutch press, the star was available for purchase at a military memorabilia fair in the town of Houten. One of the stars was on sale for the price of 2,500 Euros ($2,950) together with a booklet outlining the biographical details of its original Jewish wearer.

Alongside the stars were several items popular with far-right and neo-Nazi groups, including daggers decorated with the symbol of the SS, busts of Adolf Hitler and swastika flags.

An organizer of the fair insisted that no laws had been broken in promoting and selling this material.

“The law is our guide,” Gaston Vrolings told the Dutch TV program “Kassa.”

“I am convinced that there is nothing wrong with 99.99 percent of our visitors,” Vrolings added when asked whether neo-Nazis were in attendance at the fair.
Suspect in Five London Antisemitic Attacks Believed to Be From Yorkshire With ‘Northern Accent’
A suspect in a vicious series of antisemitic attacks in London is believed to be a Yorkshire man with a “northern accent,” the Examiner’s local outlet YorkshireLive reported.

The London Metropolitan Police are seeking the suspect, who based on CCTV footage appears to be Muslim, in five separate acts of violence against Jews — all committed in the Hackney area of London on Aug. 18.

Detective Chief Inspector Yasmin Lalani said, “We have recovered some CCTV capturing an apparent interaction between the man and shop staff in Seven Sisters Road which appears to indicate that the man may speak with a northern accent — possibly Yorkshire.”

“While this is a very new development, I am urging communities in those areas to look closely at the pictures we have released, which are of very good quality, and tell us immediately if they recognize the man,” she said.

“We retain an open mind behind the motive,” she added, “but the reported incidents are being treated as hate crimes.”

A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said, “One new line of enquiry is that the suspect is not local to the area and may have been visiting. Feedback from Jewish and Muslim communities so far indicates that the man has not been seen locally before.”
US orthobiologics firm to buy Israeli medical tech company CartiHeal
Bioventus, a leading US orthobiologics firm, will be acquiring Israeli company CartiHeal, a developer of cartilage implants, for an estimated $500 million. The American company, an investor in CartiHeal, announced on Monday that it was exercising its option to buy the Israeli firm starting with a $50 million escrow payment.

Bioventus and CartiHeal had entered into an option and equity purchase agreement last year, following a $15 million equity investment in the Israeli company. Bioventus said at the time that it would move to buy CartiHeal after it receives pre-market approval by the US Food and Drug Administration for the Agili-C, an implant solution for people who have cartilage defects with or without mild to moderate knee osteoarthritis, a deterioration of cartilage and the underlying bone.

Knee pain is a common complaint that affects people of all ages. It can result from an injury, such as a torn ligament or cartilage, or from medical conditions. Osteoarthritis is one of the most common degenerative joint diseases, affecting more than 25 percent of people over 18, according to research published in nature.com. Treatments for knee pain include physical therapy and knee braces, but surgical procedures may also be required.

Agili-C, made of a form of calcium carbonite called aragonite, was granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA in 2020, following a global randomized, and controlled trial using Agili-C for the treatment of joint surface lesions of the knee.
Former Mossad chief’s cybersecurity company to operate in Gulf
Tamir Pardo's XM Cyber will bid to protect infrastructures in the UAE and Bahrain, as part of a consortium led by Rafael.

Israeli cybersecurity company XM Cyber, cofounded by former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, is entering the Persian Gulf for the first time. The startup will sell cybersecurity products to protect the region's gas, oil and financial infrastructures.

Following the signing of the Abraham accords last year, normalizing relations between Israel and Gulf countries the UAE and Bahrain, XM Cyber signed a cooperation agreement with Dubai-based Spire Solutions, led by Indian experts who also represent Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: CHKP) and CyberArk Software Inc. (Nasdaq:CYBR). Pardo serves as president of XM Cyber and has an equal share in controlling the company with cofounders CEO Noam Erez and CTO Boaz Gorodissky, a former head of the technology department at the Prime Minister's Office.

Huge cooperation
In addition, XM Cyber will cooperate with Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and a new consortium set up to sign contracts with companies in the Gulf in the field of gas and oil infrastructures including Israel Electric Corp. (IEC), Energy Infrastructures and other cybersecurity companies like Waterfall Security Solutions, TrapX Security, and Radiflow. Sources close to XM Cyber have confirmed to "Globes" about the cooperation although the company itself declined to officially comment on the matter.
Cybersecurity giant Check Point acquires Israeli startup to protect cloud emails
Cybersecurity firm Check Point Software Technologies Ltd. announced on Monday that it is acquiring Israeli startup Avanan, a provider of cloud email security.

The Israeli-founded firm did not disclose the financial details of the transaction, but said the deal is set to close imminently. According to Israeli business daily Globes, the agreement is valued at between $270-$280 million in cash and stocks.

Founded in 2015, Avanan built a cloud-native platform that identifies advanced attacks that may evade existing security tools and provides a multi-layer defense for cloud collaboration solutions such as Microsoft Office 365, G-Suite, and Slack. The company said in a statement that it has over 5,000 global clients and protects some 2.5 million inboxes.

The technology will integrate with Check Point’s threat prevention software capabilities “to deliver the world’s most secure email security offering” and protect remote workforces “from malicious files, URLs and phishing across email, collaboration suites, web, network, and endpoint,” the firm said in a statement.

With 95% of cyberattacks targeting enterprise networks caused by successful phishing, the cloud email threat landscape has never been wider, Check Point said. The number of phishing attacks doubled in 2020.
Pope Francis Advances Sainthood Cause of Italian Catholic Priest Who Saved Jews in WWII
After the German occupation of Padua, Father Cortese was part of an underground group linked to the Resistance, using his printing press to make false documents to help Jewish people and Allied soldiers reach safety in Switzerland.

In October 1944, two German SS officers tricked Father Cortese into leaving the walls of his monastery in Padua, which was protected as an extraterritorial territory of the Holy See, on a false pretext of someone needing his help.

Father Cortese was immediately arrested and taken to a Gestapo bunker in Trieste, where he was brutally tortured. But he did not give away the names of any of his associates, according to Father Giorgio Laggioni, his vice-postulator.

After weeks of torture, he died in Gestapo custody in November 1944 at the age of 37. His confessional in the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua continues to be a place of prayer today.

In one of his letters to his family, Father Cortese wrote:
“Religion is a burden that one never tires of carrying, but which more and more enamors the soul toward greater sacrifices, even to the point of giving one’s life for the defense of the faith and the Christian religion, even to the point of dying amidst torments like the martyrs of Christianity in distant and foreign lands.”

In the decree from the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints that advanced Father Cortese’s cause, two laywomen were also recognized for their heroic virtue.
One of last remaining Warsaw Ghetto survivors succumbs to COVID at 96
One of the last remaining survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto passed away on Tuesday at the age of 96, due to complications from the coronavirus.

Shalom Stamberg was born in Warsaw in 1924 and was moved to the city’s Ghetto with his family when he was 14. He was later transferred to five different concentration camps, including Dachau, Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and survived Nazi death marches as well. He managed to survive due to his electrical skills, thanks to which he received the status of an essential worker at the various camps where he was held.

He was released from Dachau in 1945 at the end of the war. His entire family had perished.

In testimony shared with the Ynet news site in 2019, Stamberg recalled how one of his jobs in the camps had been to count the number of dead. “The bodies were thrown near the crematorium, and we had to count and write down how many there were. We stood for a few hours, and then the kapos (prisoner supervisors) came and punched us with brass knuckles. We were just a joke for them.”

“I was hungry, I was in pain, I was everything, but I stayed alive. It’s not that I was a hero. I was like everyone else. A child,” Stamberg said.

“After the Holocaust I was left alone in life, without anyone. I had no one to talk to, no one to be with. I was a lonely person in the world who had no degree. I’d finished four grades by the time the war broke out. To this day I miss the family I had then. Since I immigrated [to Israel], I have memorial candles lit in their memory day and night.”

Stamberg immigrated to Israel in 1948 and was among the founders of the northern town of Beit She’an.







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