Tuesday, February 15, 2022
Why We Lied to Ourselves About Whoopi Goldberg and Antisemitism
For me, the motives were somewhat personal. When I was growing up the whole family loved Goldberg’s performance as the wise and ageless bartender Guinan on “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” I’ve always looked at Goldberg with great affection, and would prefer to continue doing so; I imagine a great many feel the same, for our own reasons. I loved Goldberg on “TNG,” and I didn’t want her to be an antisemite. So, I decided she wasn’t. I accepted comfortable bromides about ignorance and education, and reflexively absolved her of all responsibility.Whoopi Goldberg returns to ‘The View’ after suspension
The problem is that no one can look into anyone else’s soul. With very few exceptions, it is all but impossible to say a person is “an antisemite” in the essence of their being. We can only know what they say and do. As James Baldwin said: This is the evidence. What Goldberg said and did was, without question, monstrous. And as Barlow put it, “What evidence is there that Goldberg is a friend of the Jews? I don’t yet see it.”
Neither do I. The latest evidence we have indicates that she is, at best, not particularly fond of us, and we should have treated her accordingly. We were wrong to do otherwise. Moreover, our rush to the “education solution” indicates a deeper problem: We want to believe that antisemites, despite all evidence, can be fixed. That if we apply the progressive methods of nurture and consciousness-raising, the problem will simply go away. It is to this comfortable fantasy that we clung when we were faced with the uncomfortable necessity of repudiating a celebrity we admire.
And it is a fantasy. The truth is that education does nothing to fight antisemitism, because antisemites are, by definition, people who have refused to be educated. They are not antisemitic because they are ignorant — they are antisemitic because antisemitism serves selfish needs, rooted in the depths of their psyches, often unknown even to themselves. You could have educated Haman until the cows came home, and it would have made no difference, because his hatred of the Jews was not circumstantial but primordial.
In the end, against people who are immune to rational argument, self-defense is the only option. Resistance and deterrence can effectively fight antisemitism. Nothing else works or has ever worked. This is the evidence. In the face of not simply the Goldberg affair but our own reaction to it, we would all do well to remember that.
Whoopi Goldberg returned to her hosting chair on “The View” Monday after a two-week suspension for her much-criticized comments about the Holocaust, pledging to “keep having tough conversations.”Jewish left leader accidentally calls Palestinian Authority chief an anti-Semite
“I listened to everything everybody had to say, and I was very grateful,” Goldberg told her viewers in a brief address at the top of the talk show as her co-hosts told her they missed her.
“It is an honor to sit at this table and be able to have these conversations, because they are important,” Goldberg said, without offering another direct apology or mentioning the Holocaust or Jews at all.
“Conversations,” she said, “are important to us as a nation, and to us more so as a human entity.”
Goldberg’s suspension had followed her Jan. 31 remarks on the program that “the Holocaust is not about race,” but rather about “man’s inhumanity to man.” Many groups, including the Anti-Defamation League, objected, saying that Hitler saw his planned extermination of the Jews as a racial project. Goldberg apologized, but further comments she made on the subject — including on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” — continued to add fuel to the fire, leading to ABC News President Kim Godwin announcing her suspension the following day “to take time to reflect and learn about the impact of her comments.”
Last week, for example, Jacobs was quoted by The Washington Post in its article about the Senate hearing concerning the nomination of Holocaust historian and Emory University professor Deborah Lipstadt as U.S. envoy for combating anti-Semitism. Jacobs has no particular connection to Lipstadt and no particular expertise on anti-Semitism; nonetheless, the Post chose to present her as a Jewish leader commenting on the issue.
Now here’s where things got interesting.
Jacobs made a few general, unremarkable statements about examples of anti-Semitism. One of her examples was “denying Jewish history.” And that’s obviously true.
But Jacobs, who fervently supports the Palestinian statehood cause, does not seem to have considered the implications of her statement with regard to the man who would become the head of the Palestinian state that she wants to see established in Judea and Samaria, and the Old City of Jerusalem.
I’m talking about the fact that Abbas is one of the most outspoken deniers of Jewish history in the world today. He has made so many statements denying Jewish history that they could fill a book—and, in fact, they have; he is the author of an entire book claiming that the Nazis killed only 1 million Jews and accusing Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, of collaborating with the Nazis. But for now, I’m going to cite just two of his speeches because they are particularly revealing.
AOC heckled by pro-Palestinian protestors at two Austin events
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was heckled by pro-Palestinian demonstrators at two separate events in Austin, Texas, on Sunday, while she was in the area to rally support for progressive congressional candidates Greg Casar and Jessica Cisneros.
Interrupted by a pro-Palestinian heckler at an Austin Democratic Socialists of America event promoting the Green New Deal, Ocasio-Cortez claimed that supporters of Palestinians are silenced and ignored by the media.
“With media, with all this stuff, Palestine is basically a banned word. It’s censored. We don’t talk about it. No one knows about it,” she said. “Thank you for bringing it up, honestly, because we shouldn’t have to tiptoe around these things. We should be able to talk about it. And we shouldn’t allow people’s humanity to be censored.”
A Twitter user who identified himself as the heckler and who posted video of a portion of the encounter is a contributor to Press TV, the state-owned Iranian English-language television network. Jewish Insider could not independently corroborate the heckler’s identity.
Ocasio-Cortez was also confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters at a separate campaign rally for Casar, the frontrunner in Texas’ 35th Congressional District, on Sunday.
Last month, Casar said in a letter to a prominent local rabbi that he supports “continued federal aid for the self-defense of Israel” and opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Following JI’s publication of that letter in early February, the Austin DSA announced that it would “no longer be working on” Casar’s campaign and that he had withdrawn his request for an endorsement from the group.
When a heckler interrupted Ocasio-Cortez’s speech in support of Casar, the congresswoman responded, “I want to be unequivocal, we are here to stand up for the rights of Palestinians and Palestinian children. One hundred percent. Don’t get it twisted. Because disinformation is not the vibe.” That demonstrator was escorted out of the event, according to Austonia.
During both events, many in the crowd shouted down the hecklers.
A small group of demonstrators picketed the Casar event with signs reading, “AOC and Greg Casar support the genocide of Palestinians” and “from Texas to Palestine fight US imperialism,” according to photos posted by local reporters.
How it started how it's going (it's not ideal) pic.twitter.com/h8n2xqtVMZ
— Seth Mandel (@SethAMandel) February 15, 2022
‘Racial Justice’ Socialist Activist Quintez Brown Accused Of Attempted Murder, Shooting At Jewish Louisville Mayoral Candidate
Quintez Brown, a self-proclaimed racial justice activist working for “the total liberation and unification of Africa under scientific socialism,” has been charged in shooting Louisville, Kentucky, Mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg’s office, with bullets narrowly missing Greenberg on Monday. On Tuesday, Brown pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“Quintez Brown, 21, was charged with attempted murder and four counts of wanton endangerment after Greenberg was shot at in his campaign headquarters Monday morning in Butchertown, LMPD spokeswoman Elizabeth Ruoff said late Monday,” the Courier Journal reported.
On Monday evening, Louisville police issued a press release stating that “at around 10:15 am” LMPD responded to “reports of active aggressor” in the neighborhood where Greenberg’s campaign headquarters were located, and police determined the shooter seemed to be targeting the candidate’s office.
“Multiple shots were fired within the location and from preliminary information it appears Mr. Greenberg was the intended target,” LMPD added. “Responding officers safely evacuated Greenberg, who was unharmed, but was grazed by one of the bullets causing damage to his clothing.”
Shortly after, they arrested Brown. “There is no known at this time, and it is believed the suspect acted alone,” LMPD said on Monday.
Courier Journal also reported that Brown held prestigious academic positions and was a prominent activist, but appeared to be somewhat troubled:
Couldn’t make it up. https://t.co/OzQHouakmY pic.twitter.com/lMLtjb68aR
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 15, 2022
Jewish Louisville mayor candidate: Gunman ‘aimed directly at me’
A Democratic mayoral candidate in Kentucky’s largest city said he is “shaken but safe” after a suspect stormed his campaign headquarters Monday morning and fired a weapon point-blank at him.Israel Franchisee on Unilever Plan: Any New Ben & Jerry’s ‘Arrangement’ to Limit Sales in Israel Violates Anti-Boycott Law
Craig Greenberg, who is running for mayor of Louisville, said he was at his campaign office with four colleagues when a man appeared in the doorway with a weapon.
“When we greeted him, he pulled out a gun, aimed directly at me and began shooting,” Greenberg said at a news conference several hours after the shocking attack.
The person closest to the door managed to get the door shut, he said. The staffers barricaded the door, and the suspect fled, he said.
“Despite one bullet coming so close that it grazed my sweater and my shirt, no one was physically harmed,” Greenberg said.
“We are shaken but safe,” he added.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear decried the attempt on Greenberg’s life and called for swift action to punish the perpetrator.
“The person who’s done it needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” the governor said. “And if this has anything to do with a political race, my God, if you disagree with someone you vote against them.”
A possible arrangement to continue selling Ben & Jerry’s products in Israel while excluding the West Bank and areas of east Jerusalem would violate the country’s anti-boycott law, CEO of the ice cream maker’s Israel franchisee Avi Zinger has said.Federal government accused of breaching racism laws by Palestinian man
“Any new arrangement that does not include every part of Israel constitutes a violation of Israeli law,” Zinger stated.
Zinger responded to comments by CEO of Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, who told journalists on Thursday that the board of the ice cream maker is seeking to formulate a “new arrangement” for sales in Israel by the end of the year. “Our absolute focus right now is to figure out what the new arrangement will be for Ben & Jerry’s.” CEO Alan Jope said.
The update comes after July’s decision by Ben & Jerry’s independent board not to renew its license agreement with its current Israeli partner at the end of 2022, saying that it was “inconsistent” with its values to sell products in “the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” That announcement was made after Zinger refused to heed a demand by the Vermont-based ice cream company to stop selling Ben & Jerry’s in West Bank settlements and areas of east Jerusalem.
Zinger contended that Jope’s statements show a “lack of understanding of Israeli law, that unequivocally forbids the sale of products in Israel while excluding the West Bank.”
The complaint alleges the government has breached Section 9 of the Racial Discrimination Act.
It is now being investigated by the Australian Human Rights Commission.
Mr Mashni is being represented in the complaint by Moustafa Kheir, principal solicitor at Birchgrove Legal.
He acknowledges it is not a typical Section 9 complaint.
"It's different in that it looks into how a government's foreign policy affects its citizens. How a foreign policy can make a citizen feel as though they're not equal within the country," Mr Kheir said.
Joel Burnie, executive manager at the Australia Israel and Jewish Affairs Council, said the complaint appeared to draw a long bow.
"I don't believe that Australian foreign policy negatively impacts the life of a Palestinian Australian living in Australia," he said.
He rejected the suggestion that Australia's foreign policy was "strictly tilted one way" when it comes to conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.
He also said the government's decision to make a submission in the ICC case was simply an expression of a legal opinion about the court's jurisdiction.
2/3
— Realist (@a_idealist) January 27, 2022
It was also endorsed by Australian Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN), of whom Sydney Festival boycott organiser & spokesperson Sara Saleh is a member. pic.twitter.com/RCqVO0nJ6H
American University Censors an Inconvenient Truth
Just past 10:00 the morning of Wednesday, February 9, alumni of American University's School of Public Affairs (SPA) received that month's newsletter. Titled "Freed After 27 Years, Radicalizing US & Islamist Terrorists, Alumni Benefit +more," it listed recent publications and appearances by SPA faculty and alumni, just as one would expect.Supermodel Bella Hadid has no love for Israel on Valentine's Day
By 3:45 that afternoon, however, when another SPA alumni email arrived, the tone had darkened. Instead of listing accomplishments to arouse pride, "A Timely Message from Dean Vicky Wilkins" confessed a sin to evoke shame.
The sin? That morning's email used the word "Islamist" in the subject line because the listed articles included "The Capital Insurrection and Similarities Between U.S. Domestic and Islamist Terrorists." Yet, for Dean Wilkins, its use was "offensive" because "terrorism is not exclusive to any one religion or group . . . it comes in many forms." It "does not reflect our values," and the good Dean wishes to "apologize for this mistake." In the future, they'll be "more accurate and sensitive."
One shudders to think what might have transpired had the original message substituted "Islamic Terrorists" for "Islamist." The juxtaposition is instructive, as it demonstrates the absurdity of the Wilkins's apology. In denoting and setting apart a radicalized sub-group within Islam, the word "Islamist" clarifies the writer's intent and avoids precisely the confusion and offense that Wilkins claims was committed. "Islamist" is not, as its very existence testifies, synonymous with "Islam."
While celebrities worldwide posted heartwarming messages in honor of Valentine's Day on Monday, supermodel Bella Hadid made it abundantly clear that she does not want Israel to be her Valentine.BBC Sounds reportedly features Lady Mosley interview containing Holocaust denial without context or content warning
Taking a virtual swing at the Jewish state, Hadid – who is known for her anti-Israel rhetoric – posted a photograph of a heart on her Instagram page with the words "Will you free my Palestine," a play on the traditional "Will you be my Valentine."
The jab, of course, did not go unnoticed by Hadid's 49.3 million followers, who supported the celebrity with comments like, "omg yes," "Absolute fighter," "Please free our Palestine," "much respect," and the likes.
The post garnered 484,317 likes and 4,502 mostly positive comments in just 13 hours.
Even Hadid's father, real estate developed Mohamed Hadid, who also posts anti-Israel messages occasionally, commented by saying, "All we need is love."
BBC Sounds, an online streaming platform that contains live and archived radio broadcasts, reportedly features an interview containing Holocaust denial without providing context or a content warning.How Many Helpers Does the New York Times Have to Hire for Error-Prone Jerusalem Bureau Chief?
The conversation in question is between interviewee, Lady Diana Mosley, and interviewer, Sue Lawley, and was first broadcast in November 1989 as part of the BBC’s Desert Island Discs series. Lady Mosley was the wife of Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the antisemitic British Union of Fascists. The two wedded in Joseph Goebbels’ house in the presence of Adolf Hitler.
During the interview, Lady Mosley, who died in 2003, reportedly says of her late husband: “He didn’t know a Jew from a gentile…as the Jews were so anti him and attacked him, he, as it were, picked up the challenge.”
When Ms Lawley asked Lady Mosley whether she believed that six million Jews had died in the Holocaust, Lady Mosley replies: “I don’t really, I’m afraid…believe that six million people were…I just think it’s not conceivable, it’s too many.”
“But whether it’s six million or one really makes no difference morally, it’s equally wrong,” Lady Mosley adds. “I think it was a dreadfully wicked thing.”
Lady Mosley also referred to historians’ reporting of Hitler as “nonsense”, adding that “if you don’t like someone, you attack them.”
Ms Lawley reportedly told Lady Mosley that “It’s almost as if you’re rewriting history.” She also said, in response to Lady Mosley’s denial of her husband’s antisemitism, “But did he not call them [the Jews] ‘an alien force which rises to rob us of our heritage’?”
A BBC spokesperson said: “This episode of Desert Island Discs is part of the most complete possible archive resource of programmes from the past 80 years and is not something that is being newly transmitted.
How many helpers does the Times have to hire for Kingsley to get it right? Clearly, five weren’t enough. There certainly are many asymmetries between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. But the claim that the Jews “are rarely in danger of losing the land they live on” simply doesn’t hold up. They are almost constantly in danger of it. Anyone making such a claim demonstrates their ignorance of Jewish history — and here, it exposes Kingsley’s failure to understand the people he is writing about.INTRODUCING BBC ARABIC’S HOLLYWOOD CORRESPONDENT
The ignorance flares elsewhere in the article, too. Kingsley writes, “Violence has long been deployed by both Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank. Israel occupied the territory in 1967, and it has since been settled — illegally, according to most interpretations of international law — by hundreds of thousands of Israelis, many of whom consider the land their biblical birthright.”
What matters is not “most interpretations” but the correct interpretation. What happened before 1967? The Times article doesn’t say, but what happened was that the Jews living there were kicked out by Jordan, which seized the territory in the war the Arabs initiated in 1948 to prevent the establishment of the state of Israel. By the Times “most interpretations” interpretation, a Jew who returns in 1967 to a house in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem’s old city that he fled in the 1948 war is an “illegal” settler or occupier.
The Times’ formulation that “Violence has long been deployed by both Israelis and Palestinians” makes no distinction between illegal terrorist violence and lawful warfare.
If the Times wants to write about settler violence, fine. Such violence is terrible. But along the way, the paper is spreading a bogus narrative about how the problem is the settlers and occupation rather than Arab rejectionism, terrorism, and antisemitism.
A post by CAMERA Arabic.Portuguese paper alleges Jewish community abuses citizenship law to generate profit
Husam ‘Sam’ Asi has been BBC Arabic’s Hollywood correspondent since 2013. In recent years he has also written for the Qatari–owned, Palestinian–operated, London-based daily newspaper “Alquds Alarabi”, where he often publishes text versions of his BBC Arabic video interviews alongside exclusive pieces. Notably, the BBC’s editorial guidelines on Conflicts of Interest require all BBC employees to declare any other “writing commitments”.
A native of Israel who identifies as Palestinian, Husam Asi has made the Israeli-Palestinian conflict the focus of his Hollywood coverage for the BBC on several occasions. In December 2018 he forced a denouncement of Israel’s Nation State Law as ‘racist’ from actress Natalie Portman by claiming to her that the law “made you more superior than me because you are Jewish and I’m not.” He also used the term “Palestine” contrary to the fact and terminology guide of BBC Academy twice more (at the time the guide – dealing specifically with Israel and the Palestinians – was not restricted from public view).
The past year has seen Asi’s BBC Arabic reports about Israeli and Palestinian affairs – all from the perspective of entertainment and cinema – become significantly more frequent. Particularly engaged with an alleged shift in the Hollywood and American Jewish mindsets “in Palestine’s favour”, he said the following in a May 2021 BBC Arabic video segment (0:26):
“Until recently, any statement critical of Israel or supportive of the Palestinians would expose the stars of Hollywood to fierce condemnation from their fans and reprimands from the officials of Hollywood, sometimes ruining their careers. This is because Israel, since its establishment, have built solid ties with Hollywood and its officials, who were mostly Jewish.”
Asi did not present any examples of film industry careers ‘ruined’ at the hands of powerful ‘Hollywood officials’ with “solid ties” to Israel. In fact, the only person historically supportive of the Palestinians whom Asi mentions by name – actress Vanessa Redgrave – was correctly reported to have received an Academy Award amidst an ongoing campaign against her due to her openly anti-Zionist activity. Redgrave even referred to “Zionist hoodlums” from the podium that year (1978), but Asi failed to provide evidence of concrete retributions her professional life suffered as consequence; he just generally argued that it was “hampered.”
An interest in politics is also evident in the Hollywood correspondent’s Twitter account. Some of Asi’s posts are not entirely in line with the social media guidance BBC employees are required to follow, just as his journalism does not always closely observe the BBC’s self-proclaimed principles of impartiality and accuracy.
Since the entertainment news website The Wrap raised allegations of sexual misconduct against Husam Asi on February 2nd 2022, his breaches of BBC guidelines have become more frequent. On February 5th, Asi endorsed the Amnesty International report on “Israeli apartheid.” In a tweet that was later removed, he decried “white countries that enslaved Africans, exterminated Jews and Native Americans and colonized most of the third world”, including the United Kingdom, for rejecting the report.
The Jewish community in Portugal has been whipped into a tizzy after a leading local newspaper accused Jews in the city of Porto of abusing legislation that grants citizenship to descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who were exiled in medieval times, to enrich themselves.The Ongoing, Alarming Rise of Antisemitism Is Terrorizing Jews in Europe
The lengthy report, published in daily newspapers Público, features harsh criticism that gives off a whiff of antisemitism.
It stated that up until a decade ago, Porto's modest Jewish community couldn't pool together enough resources to hire the services of a rabbi or even fix the roof of the local synagogue.
But its fortunes seemed to have drastically shifted by 2019, as the community now runs a kosher hotel, a mikveh [a ritual bath] and finished the construction of a new museum while also hiring a cantor for the synagogue and security detail.
Público further claimed that the local Jewish community earns €250 for each citizenship application it examines, and that community members own other lucrative satellite businesses that also turn a profit on the industry, such as real estate investments.
"What began as a gesture of goodwill and correction of a historical wrong eventually became a business with huge profits for the Jewish community of Porto," the newspaper claimed.
The article came in the context of the community's recognition of Russian-born Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich — the primary owner of the private investment company Millhouse LLC and owner of English Premier League soccer club Chelsea who also holds Israeli citizenship — as a descendant of exiled Spanish and Portuguese Jews.
February 13 was an ominous anniversary. Sixteen years have now passed since the murder of Ilan Halimi, the young, Jewish French cellphone salesman. On February 13, 2006, Halimi was murdered, having been kidnapped and held for ransom in a basement in a Paris suburb, where he was starved, tortured, and beaten for 24 days before his captors gave up their depraved plan to cash in on a young Jewish life.Following Latest Attack, Brooklyn Jewish Leader Urges New York City Officials to Launch Antisemitism Awareness Campaign in Public Schools
Like the hostage taker in Colleyville, Texas, Halimi’s captors bought into the worst antisemitic tropes about Jewish power. Those who kidnapped him thought that the powerful and monied Jewish community of their fever dreams would come forward and pay a hefty ransom for his release. Their bigotry fueled a brutal, grotesque crime that still scars the French Jewish community.
As we mark the anniversary of Ilan’s death, I wish I could tell you that his murder was not in vain. I wish that I could report that this devastating crime helped the French people and all of Europe wake up to the threat of antisemitic tropes in their societies. But instead, the memory of this horrific event — seared for a time on the consciousness of France — has been fading.
We can’t let this happen. Here’s why:
The two largest Jewish communities in Europe just reported record-breaking numbers of antisemitic incidents for 2021. A dizzying number of public assaults, vandalism of Jewish institutions, insults, threats, and abuse of all sorts were inflicted on thousands of Jews in France and the United Kingdom last year. Much of it was linked to the war in May between Israel and Hamas, despite the 2,000 miles distance between Paris and Tel Aviv.
The reports by the Jewish security agencies of the two communities, SPCJ in France and the Community Security Trust (CST) in the UK, make for painful reading. In France, where 450,000 Jews live, assaults were up a stunning 36 percent. Total incidents increased 75 percent compared to the prior year.
The head of an organization representing Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn has urged the city of New York to launch an antisemitism awareness program in the city’s public schools while praising new Mayor Eric Adams’ determination to stamp out hate crime.France to approve return of 15 artworks stolen from Jews during World War II
Rabbi David Niederman, president of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn, told The Algemeiner on Monday that the latest antisemitic attack in the city on Friday night, in which a Jewish teenager was punched in the face by an unidentified assailant, underlined his concern that attacks on Jews in New York are becoming normalized.
“It doesn’t make a difference if it’s in Flatbush or Williamsburg or Crown Heights, it’s an attack on a Jew, and that is unfortunately no longer a traumatic event, because it happens so often,” Rabbi Niederman said.
Niederman emphasized that he was impressed with new Mayor Eric Adams’s response to hate crime on a weekend that witnessed not just the assault in Flatbush, but also the shocking murder of a 35-year-old Asian woman, Christina Yuna Lee, who was stabbed by an assailant who followed her into her apartment building in the Chinatown section of lower Manhattan. Both the Jewish and Asian-American communities in New York have suffered from an increase in hate crime in recent months, some of it connected to falsehoods and conspiracy theories relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s good that the mayor is very outspoken,” Niederman said of Adams, who tweeted in the aftermath of the outrage in Flatbush that “an attack on our Jewish community is an attack on every New Yorker. We will catch the perpetrators of this assault.”
The French senate is set to approve on Tuesday the return of 15 artworks looted from Jews during World War II, as part of efforts by the government to accelerate restitutions.Intel Expands in Specialty Chipmaking With $5.4 Billion Deal for Israel’s Tower
The vote authorizes public museums holding the works, including the world-famous Musee d’Orsay in Paris, to hand over the property to the heirs of the original owners.
French Culture Minister Roselyne Bachelot called the move “historic,” adding that it was the first time in 70 years that the French government had made serious steps to return artworks “that were acquired in troubling circumstances during the occupation because of anti-Semitic persecution.”
She called the legislation a “first stage” in returning objects that “are still being conserved in public collections — objects that ought not, and should never have been there.”
The bill cleared the lower house of parliament in late January and now requires approval by the Senate and the signature of President Emmanuel Macron to enter into force.
Thousands of paintings by some of the world’s most famous artists were looted or forcibly acquired during the Nazi occupation of France and have been kept in custody by public museums such as the Louvre and Musee d’Orsay in Paris since the end of the conflict.
Intel Corp is buying Israeli chipmaker Tower Semiconductor for $5.4 billion, the companies said on Tuesday, giving it access to more specialized production and making it better positioned to take advantage of soaring demand for semiconductors.Jewish-American basketball player fights for his right to make Aliyah
Intel is paying $53 per share for Tower — which specializes in analogue chips used in cars, medical sensors and power management — well above a closing price of $33.13 on the Nasdaq on Monday.
After a delayed opening, Tower’s Tel Aviv-listed shares were 40% higher on Tuesday.
They had surged 48% in after-hours trading on Nasdaq on Monday after news of a possible takeover was reported. Prior to the announcement, Tower had a market value of $3.6 billion.
The acquisition will deepen Intel’s presence in a sector dominated by Taiwan-based TSMC, the world’s largest chipmaker, at a time when the global semiconductor shortage has hampered the production of everything from smartphones to cars.
Tower has been investing in equipment at its manufacturing sites in Israel, Texas and Japan to boost capacity for 200 and 300 milimeter chips. The company serves “fabless” companies — which design chips but outsource manufacturing — as well as integrated device manufacturers and offers more than 2 million wafer starts per year of capacity, the companies said.
Tower Semiconductor changed its name from TowerJazz in 2020.
He grew up as an observant Jewish African-American boy in Philadelphia. He played basketball professionally, and after visiting Israel on Taglit-Birthright Israel, he decided to make aliyah – immigrate to Israel and make it his home.The lost Jewish community of the Amazon
Yet Jared Armstrong had no idea that he was in for a roller-coaster of bureaucracy from the Israeli government. It decided that even though he went through a Conservative conversion, he was not eligible to make aliyah.
Recently, Armstrong has launched a campaign, trying to make his point that he should be allowed to become an Israeli citizen.
“I was born a Jew” Armstrong, 24, told The Jerusalem Post. “I was raised in Severn, Maryland, until the age of 10. My parents got a divorce, and we moved to Philadelphia.”
He explained, “I grew up an observant Jew. We kept Shabbat and the High Holy Days. I was not allowed to play sports on Saturday, instead you would find me in shul.”
Israel defense companies showcase products at Singapore Airshow
More than a dozen Israeli companies will showcase their products at the upcoming Singapore Airshow 2022, despite the two countries keeping their defense ties low-key.German rockers Scorpions return to Israel in July
The biannual Singapore Airshow, which opens Tuesday at Changi Exhibition Center, is expecting some 13,000 trade visitors and 600 companies from 39 countries.
Israeli defense companies such as Elbit Systems, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) and 10 others will exhibit at the three-day-long airshow that is considered to be Asia’s largest aviation event.
The two countries officially established diplomatic relations in 1969, but have defense ties dating back to 1965, when Israeli military advisers assisted Singapore’s military in a covert manner after its declaration of independence.
The island city-state is also Israel’s second-largest importer in Asia, with much of the exports believed to be arms and other weaponry.
German rock band Scorpions is set for a return to Israel, to perform July 9 at Tel Aviv’s Menora Mivtachim.Jewish group seeks to find graves of 'righteous sages' of Middle East
Tickets go on sale Wednesday, February 16.
“We really love Israel and are waiting breathlessly to return and perform,” said Klaus Meine in a video. “We’ll rock you like a hurricane.”
The group has played Israel several times in the past, and last visited in 2018.
The band’s upcoming stop in Israel is part of its current world tour to promote new album, “Rock Believer,” its first album released since 2017.
Meine told Metal Hammer Magazine that the new material marks a return to the band’s roots.
“We simply wanted to reactivate the original Scorpions DNA — great riffs, strong melodies,” he said.
The band is estimated to have sold over 100 million records around the world, making it one of the best-selling hard rock and heavy metal acts.
A new project by the Kol Israel Haverim educational organization seeks to locate the burial places of famed ancient Jewish sages of the Middle East, Israel Hayom learned Monday.
To this end, the organization has called on the public to aid them in the project, for example through family archives.
"For years, we have gathered information about thousands of sages who led communities and were halachic pioneers," director Eli Barkat said. "But unfortunately, we do not know the burial place of some of them, which is why we undertook the mission to preserve their memory. If their tomb is inaccessible, so are their teachings."
The project aims to find out the exact date of death and burial location of rabbis buried in Algeria, Tunisia, Iraq, Morocco, Egypt, and countries with which Israel has no diplomatic ties.
"We are confident that with the help and cooperation of families we will be able to expand our database and have the merit to reach the graves of the righteous."
As the burial dates of the sages are not yet known, Kol Israel Haverim has honored their memory with teaching events held on the 7th of the Hebrew months of Adar, which is both the date of birth and death of Moses.
The cutest couple, Israeli Yemenite couple married for 91 years!
— Emily Schrader - ????? ?????? (@emilykschrader) February 14, 2022
Happy Valentines Day! pic.twitter.com/HCGOctEEWV
Blinken thanks Australia for remaking his stepfather after Holocaust
Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, is on a mission in Australia to reassure the longtime ally that America has its back even as China flexes its muscles in the region.
And in a speech Feb. 10 at the University of Melbourne, he made his case with a personal story about how his beloved stepfather rebuilt his life in Melbourne after the Holocaust, a redemption Blinken said underscored shared values.
“The reason he was brought back into the world was ultimately because of Australia,” Blinken said of Samuel Pisar, the philosopher and legal scholar whom Blinken has often cited as being an inspiration for his own dedication to human rights and public service.
Relatives in Australia brought Polish-born Pisar over after the war. “He was 16 years old by the time he got to Australia,” Blinken said. “And as he put it, as he told us, as he told the family for years, Australia remade him. It remade him as a person, it remade him as someone who followed intellectual pursuits, it remade him into a human being.”
Pisar attended the University of Melbourne, where he was mentored by Zelman Cowen, the dean of the faculty of law who later made history when he served as Australia’s second Jewish governor-general. Cowen helped Pisar get a scholarship to Harvard Law School, and soon after Pisar launched his career, advising the Kennedy administration.
Blinken said he was “mates for life” with Pisar’s family and friends in Australia and extended that status to the US-Australia relationship.
I often get asked "what does #Zionism" mean to me. Pretty simple, two words: 'Hope' and 'Empowerment'.
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) February 15, 2022
See why in this conversation I had with @JNFRobinson of @JNFUSA, who himself personifies the model Zionist leader! pic.twitter.com/QQqRehEwR7
