New employees hired by Ben & Jerry’s are required to watch four video lectures featuring activists discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as part of their orientation, Jewish Insider has learned.
The videos are part of what the ice cream company dubbed “Scooper Series: Social Mission” and address racism in the U.S. and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an employee who viewed the videos.
In a portion of one of the videos, which was reviewed by JI, Omar Shakir, who serves as Human Rights Watch’s Israel and Palestine director, attempts to explain Israel’s policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians.
“If you look at the recent escalation that took place in May of 2021, it started over discriminatory efforts to force Palestinians out of their homes in occupied East Jerusalem as part of this larger policy,” Shakir says in the video.
“The policy also extends to the Gaza Strip,” he continues. “Although the Israeli government withdrew its settler population and ground forces in 2005, the Israeli government continues to exercise control over Gaza. And our study of Israeli policy over the last 16 years shows that it sought as [well as] pursued a written policy of separation between Gaza and the West Bank. Its enforcement of this policy largely aims to prevent Gaza residents from moving to the West Bank as part of a policy to remove the large Palestinian population in Gaza — 2 million people living in a 25-by-seven-mile territory — off Israel’s demographic balance sheet.”
The ice cream company did not respond to a request for comment.
Shakir, who was expelled from Israel in 2019, had reportedly counseled the Ben & Jerry’s board last year, ahead of the ice cream company’s decision to stop selling its products in what it referred to as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.” Shakir did not respond to a request for comment.
Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams sits on the board of a foundation that funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to an anti-Israel activist who has praised terrorists and encouraged violence against Jews.
Abrams joined the Marguerite Casey Foundation board in May 2021, business filings show. Roughly six months later, the foundation announced its 2021 cohort of "Freedom Scholars," a group of "leading thinkers and scholars … in critical fields including abolitionist, Black, feminist, queer, radical, and anti-colonialist studies." Included in the group was UCLA professor Robin D.G. Kelley, a leading Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) activist who works with groups that collaborate with Palestinian terrorists.
Kelley, who received $250,000 through the program, praised the Palestine Liberation Organization—a U.S.-designated terror group—as "revolutionary combatants" and "models for those of us dedicated to Black liberation and socialism" in a 2016 article. Three years prior, Kelley encouraged Palestinians to use violence against Israelis, calling the notion that Palestinians should only protest non-violently a "bludgeon to beat down Palestinian organizations." Kelley also advises the U.S. Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, a group that operates to advance the BDS movement on college campuses. The campaign's fiscal sponsor, Al-Awda, works with Palestinian terrorist organizations such as Hamas to grow BDS and routinely hosts convicted Islamic jihadists at its events, the Jerusalem Post reported in 2019.
Abrams’s role in funding Kelley provides a startling window into how the Democrat could handle the BDS movement and larger issues of anti-Semitism on Georgia’s college campuses should she defeat Gov. Brian Kemp (R.) in November. As governor, Abrams would appoint members to the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, which oversees the state’s public colleges and universities. Georgia legislators passed a law in 2016 that forbids the state from contracting a person or company that promotes a boycott of Israel, but a federal judge struck that law down in May 2021. Abrams opposed the law as a state representative and reportedly refused to meet with pro-Israel activists at the time.
It is unclear whether Abrams was directly involved with the grant to Kelley. When she joined the foundation's board in 2021, she emphasized that a major part of her role would be determining "how the philanthropic network targets its contributions." Neither Abrams nor the foundation responded to inquiries on her involvement with the Freedom Scholars program. Abrams has earned more than $52,000 from the foundation since 2020, her financial disclosures show.
In addition to Kelley's anti-Israel activism, the professor has called himself a "communist for life" and argued that capitalism is inherently racist. The Marguerite Casey Foundation also awarded $250,000 to a pair of academics—Angelica Chazaro and Ananya Roy—who advocate for the abolition of prisons and private property, respectively.
Jihadist militants imprisoned in the United States are receiving cash and legal assistance from a website similar to Facebook that connects them with terrorist sympathizers and publicizes their location, including "GPS-coordinated satellite imagery of the facilities at which the inmates are held," according to a watchdog group.
"At least two incarcerated ISIS operatives maintain registered profiles on the website, suggesting the accounts were generated by the operatives themselves," according to a new investigation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), a watchdog group that tracks jihadist behavior online. "Online ISIS supporters have raised awareness about ISIS operatives' profiles on the website, raising potential security risks." MEMRI is withholding the website's direct address to avoid aiding in its recruitment.
ISIS uses social media and the internet as a recruitment tool, and its online efforts to assist convicted terrorists in American prisons raise domestic "security risks," according to MEMRI. ISIS wants to establish a direct line between imprisoned terrorists and their supporters across the globe, allowing them to exchange information and potentially plot attacks. The prisoners are also receiving monetary support from the website, raising concerns that these funds are coming directly from ISIS affiliates.
The website allows these convicted terrorists to connect with other militants and ISIS sympathizers who can provide them with monetary assistance and legal help, according to the report. In-depth information about the federal detention centers where these inmates are held also is available on the site, making these locations vulnerable to a possible attack or other ISIS-backed operation.
"Chatter in pro-ISIS chat rooms about the website may raise security concerns for the facilities where the operatives are held," according to MEMRI. "The website provides addresses and GPS-coordinated satellite imagery of the facilities at which the inmates are held."
Inmates who join the site can "claim their criminal records" by providing photographic documentation and verifying their identity. Entries include contact information, links to similar websites, writings from these terrorists, and other information about their crimes.
Norway’s recent decision to label food products from Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria is not about upholding international law, but about discriminating against the Jewish state, law expert professor Eugene Kontorovich told JNS.
Kontorovich, director of international law at the Jerusalem-based Kohelet Policy Forum, said that Israel needs to respond more robustly to such moves.
“Actions like this take place in part because European countries have come to expect a mild reaction on Israel’s part–a strong statement and then business as usual,” he said. “When it comes to discriminatory trade measures, countries can expect to get picked on if they don’t retaliate.”
Norway has defended its decision, stating that it is in line with a 2019 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, but Kontorovich is unconvinced.
In addition to the facts that Norway is not a member of the European bloc and the court’s decision was not a binding one, he said, the Scandinavian country was acting hypocritically.
Norway is “passionate about the cause of [the disputed] Western Sahara, but still labels products from that territory as ‘Made in Morocco,'” he noted.
Kontorovich is not the only expert who believes Norway’s decision had more to do with discrimination than with the rule of law.
According to thinc., a think tank located in the Hague, there is a fair level of bias and hypocrisy when it comes to the labeling of products made by Israelis living beyond the 1949 armistice lines.
Thinc. director Andrew Tucker has highlighted an example in the Netherlands, where the Israel Products Centre (IPC) imports and sells many goods, including wines produced in what most of the international community calls the West Bank. In April 2019, the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) inspected IPC’s shop in Nijkerk, responding to complaints that the center was selling these wines with a “Made in Israel” label.
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The weekend I moved to Boston was the same weekend that The Mapping Project and BDS Boston released their map of Boston — which aims to analyze policing, white supremacy, and somehow, Judaism.
The locations of synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions are logged in their interactive database, which puts Jews and Jewish institutions in danger. And it appeals to centuries-old tropes about Jews and power, legitimizes them in the public eye, and then distances itself from anti-Jewish violence.
The Anti-Defamation League recorded 2,717 reported antisemitic incidents in 2021, the highest number ever logged since they began tracking the data in 1979. Antisemitic incidents in Massachusetts also reached a record high last year. Massachusetts is facing a growing Neo-Nazi movement, as evidenced by the man who attempted to blow up a Jewish assisted-living residence in Longmeadow in 2020; or the author of antisemitic and racist manifestos, who murdered two Black people in Winthrop last summer; or by antisemitic graffiti found in bathrooms at Marblehead elementary school this year.
When groups like BDS Boston implicate Jews in white supremacy, they amplify a false narrative. Antisemitism animates white supremacy — not the Jews. By creating lists, a similar mechanism to how Jews were scapegoated and surveilled throughout history, The Mapping Project and BDS Boston contribute to the cycle of anti-Jewish violence.
Additionally, this type of work is labeled as “activism,” which detracts from the power of true and successful activism. There are social-justice driven organizations and non-profits that make maps that serve a purpose. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, maintains a hate map that tracks hate groups across the United States. The Movement Advancement Project offers Democracy Maps, which show a roadmap of state election laws and policies, along with how they differ across the country. Such maps are grounded in reality rather than conspiracy, and mobilize people to positive action, rather than to hate.
Greater Boston holds the fourth-largest Jewish community in the country. It is home to dozens of shuls and synagogues, Jewish schools, and institutions. As I navigate Boston, I am wary of this map and the potential it has to incite violence against my community.
Canada's list of terrorist organizations should be abolished, said Khaled Barakat — The subject of controversy in Canada for his alleged ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization — at the International League of Peoples' Struggle (ILPS) in Canada's 5th assembly at the Ottawa city-owned Foster Farm Community Centre on June 3.
Abolishment of Canadian terrorism list
"It has to be abolished," Barakat said at the event. He complained that Hezbollah, Hamas and PFLP we officially recognized by Canada as terrorist organizations.
"Canada is listing Palestinians and Arab organizations on the so-called terrorist list," he said.
"Now, we challenge the Canadian government and we say 'why are you listing for example, the Popular Front [for the Liberation of Palestine] on your terrorist list? What did the PFLP actually did [sic] against Canada and Canada [sic] interests or commit any kind of crimes against Canadians here or abroad? Zero. Nothing."
Khaled Barakat
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) noted on Thursday that Lonna Sabah and Rabbi Haim Rothman were Canadian citizens who were victims of PFLP terrorist attacks.
This is not the first time Barakat has called for the abolishment of the terrorist list. On a May 12 episode of the Security in Context Podcast, Barakat called for the list's end. He was a guest on the podcast to denounce what he described as a "smear campaign" following an expose on Barakat in the National Post that reviewed the evidence of Barakat's leadership role in the PFLP.
What are the odds that both David Miller and Jeremy Corbyn would be honoured by the Palestinian Authority?
A video report in the Independent (“Palestinian bride holds wedding at ruins of her Jerusalem house demolished by Israeli authorities”, June 12), by Eleonora Girotto, included the unchallenged claim that “it is almost impossible [for Palestinians in Jerusalem] to get building authorisation from the city, forcing them to build homes without permits”.
As CAMERA has previously demonsrated, this assertion – attributed in the article to annonymous “Palestinians” – is contradicted by the data. In fact, the proportion of the total permits issued in east Jerusalem that went to Palestinian neighborhoods in that part of the city (where most Jerusalem Palestinians live) has averaged around 40% in recent years.
A chart based on data the Jerusalem municipality shared with Peace Now shows a distinct upward trend in the proportion of permits that went to Arab neighborhoods in east Jerusalem.
As the following chart from the anti-settlement group Peace Now shows, in the most recent year of available data, 2018, the rate of construction permit approvals for Palestinian neighborhoods in east Jerusalem (841) exceeded approvals for Jewish neighborhoods in that part of the city (780).
A federal appeal court in Germany has ruled against a Jewish activist who sought the removal of an anti-Jewish carving from the 13th century that adorns a church in the historic city of Wittenberg, bringing to a close a legal battle that has been waged for more than four years.
In a decision on Monday, Germany’s Federal Court of Justice upheld earlier rulings in the lower courts to prevent the removal of the offensive statue, known as the “Judensau” (“Jew pig”), from the church where Martin Luther, the fiercely antisemitic 16th century Protestant leader, famously preached.
At least 50 churches in Germany display the same medieval image, with the most well-known example at the 700-year-old church in Wittenberg. The carving shows a group of Jews on their knees eagerly suckling a pig, an animal whose meat is forbidden under Jewish law. It also contains the words “Vom Schem Hamphoras” — an insulting corruption of one of the names for God in the Jewish tradition.
Presiding judge Stephan Seiters told the court that there was no need to remove the Judensau — as demanded by the plaintiff, 79-year-old Michael Düllmann — as in 1988, the church had erected a memorial around the carving that referred to the historic persecution of Jews and the six million Jews murdered during the Nazi Holocaust.
According to Seiters, prior to the addition of the memorial, the carving expressed a “massively defamatory statement about the Jewish people and their religion.” However, the display could now reasonably said to have been converted from a monument to “shame” into a “memorial,” the judge argued.
Following the court’s decision, Germany’s Jewish community voiced concern that the memorial around the Judensau was insufficient. The head of the Central Council of Jews, Josef Schuster, said the court’s decision to allow the statue to stay was understandable but argued that the memorial and sign did not contain “an unequivocal condemnation of the antisemitic sculpture.”
A new law passed in Quebec imposing the French language is drawing pushback from Jewish leaders.
Passed on May 24 by the National Assembly of Quebec, “Bill 96, An Act respecting French, the official and common language of Québec,” declared “that the only official language of Quebec is French” and mandated that workers in civil administration, education, healthcare, and justice, use only French to conduct official business. The law also limits the amount of non-French instruction public school students can receive and forbids employers from making fluency in a non-French language a job requirement.
On Monday, B’nai B’rith Canada described Bill 96 as “detrimental to the interests of Quebec’s Jewish population” for violating English language rights — a contentious topic in Quebec politics since the 1970s, when the Parti Quebecois (PQ), a separatist movement, emerged to oppose the increasing everyday use of English and demanded that the province become a sovereign state.
“The government has not made a case of how this law truly strengthens the French language,” B’nai B’rith Canada director Marvin Rotrand said in a statement. “It simply throws petty roadblocks up for hundreds of thousands of ordinary Quebecers by reducing their access to important daily services. It threatens good Samaritan civil servants who might try to help a senior by speaking a few words of English. It calls on citizens to make anonymous denunciations.”
“That isn’t Canada and in fact isn’t even a reflection of how Quebecers see themselves,” he added.
A Medal of Freedom awarded to a notorious mobster by then-US President Harry S. Truman is set to go under the hammer in California.
The honor — a forerunner to the prestigious Presidential Medal of Freedom — was bestowed by Truman on Meyer “The Little Man” Lansky in a secret 1945 ceremony.
Meyer was a leader of the National Crime Syndicate, a confederation of organized crime groups that was responsible for hundreds of murders in the 1930s and 1940s.
It was for his role in “Operation Husky” during World War II that Lanksy and his fellow gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano were awarded one of the highest civilian honors in the United States.
The two mobsters passed information and contacts to Allied Forces during the 1943 invasion of Sicily, connecting advancing soldiers with high-ranking members of the Sicilian Mafia.
Introductions included Calogero “Don Calo” Vizzini, a man sometimes dubbed “the boss of bosses” in the Cosa Nostra.
Vizzini helped lead the invading Allies through a difficult mountain pass, as well as provided maps that were key to the defeat in Sicily of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
The medal, which is expected to fetch up to $60,000, is among a raft of mob memorabilia coming up for auction.
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are ranked together as the fourth best startup ecosystem for agricultural technology in a global survey by the research firm Startup Genome.
The study, called the Global Agtech and New Food Ranking, scores cities according to their performance in the field, the availability of funding, startup experience, knowledge, talent and focus.
The two Israeli cities trailed first-place Silicon Valley, New York City and London.
Tel Aviv and Jerusalem are the only locations in the Middle East and North Africa region to score a spot in the list of 35 cities, which was dominated by North America and Europe.
Startup Genome defined agtech as using technology in agriculture and related fields to increase yield, efficiency and profitability by monitoring and analyzing weather, pests, soil and air temperature. New Food covers technology that can be used to boost efficiency and sustainability in designing, producing, choosing, delivering, and consuming food.
Startup Genome is a leading research firm based in San Francisco that has ranked startup ecosystems worldwide in an annual report since 2012. The group ranks Tel Aviv as 7th worldwide, saying its strongest areas are AI, big data, analytics and cybersecurity.
Qualcomm, a major US tech company, has acquired Israel’s Cellwize Wireless Technologies, a maker of cloud and artificial intelligence-based software that can help speed up the deployment of 5G networks.
Qualcomm announced the deal on Thursday without disclosing financial details. Estimates put the price tag at around $350 million.
The US corporation is a leading producer of semiconductors, software and other solutions for mobile devices and wireless technology.
The San Diego-based company has been pushing the development and rollout of 5G, the faster and more powerful fifth-generation cellular network technology.
Cellwize specializes in 5G mobile network automation and management. Its software, including its flagship CHIME platform, allows mobile operators to automatically launch 5G networks with very little manual intervention.
Its 5G network deployment, automation and management software capabilities will contribute to Qualcomm’s 5G infrastructure, Qualcomm said in a statement announcing the deal.
Two young people buried in an Umayyad Dynasty Era grave site in Syria share some DNA with a subgroup of modern-day Bedouin from the Negev Desert in Israel and to a lesser degree with Yemenite Jews, according to a recently published study.
Until recently important bioarcheological data was more difficult to retrieve due to the poor preservation of organic materials in harsh environments. Use of new technologies more capable of analyzing degraded material allowed researchers to analyze the DNA remains of the two individuals who had been found at a burial site at Tell Qarassa in modern day Syria, believing them originally to be from the Neolithic period.
The results of their research were recently published in the peer reviewed Communications Biology journal section of Nature. The study included researchers from Spain, Sweden, Syria, Turkey, the USA, the UK, France and Australia.
“ANCIENT DNA ANALYSIS is a powerful tool to provide a genomic snapshot of this dynamic period, giving insight into past demographic processes of a currently conflicted and inaccessible territory of the Levant,” the researchers wrote.
The team
The team, coordinated by archaeogeneticist Cristina Valdiosera of the University of Burgos, Spain, explored general patterns of genetic affinity to modern populations and initially compared the two newly sequenced ancient DNA samples from the Umayyad Era individuals to that of the published DNA sequences of 262 ancient individuals from the Near East, Western Europe, North and sub-Saharan Africa from a broad set of modern Middle Eastern, Arabian Peninsula, European and North African groups.
They found that the Umayyad Era DNA sequencing did not cluster around that of any published ancient Levantine individuals, and the ancient groups they were closest to were Bronze Age Canaanites and groups from Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Bronze Age Levant, according to the report.
The two Umayyad Era individuals fell between the modern genetic variations in the Middle East and Arabian Peninsula, leaning more toward that of the Arabian Peninsula, said the researchers.
To better pinpoint the genetics, the researchers conducted further analysis comparing their DNA sequences to that of 37 modern groups from the Middle East, Arabian Peninsula and Caucasus. The results positioned the Umayyad DNA remains between groups known to originate from or inhabiting the Arabian Peninsula, including Saudi, Yemenite Jews and two Bedouin groups, including a group in today’s Israeli Negev Desert, noted the report.
Renowned filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was among 19 others presented with an honorary degree from Hebrew University on Monday.
Tarantino, who is married to an Israeli woman and moved to Israel in 2020, was presented with the honorary “Doctor Philosophiae Honoris Causa."
“In recognition of his critically acclaimed cinematic success as a writer, director, and actor; honoring his ten blockbuster movies and numerous Academy Awards… and in tribute to his strong ties to Israel through his wife Daniella, and for making Israel his second home,” the Board of Governors declared on his degree.
The honorees were distinguished by academic leadership, creative achievement, or activities of notable benefit to humanity, the State of Israel, or the Jewish people. Tarantino was joined by legal scholar Lee Epstein, Israeli artist Sigalit Landau, and other academics and philanthropists.
“Leaders inspire. They show us the way forward and light up the path for those who follow. Our honorees are all driven by a pioneering spirit and a deep sense of mission, whether in the field of academia, business, civic service or philanthropy, and their contributions are boundless.”
Hebrew University President Professor Asher Cohen
