Thursday, April 07, 2022

04/07 Links Pt2: Two killed as terrorist opens fire on Tel Aviv bar; gunman still on loose; Insurance Giant GEICO Cancels Event With Linda Sarsour After Outcry

From Ian:

Two killed as terrorist opens fire on Tel Aviv bar; gunman still on loose
Two people were killed and several were wounded as a gunman opened fire on a bar in central Tel Aviv Thursday evening in an apparent terror attack, the latest eruption of violence to strike Israel in recent weeks.

The shooting took place on Dizengoff Street, turning an area normally crowded with people out for Thursday night at bars, restaurants and cafes lining the popular thoroughfare into a scene of chaos and panic.

As the street filled with ambulances and rescuers, police carried out searches for a gunman thought to have escaped, going door to door and telling people to stay inside and lock their doors.

The attack began when at least one gunman walked up to Ilka, a popular bar with a large outside seating section, and opened fire.

“We dove under the tables and people started crying, it was horrible,” said Evelyn Gertz, 34, who was having dinner next door.

Ten people were rushed to the nearby Ichilov Hospital with gunshot wounds, two of whom were later declared dead, the hospital said. Four others were listed as critical and were undergoing surgery, according to the hospital. Two were seriously injured, and two were mildly hurt.

Another four people with mild injuries were taken to Wolfson Hospital in Holon and Sheba Hospital at Tel Hashomer.


Melanie Phillips: The canaries in the cultural mine
In America and Europe, attacks on Jews simply because they are Jews have reached horrifying proportions. Does anyone imagine that if, say, black people or Muslims were being attacked by white people in anything like these proportions the media wouldn’t be absolutely packed with outraged and anguished commentaries drawing attention to a terrifying cultural breakdown? Yet these attacks on Jews in Britain and America receive hardly any mainstream coverage — and in France they are often actively denied as antisemitic attacks.

Why is this? Why are these attacks on Jews happening in such disproportionately large numbers? And what does this tell us about the state of western society?

Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism is a book written by Elder of Ziyon, the ironically named, pseudonymous and eponymous writer of an excellent website about Jewish issues and who explores this issue.

Elder notes that a string of attacks on Jews in America have been downplayed or fallen off the radar altogether. These include the 2019 Jersey city grocery stores shootings; the murder of a rabbi at a 2019 Chanukah party in Monsey; a “pogrom” in Crown Heights in 1991; a fatal shooting at a van of Hasidic men on Brooklyn Bridge in 1994; a 2011 Manhattan synagogue bomb plot; a 2016 attack on an Ohio restaurant with an Israeli flag; a 2016 plot to blow up a synagogue in Aventura, Florida; a 2009 plot to blow up two New York synagogues; and a foiled 2005 attempt to bomb synagogues in Los Angeles.

Pointing out that many of these attacks have been perpetrated by Muslims or African-Americans, Elder points the finger at the anti-Zionist left for downplaying or excusing them — while justifying attacks on Jews by Palestinian Arabs and pretending that Palestinian antisemitism is anti-Zionism. Elder writes:
Just like most of the physical attacks on Jews, the rhetorical attacks on Zionist Jews — the vast majority of the community — are also antisemitic. They can and do result in murderous attacks on Jews around the world. They must also be rooted out as unacceptable in any society.

For that to happen, modern antisemitism must be called out for what it is — hate. The same hate that animates the physical attacks on Jews lies behind the NGO reports and demonstrations that paint the Jewish state as uniquely evil. We must expose and stop that hate before that hate manifests as violence.

Too true; but just to state this reveals the scale of the challenge. For in the west, these Israel-bashing NGOs are regarded — heaven help us — as the voice of conscience. Far from being excoriated as disgusting bigots, they are actually held up as the arbiters of morality. And anti-Zionism — at the heart of which lies the willed destruction of Israel, the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people who are thus singled out for murderous demonisation and delegitimisation inflicted on no other people — is the cause of causes in progressive circles.
Dave Sharma: My posting showed me the Israel I know
When I arrived as Australia’s ambassador to Israel in 2013, in my first week or so in the country, I read a very small item in the side bar of the Jerusalem Post that caught my interest.

At the time the civil war in Syria was at a high level of intensity, including in an area just across the border with Israel, near the Golan Heights.

This news report, in a matter-of-fact way, as if it was the most regular thing in the world, stated that Israel had recently admitted across its border 20 or so Syrian civilians who had been injured in the fighting, and was now treating them at Israel’s main hospital in the north, Ziv Hospital in Tzfat.

I found this a little perplexing. Syria was formally in a state of war with Israel. Syria had never recognised Israel as a state or its legitimacy to exist. The border between the two countries across the Golan Heights was heavily fortified and militarised. Syrians could not travel to Israel and vice versa.

A few weeks later, my wife Rachel and I took a road trip up north, to visit Ziv Hospital and see for ourselves. What we saw astounded us. Young Syrian children, who had lost limbs during the conflict, were being fitted with prosthetic limbs by Israeli doctors and taught to walk again by Israeli physiotherapists. Their mother or another female relative usually stayed with them, for several months, rehabilitating and recuperating. Israeli-Arab social workers helped keep morale up and entertained the children.

Syria’s formal hostility towards Israel was ignored. The Syrian victims were treated as human beings, with compassion and respect.

I was so surprised by what I was seeing that I wrote an article about it in The Australian, concluding “Ziv Hospital is a profound example of humanity and decency at its most compelling. It is Israel at its very best, and a side of Israel that the world too rarely sees or acknowledges.”

Recent events in Ukraine have reminded me of this episode.


Insurance Giant GEICO Cancels Event With Linda Sarsour After Outcry
The insurance giant GEICO has cancelled an event set to feature activist Linda Sarsour, apologizing and saying it “does not condone hatred.”

Soon after a social media outcry against Sarsour’s planned appearance at a company event marking Middle Eastern and North African Heritage Month, GEICO issued a statement saying, “We apologize to our employees, customers, and others for our initial plan to invite Linda Sarsour to speak at our internal event celebrating Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) Heritage Month. On Tuesday, we quickly cancelled the event.”

“GEICO does not condone hatred of any kind, and we do not stand for or with anyone who does,” the company said. “We are not aligned with any form of exclusion. We will continue to celebrate MENA Heritage Month in a way that aligns with our values.”

Circulating promotional material for the event on Wednesday afternoon, the organization Stop Antisemitism declared, “We are horrified a respectable company like @GEICO would choose to feature antisemitic bigot @lsarsour to represent the MENA region.”

Condemnation of the planned appearance was swift, with Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt tweeting, “Shocked a company like @GEICO is reportedly partnering with Linda Sarsour, a person who peddles in antisemitic tropes while slandering and delegitimizing Israel. If true, GEICO must act fast and reverse course.”

Greenblatt linked back to a 2019 tweet in which he said of a statement by Sarsour, “The amount of hate in Linda Sarsour’s latest diatribe is shocking. She slanders the founders of Israel as supremacists, invoking a centuries-old antisemitic trope when she describes them as having believed that Jews are ‘supreme to everybody else.’ She then compares American Jews’ support for Israel to domestic white supremacy.”

“This is morally offensive and utterly dangerous,” he said at the time. “Millions of Jews have been murdered in the name of white supremacy.”


Yisrael Medad: That "Palestine Manhole"
If you ever see a tweet with the picture of this "Palestine manhole", (obviously this is the British Mandate for Palestine-to-become-the reconstituted-Jewish-homeland), that is claimed to prove "Palestine" existed, show them these other pictures with the commercial symbol enlarged and a Palestine Post (a Jewish newspaper) advert.

The manufacturer was Vulcan Foundaries, a Jewish factory. And "Vulcan" is in Hebrew.


Thanks to Sharon Altshul Marks and Lion Hart.
UK Justice Minister: IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism Doesn't Shut Down Free Speech
UK Justice Minister Lord David Wolfson has hit out at claims that the government's adoption of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism infringes on its commitment to free speech. Speaking at the Jerusalem Post's London conference on Thursday, Lord Wolfson said: "It's calumny to say that the fight against anti-Semitism in some way shuts down free speech, it simply doesn't."

"Anti-Semitism is hate speech and all democracies have drawn a line between free speech and hate speech. There are things you cannot say because they are defamatory and there are things you cannot say because they are racist. Anti-Semitism is Jew-hatred. I also do not like the word anti-Semitism. I call it anti-Jewish racism. I think it is very important to see the fight against anti-Semitism as part of the fight against racism."

"There are some people who appear to have a blind spot when it comes to anti-Jewish racism, people who pronounce themselves anti-racist in relation to every other form of racism."
Pro-Palestinian activism doesn't excuse antisemitism
Recently the pro-Israel campaign group We Believe in Israel appealed to music giant Spotify to remove what they describe as “problematic content” from its platform. This includes music by the rapper Kareem Dennis, known as Lowkey. This has kicked off a backlash of support for Lowkey that includes celebrities ranging from actor Mark Ruffalo to comedian Frankie Boyle, musician Roger Waters and journalist Peter Beinart and intellectual Cornel West who, along with over 36,000 others, have signed a petition on his behalf. In the petition the claim is made that: “Lowkey has become the target of a coordinated smear campaign to demonize, defame and deplatform him.”

But has he been smeared or is there legitimate concern over the things he has said?

In a recent interview with Electronic Intifada contributor Asa Winstanley entitled ‘A History of NATO and Nazis’ Lowkey claimed that: "the MSM has weaponized the Jewish heritage of Zelensky the President of Ukraine to try to stave off these genuine inquiries into the groups fighting in Ukraine".

Last month he appeared as a guest on a programme called ‘Zionism and Ukraine’ broadcast on Iranian propaganda channel Press TV. The show was produced by recently sacked Bristol University professor David Miller and hosted by former Labour Member of Parliament Chris Williamson. During the show, Williamson asks Lowkey to elaborate on the relationship between Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky and President Zelensky, to which Lowkey responds: “Igor Kolomoisky a triple citizen, even though it’s illegal in Ukrainian law, of Ukraine, Cyprus and the Israeli regime…he’s also a citizen of that entity. He’s also a backer of the TV shows that Zelenskyy was a major star of and he was able to take him from being that star to his landslide victory to the landslide election in 2019.

"What’s interesting is that in addition to funding Zelensky he funded the Azov battalion and the Eidar battalion as well at the same time. Essentially the period of thrusting Zelenskyy in front of the masses on TV Kolomoisky was also funding these explicitly right wing and neo Nazi groups.”
Irish Left opposes sanctions targeting 'ordinary Russians,' supports BDS
Lawmakers from the Irish left-wing party People Before Profit spoke out against sanctions on Russia this week because they hurt ordinary people, while at the same time supporting BDS sanctions on Israel.

“We must oppose any escalation in this war, such as NATO intervention or sanctions that will hurt ordinary people in Russia,” said MP Richard Boyd Barrett.

People Before Profit’s four legislators faced public criticism for refusing to applaud Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky when he addressed the Oireachtas, as the Irish parliament is known.

PBP lawmaker Brid Smith said on a podcast for Irish TV station Newstalk that it failed to applaud “because of his calls today for more stringent sanctions on the Russian people... We don’t believe, in this instance, that sanctions will actually stop Putin doing the horrible, brutal, murderous things that he’s doing in Ukraine. They will hurt and severely hurt the Russian people.”

Asked how sanctions on Israel are different, she argued: “We support [sanctions on] Israel because of the illegal settlements.”

“But not against Russia because of the illegal war?” the interviewer asked.

Smith responded by asking not to be interrupted.

She said that “in certain circumstances,” like apartheid South Africa, sanctions do work.

“In Israel and Palestine, it is the Palestinians who are suffering hugely under the Israeli regime that are calling for sanctions and boycotts and divestment,” Smith said.

Smith did not, however, explain how that is different from Zelensky and other Ukrainians calling for sanctions on Russia.
Palestinian Apartheid Week as new approach to facing anti-Israel activity on campus
A pro-Israel student group is going on the offensive by tabling at multiple campuses across the United States, highlighting systemic discrimination against Jews in Palestinian-controlled territories such as the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the first time ever in what the group is calling Palestinian Apartheid Week.

Students Supporting Israel (SSI) has visited three college campuses throughout the country since March 21, highlighting the realities college students rarely confront about the Palestinian-controlled territories.

Issues like salaries paid to the families of Palestinian terrorists for killing Jews as part of a policy called “pay for slay”; the Palestinian Authority making it illegal to sell property to Jews; Jews not being able to openly pray at holy sites in the Palestinian territory unless accompanied by security; erasing the existence of Jews from Palestinian textbooks and maps; as well as Hamas’s charter calling for the killing of all Jews.

“Those policies—if someone wants to discuss true apartheid and discrimination and separation from people—this is it,” said Ilan Sinelnikov, president and founder of SSI. “This is maybe not even true apartheid because nothing is the same as South Africa, but this is the closest that can possibly be that shows signs of apartheid like that.”

The first week of the campaign coincided with Israel Apartheid Week.

Sinelnikov said that for 10 years, Jewish students at college campuses across North America had been put on the defensive every year during a week when Student for Justice In Palestine (SJP) demonstrate at college campuses around the world to accuse Israel of war crimes and apartheid. One commonly used gimmick for Israel Apartheid Week is to put up a large wall, modeled after the Israeli West Bank barrier, decorated in anti-Israel messages.

From the perspective of Jewish and Zionist students who walk past that wall on campus, with its messages and students spreading misinformation, it “makes you feel horrible, makes you feel you have nothing to respond to it,” he said.

Organizations often respond to it by hosting pro-Israel speakers at events that are usually indoors or by passing out fliers, which don’t get nearly the same amount of attention.
Breaking With Past, American Association of University Professors Refuses to Condemn Boycott of Israel By Middle East Studies Ass’n
The AAUP has maintained that position ever since. Until now. Now AAUP will remain silent in the face of action by MESA that is an offense not only to AAUP’s stated principles, but to academic freedom, as noted in an Op-Ed last December at the NY Post, Middle East Studies Association’s anti-Jewish BDS backing is a frontal attack on academic freedom

What changed? In a topic Legal Insurrection will be exploring in depth in future posts, AAUP Committee A membership, which governs academic freedom, has become increasingly hostile to Israel and supportive of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Recently, Committee A objected that legislative efforts to fight anti-Semitism, which incorporate the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, threaten faculty free speech rights. On March 24, Committee A published a statement complaining that IHRA’s definition “threaten[s] academic freedom” by allegedly suppressing “criticism” of Israel. In fact, the IHRA definition does not condemn mere criticism, but rather points out that efforts to delegitimize the Jewish State (as opposed to criticizing particular policies of the state) are an indicator of anti-Semitism.

“The AAUP’s March 2022 statement is another step in the escalating anti-Zionism of the AAUP’s most important committee, the source of its major statements since 1915,” says former AAUP president Cary Nelson with regard to the Committee A anti-Semitism statement. He continued, “When the AAUP says, ‘There is a clear connection between recent laws on antisemitic speech and those on teaching about racism,’ it means to condemn Israel as a racist state.”

AAUP now is shying away from protecting the academic freedom not only of Israelis, but of Americans who want to interact with Israeli academic institutions. This is a sad day for academic freedom.
12 Universities Urged to Drop Middle East Studies Association Over BDS Endorsement
A coalition of organizations that support academic freedom and oppose boycotts of Israel urged a dozen universities on Wednesday to disaffiliate from the Middle East Studies Association after it singled out the Jewish state for sanction.

In letters to top campus officials, the groups — including the Academic Engagement Network (AEN), AMCHA Initiative, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, and Scholars for Peace in the Middle East — argued that an academic boycott would “directly and substantively harm” students and faculty, as well as jeopardize the universities’ federal funding.

The letters came after MESA, which aims to promote academic study of the Middle East, voted to endorse the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel in late March. It boycotts no other country in the region.

Official guidelines issued by the BDS campaign for academic boycotts “urge faculty to work toward shutting down study abroad programs in Israel and to refuse to write recommendations for students who want to attend them,” the coalition wrote.

They also direct adherents “to scuttle their colleagues’ research collaborations with Israeli universities and scholars; and to cancel or shut down educational events organized by students or faculty featuring Israeli leaders or scholars, including those that promote coexistence and mutual understanding or that seek to ‘normalize’ Israel by presenting it in anything but a negative light.”

The groups juxtaposed these demands with the requirements attached to federal funds received by these schools under Title VI of the Higher Education Act.

“The purpose of this federal funding is to support international and foreign language studies, the exact opposite of what MESA’s resolution calls for its members to do with respect to Israel, a country in the region that they are being funded to study,” they wrote.
Chicago Maroon editors apologize for publishing piece condemning anti-Semitism
A student op-ed condemning anti-Semitism from University of Chicago’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter was removed by the Chicago Maroon, followed by an apology letter published by the editors of the Maroon’s opinion section, "Viewpoints."

First-year students Benjamin ZeBrack and Melody Dias wrote a now-deleted opinion piece denouncing the SJP chapter’s campaign to “Don't Take Sh*tty Zionist Classes,” alleging a pattern of anti-Semitism from the club. Dias is also the Jewish on Campus representative for the school.

In the apology letter, the Viewpoints editors claim ZeBrack and Dias used factual inaccuracies to “support Zionist and racist sentiments” and note that they understand the decision to censor the op-ed “could be seen as stifling Jewish voices.”

The editors defend that the club calling for a boycott on Zionists and Israeli fellows is not an attack on Jewish people, however the authors of the censored op-ed “believe that this was done to isolate and alienate the Jewish population.”

“The targeting of classes taught specifically by Israeli fellows is xenophobic as Israelis cannot change their nationality, and this post demonizes that nationality by declaring all courses taught by someone affiliated with the nation as propaganda," reads the piece.

It goes on to claim that the SJP chapter’s campaign violates the university’s discrimination and harassment policies, “as the Israeli faculty are directly discriminated against. As such, the Jewish student community is indirectly discriminated against.”

The school’s policy on harassment defines it as conduct that has the purpose of “unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or educational program participation, or that creates an intimidating, hostile, or offensive work or educational environment.”


Antisemitic Speaker at Duke University Mocks Jewish Students
When asked what would happen to Israelis if Palestinians took all the land “from the river to the sea” during Duke’s anti-Israel week, keynote speaker Mohammed El-Kurd replied “I don’t care. I truly, sincerely, don’t give a f…” The audience roared its approval. Clearly Duke University’s antisemitism problem is going from bad to worse.

Who is Mohammed El-Kurd? Despite his name he claims to be “Palestinian.” He has an extensive Canary Mission rap sheet detailing his hatred of Israel, Jews, America, the police, his adoration for terrorism, spreading misinformation, denial of Jewish history, and more. He is notorious for quotes such as “Zionists have an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood”. In his book Rifqa he claims that Israelis “harvest organs of the martyred, feed their warriors our own.”

Who decided to pay El-Kurd and put him on the university’s stage, to speak before Duke students and faculty? Duke has a history of hosting “Israel Apartheid Week” (IAW) in which lies about Israel and Jews are promulgated in order to destroy the world’s only Jewish state. In February, despite student concerns about inviting such an antisemitic speaker, the Duke Student Government voted—without a quorum— to spend $16,000 on IAW, which included $5,000 designated for El-Kurd. Ironically the vote also came soon after the DSG voted for the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Association) definition of antisemitism. Apparently the DSG doesn’t understand IHRA since they violated it so readily.

When the North Carolina Coalition (NCCI) learned about the plans for El-Kurd, we immediately became concerned for Jewish and Zionist students on campus. We warned Duke University that hosting Mohammed El-Kurd would create a hostile atmosphere for Jewish students on campus. NCCI and others sent letters and made phone calls to Duke president Vincent Price, Provost Sally Kornbluth, and the Office of Institutional Equity expressing our concern. CAMERA on Campus wrote a petition which garnered more than 2000 signatures on short notice, asking Duke to halt his funding. The response from the administration was a determined, deliberate silence that speaks volumes.


London’s Dickens Museum Tackles Antisemitism in New Program for Students
A museum in London dedicated to British author Charles Dickens has started a new program for schools about antisemitism that is focused on the novel Oliver Twist and a controversial character in it that is a Jewish villain, reported The Jewish Chronicle.

The initiative by the Dickens Museum comes after the publishing last year of the children’s book Dear Mr. Dickens, which tells the true story of Eliza Davis, the Jewish woman who wrote to Dickens about his portrayal of Fagin, the Jewish villainous pickpocket in Oliver Twist, and the author’s depiction of prejudice against Jews.

Cindy Sughrue, director of the museum, said: “It was finally giving us something to explore regarding the whole issue of antisemitism in Dickens’s writing of Oliver Twist, and for us, it was how do we unwrap that knotty topic in a way that we can communicate to the widest possible audience?”

The new program is available for primary schools in-person at the museum or online in an interactive session.

At the museum, children will analyze some of the problematic parts of Oliver Twist, thinking about discrimination in their lives and how they might challenge it, according to The Jewish Chronicle. American writer Nancy Churnin, the author of Dear Mr. Dickens, will take part in some virtual Q&As as part of the program, added the publication.
St. Lawrence Expels Student After Blood Stained Antisemitic, Demonic Incident
A St. Lawrence University student is being removed from campus after they cut themselves and drew disturbing images in blood in a dorm bathroom.

According to a campus email from St. Lawrence Dean of Student Life Hagi Bradley, the incident in Dean Eaton Hall was reported early Sunday morning. He said the images were “satanic and antisemitic in nature.”

The images were removed and security identified the individual responsible, who accepted responsibility. The university said the student is in the process of being removed from campus. The student’s name was not released for privacy reasons.

“These images have been removed, are not tolerated on our campus, and do not align with our institutional values,” Bradley said. He added university counselors are available to help other students.


30 Israelis make 2022 Forbes list of billionaires
Thirty Israeli billionaires have been included in Forbes magazine's annual World's Billionaires list, issued Wednesday.

The magazine noted that there are currently 2,668 billionaires worldwide with a combined worth of $12.7 trillion.

The richest Israeli man on the list is Eyal Ofer, chairman of Ofer Global Holdings, who ranks 117th with an estimated fortune of $15.4 billion. His brother Idan Ofer, majority shareholder of Israel Corp. and Kenon Holdings, ranks 188th with a net worth of $10.5 billion.

Stef Wertheimer and his family are ranked 411th with $6.2 billion, followed by Teddy Sagi, ranked 471 with $5.6 billion. Shari Arison is ranked 552nd with a net worth of $5 billion.

Dr. Miriam Adelson, the widow of Sheldon Adelson is number 50 on the Forbes list of billionaires for 2022, with a fortune of $27.5 billion. Adelson is Israel Hayom's publisher and the world's richest Israeli woman, but Forbes considers her to be based in the US as she is the sole heir to her late husband's casino empire.

Dimitry and Igor Bukhman, who own online gaming company Playrix, are ranked 275 with an empire of $8.5 billion and tech entrepreneur Yuri Milner is ranked 324 with a fortune of $7.3 billion.
US investment firm buys Israeli security company Tufin for $570 million
The Israeli cybersecurity company Tufin said Wednesday it will be acquired by the American investment firm Turn/River Capital at a value of $570 million.

Tufin said it had made a definitive agreement to be acquired by the software-focused investment firm in an all-cash transaction.

Tufin went public in the US in 2019 and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker TUFN. Under the agreement, Tufin will become a private company and will partner with Turn/River.

The deal is awaiting shareholder and regulatory approval and is expected to close in the coming months. JP Morgan is Tufin’s exclusive financial adviser for the agreement.

Tufin’s shareholders will receive $13 per share, around 44% above the share price on Tuesday, before the deal was announced. At that time, Tufin’s market cap was $324 million.

“As a private company, we will have the opportunity to accelerate our growth through investments in our technology, people and go-to-market,” said Tufin CEO Ruvi Kitov. “The team at Turn/River specializes in helping software companies like Tufin, and with their partnership and expertise I am confident that we will be able to achieve our long-term goals faster.”
Viz.ai Raises $100 Million at $1.2 Billion Valuation to Become Israel’s Newest Unicorn
Viz.ai has raised a $100 million Series D round at a $1.2 billion valuation. The pace at which new companies have joined Israel’s unicorn list has significantly slowed in 2022 compared to last year, but Viz.ai’s announcement on Thursday also stands out due to its sector of activity. The company develops an AI-powered disease detection and care coordination platform which is already in use in over 1,000 hospitals, serving millions of patients. Over the past year, Viz.ai launched AI-driven solutions for aortic disease, pulmonary embolism, cerebral aneurysms, and is 510(k) pending for subdural hematoma.

Viz.ai co-founder and CTO Dr. David Golan told Calcalist that the company is comfortable with its new valuation. “Our new valuation reflects our growth very well. Our valuation has grown just as our revenue has grown. We still haven’t used the money from our previous funding round and we now have money for the next four years. I’m not that interested in our valuation right now but rather where we will be in four years when our valuation is going to be far more significant,” explained Golan. “The investment market is tougher now than it was a year ago, but Viz brings something special to the table. Very few companies have a network with over 1,000 hospitals and the ability to generate significant business, which is something that gets VC funds excited.”

The Series D was led by Tiger Global and Insight Partners. Also joining the round were several of the company’s early backers including Scale Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Threshold, Google Ventures, Sozo Ventures, CRV, and Susa. Viz.ai’s previous round was in March of last year when it raised $71 million. The company has raised a total of $250 million to date.

Viz.ai has created a synchronized system of action for hospitals that delivers critical diagnostic data at decision-making moments and is clinically validated to improve patient care. Viz.ai solves the fundamental problem of connecting radiologists, emergency physicians, and primary care practitioners to the optimal specialists for a particular disease in order to facilitate care coordination and ensure optimized and consistent care pathways, reducing variability. It combines actionable computational diagnostics and precision medicine to make a significant improvement to patient outcomes and the financial efficiency of a health system. Viz.ai has dominated the stroke detection and triage market with the de novo FDA clearance of its stroke module and was the first AI software to receive approval from CMS for NTAP (New Technology Add-on Payment). Current customers include Mount Sinai Health System, HCA Healthcare, UPMC, and CommonSpirit Health.
Israeli drama ‘The Lesson’ receives top prize at Canneseries film festival
“The Lesson,” an Israeli drama highlighting political and educational tensions in Israel, on Wednesday received the Best Series award at this year’s Canneseries festival in France.

Maya Landsmann, who plays the heroine in the show and attended the last Canneseries event for her appearance in “Sad City Girls,” received the prize for best performance.

The show, created by the Kan public broadcaster, was described by Albin Lewi, the festival’s artistic director, as presenting “a social phenomenon” in Israel.

He added that the list of winners exemplified the “great variety” of the participating contestants.

The Israeli drama traces the repercussions of a political discussion that quickly escalates between a teacher and his student, at a time when social networks and disinformation exacerbate the tensions.

In 2018, the Israeli show “When Heroes Fly” was crowned best series at the prestigious festival.
Erdan Leads Mock Passover Seder for UN Ambassadors, Invokes Ukrainian Freedom
Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan hosted an early Passover seder on Wednesday at the United Nations.

About 50 ambassadors from countries all around the world, including the United States, Ukraine, Japan, Mexico, Argentina and Hungary, participated in the service and meal. They were served traditional Passover food and learned about the ceremony, its meaning, rituals and customs from leaders of the organization Aish.

Erdan initiated the event to strengthen the knowledge and understanding of ambassadors to the United Nations about the history of the Jewish people, the journey from slavery to freedom and the Jewish values that are reflected in the holiday customs, such as the struggle against oppression and slavery for freedom, the “Four Questions,” the four sons and more.

The group even sang the song, “Dayenu.”

He then universalized the message by invoking current events—namely, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has caused millions to flee as refugees since the war started on Feb. 24.

“As Israel’s ambassador, witnessing the atrocities in Ukraine continue makes me think that if Israel is faced with an existential threat, no international agreement or international organization will come to our rescue. We can only rely on ourselves,” he said.


Holocaust Survivor, Subject of Oscar and Emmy-Winning Film, Dies at 97
Holocaust survivor and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Gerda Weissmann Klein died on Sunday at age 97.

Born in 1924 in Poland, she survived three Nazi concentration camps, where she almost died from exhaustion, overwork and a forced death march through her native country, Germany and the Czech Republic. Though she survived, both of her parents and brother died in the Holocaust. After World War II, she married Kurt Klein, a soldier and one of her American liberators, and they moved to the United States.

Weissmann Klein wrote 10 books, including her autobiography “All But My Life,” which was made in 1995 into a 40-minute documentary short called “One Survivor Remembers.”

The film won an Emmy for Outstanding Informational Special and an Oscar for Best Documentary (Short Subject). “One Survivor Remembers” is now part of the National Film Registry and is available for educators as a part of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Teaching Tolerance program, according to Deadline.

In 1997, Weissmann Klein was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Governing Council by then-President Bill Clinton.

She served as keynote speaker at the inaugural UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2006; two years later, she co-founded the non-profit organization Citizenship Counts, which educates students about their rights and responsibilities as US citizens.




 

 

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