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Tuesday, December 20, 2022

12/20 Links Pt2: To tackle the oldest hatred, it’s not enough to just teach the Holocaust; Caroline Glick: Hanukkah and the new imperialist assault on Judaism; Airbnb launches positive series of articles about Israeli hosts

From Ian:

Stephen Pollard: To tackle the oldest hatred, it’s not enough to just teach the Holocaust
In much of the West there is an assumption among both Jews and those who sympathize with them that teaching people about the Holocaust somehow inoculates them against anti-Semitism. Stephen Pollard observes that education about the Shoah in Britain is very good, but evidence shows that hostility toward Jews is nonetheless on the rise:

Last year, I was told by the anti-extremism educator Charlotte Littlewood of her experience in one school. After giving training to a sixth form about 9/11, a teacher approached her about the session. Why, he asked, had she ignored the “evidence” that 9/11 was organized by the Jews?

Ms. Littlewood is the author of a study cited today by the government’s so-called “anti-Semitism tsar” Lord Mann in his ground-breaking report calling for all schools to have policies to recognize and combat anti-Semitism, which should also be part of teacher training. (One might also point out the inherent irony of the phrase “anti-Semitism tsar.”)

Her study found that recorded anti-Semitic incidents in schools in England have nearly trebled over the past five years. But a mere 47 schools have any kind of formal, written policy that “might make staff more aware of the vicious forms of anti-Semitic bullying”—such as making a hissing sound when Jewish pupils enter a classroom in a reference to the Nazi gas chambers.

[In fact], some of those who think of themselves as being profoundly anti-racist nonetheless harbor stereotypically anti-Semitic thoughts about Jews—that they are rich, they control the media, they stick together, and so on. They won’t even recognize that these are racist ideas, seeing them merely as statements of fact. This explains how you can teach the Holocaust and yet not make any impact on dealing with living, breathing anti-Semitism. Or, to put it another way, the bar for anti-Jewish racism is set at the level of killing Jews.
A Festival of Light for Dark Times
A Hanukkah message from Theodor Herzl, 125 years ago

As noted by the historian Daniel Polisar, Herzl was likely writing autobiographically. He had customarily purchased a Christmas tree for his family and was more well-versed in Latin, Greek, and German than he was in Hebrew. But he was developing the realization that candles of national pride and Jewish tradition, once lit, could attract companions. Writing a few months after the First Zionist Congress—whose 125th anniversary was marked in Basel in 2022—Herzl hoped for the progressing of his project of national reclamation. He anticipated the most desperate, the young and the poor, would be the first to see the light.

Then the others join in, all those who love justice, truth, liberty, progress, humanity, and beauty. When all the candles are ablaze everyone must stop in amazement and rejoice at what has been wrought. And no office is more blessed than that of a servant of this light.

Though Hanukkah is undoubtedly a uniquely Jewish holiday, commemorating the bloody battle for the preservation of its ancient practices and beliefs 2,000 years ago, all Americans may find inspiration in Herzl’s depiction. After all, imagining the reinvigoration of political unity and patriotic pride in the United States today seems no less far-fetched than Herzl’s dream for a renewed Israel seemed on the eve of 1898. Even if we willed it, we undoubtedly feel, it would probably remain just a dream.

Yet, during the American colonies’ earliest decades, and as the colonists subsequently developed hope for independence from Britain, they looked to the branches of a tree to reflect the potential of shared national purpose. Old elms were deemed “Liberty Trees,” a symbol of what one observer called “that Liberty which our Forefathers sought out, and found under Trees, and in the Wilderness.” The biblically tinged image, like the menorah, acknowledges separate branches, but emphasizes the shared root that feeds its growth. It reminds us that by drawing from our common core we might yet expand outward and upward.

In the dark desperation of our current societal disunity, consideration of what Herzl termed the “marvel of the Maccabees” may serve as a hopeful reminder, a means of reclaiming our own sense of national pride and purpose. If we remind ourselves and the next generation of the faith in which we were forged, and envision a brighter, more joyous tomorrow, we may yet find companions amid the slumbering darkness. We may yet find ourselves servants of the light.
Ruthie Blum: No, Gray Lady, the ‘bedrock’ of US-Israel relations isn’t a two-state solution
In a social media post on Sunday, Prime Minister-designate Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu blasted the Gray Lady for its gall.

“After burying the Holocaust for years on its back pages and demonizing Israel for decades on its front pages, The New York Times now shamefully calls for undermining Israel’s elected incoming government,” he tweeted, in response to a weekend editorial titled: “The Ideal of Democracy in a Jewish State Is in Jeopardy.”

He was right to fight back, as the piece not only asserted that his coalition-in-formation poses a “significant threat to Israel’s future—its direction, its security and even the idea of a Jewish homeland”; it also urged the administration in Washington and the American public to support the “moderating forces” in the country that are “already planning energetic resistance.”

Not that Bibi’s response will do any good, other than reminding those who long ago realized that the “newspaper of record”—a broken one where Israel is concerned—doesn’t deserve its self-anointed reputation as a reliable source on any issue.

Nor did its horror at the return to the helm of the longest-serving premier in Israel’s history come as a shock to anyone, least of all Netanyahu himself. On the contrary, had it expressed a more positive view of the cabinet now taking shape in Jerusalem, it would have lost the remainder of its shrinking readership to publications that refuse to compromise on their unabashed radicalism.

In fairness, albeit ill-deserved, the Times and other “anti-Israel-is-the-new-pro-Israel” periodicals abroad are taking their cue from the “anybody but Bibi” contingent at home. The latter’s way of bemoaning its uncontestable Nov. 1 ballot-box defeat has been to decry the imminent demise of democracy at the hands of extremists bent on transforming the Jewish state into an unrecognizable, racist, homophobic theocracy.

The irony is that the bulk of the wokeratti, who can take considerable credit for the electorate’s rightward pull, didn’t use to praise the country for its liberal values. The sudden nostalgia—while the current caretaker government of Yair Lapid hasn’t even left its perch—is not merely laughable, it explains the Times’s disingenuous reference to “Israel’s proud tradition as a boisterous and pluralistic democracy.”


Caroline Glick: Hanukkah and the new imperialist assault on Judaism
Ahead of Hanukkah, two students at Colgate University in New York vandalized a campus menorah. When they were caught, they explained that they didn’t mean it. They were just drunk.

The incident at Colgate isn’t a big story in and of itself, because anti-Jewish incidents on campuses happen every day, all over the United States. However, the explanation the students provided for their behavior—“We were drunk”—exposes a larger truth. Their thinking, apparently, was that their drunkenness made their deed understandable. Of course, if you’re drunk, you’d think it was a good idea to vandalize a Jewish religious symbol. Everyone hates Jews, so if you want to prove that you’re cool and with it, as drunken students invariably do, the right move is to destroy a menorah.

Last month, the AMCHA Initiative published an extraordinary and vital study on the design and aim of antisemitism on U.S. campuses. In the aftermath of the latest round of Hamas’s terror war against Israel in May 2021, assaults against Jews at U.S. colleges and universities doubled. The AMCHA Initiative report, “Campus Antisemitism and the Assault on Jewish Identity,” was authored by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin and Leila Beckwith. Benjamin and Beckwith explained that antisemitism on college campuses cannot be understood simply by counting the number of verbal and physical assaults on Jewish students. The phenomenon is much broader and far more insidious than mere attacks like the drunken vandalization of a menorah.

The AMCHA Initiative report demonstrates that antisemitism on campus is an all-out assault on Jewish identity. The assault is undertaken by three groups: Faculty members who support and work to advance the campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel and its supporters on their campuses; non-Jewish BDS campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine; and Jewish anti-Zionist groups like Jewish Voice for Peace. Working separately and together, faculty, non-Jewish BDS groups and Jewish BDS groups assault Jewish identity in three ways.

First, they seek to redefine what Judaism is. Consistent, multiyear surveys show that some 80% of American Jews say that supporting Israel is an essential component of their Jewish identity. This isn’t surprising. Identification with the Jewish people and the Land of Israel have been foundational components of Jewish identity from time immemorial. The campus antisemitic groups insist that Zionism—that is, support for and identification with Israel—is alien to Judaism, that Judaism has been “occupied” by Zionism and that Zionism is an assault against “authentic” Judaism.
Jonathan Tobin: The ‘Jew-Free Zones’ at Berkeley story wasn’t ‘misinformation’
In other words, targeting Jews and Israel-supporters—in the very manner that the groups at Berkeley Law have now done—would be considered violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and place the school in jeopardy of losing federal funding. This would be tantamount to a fatal blow, in an era in which nearly all institutions rely heavily on grants and allocations from Washington.

This was a move that the Obama administration, eager to distinguish hatred against Israel and pro-Israel Jews from that of traditional antisemitism, had refused to make. When Joe Biden took office, the expectation was that the OCR would similarly back away from tough Title VI enforcement against antisemitism.

This is what makes its decision to investigate the “Jew-free zones” at Berkeley so significant. It shows that, despite the cries of outrage from the left about Trump’s order—based on the false claim that he was seeking to silence criticism of Israel—the IHRA definition of antisemitism that he embraced is now settled law.

It’s a shocking development for left-wing Jews who believed that their labeling of the Berkeley story as “misinformation” would ensure that the OCR wouldn’t even look into the matter. They had mustered three different arguments against what they considered to be right-wing Zionist exploitation of a minor incident.

One was that it was just student groups declaring their own spaces, not the law school’s or the university’s, to be off-limits to Zionists. But an institution’s permitting of open discrimination against Jews on campus is tantamount to an endorsement. It would certainly and rightly be called out as such if a school allowed a student group to exhibit similar prejudice against blacks, Hispanics or Asians.

The second was that the nine groups adopting the discriminatory bylaws constitute only a handful of the more than 100 student associations on the campus. That’s technically true, but these aren’t merely tiny clubs for arcane hobbies like chess, opera-appreciation or bird-watching. They include the Women of Berkeley Law, Asian Pacific American Law Students Association, Middle Eastern and North African Law Students Association, Law Students of African Descent and the Queer Caucus. Taken together, they represent a clear majority of the school’s students.

The third, articulated at length by Eshman, echoed the critiques of Trump’s executive order. He claimed that Marcus and other pro-Israel figures had been waging “a decades-long campaign to equate anti-Israel opinion and measures with antisemitism,” and linked his column to a piece in the far-left, anti-Zionist Jewish Currents publication that sought to legitimize efforts to destroy Israel—and to claim they had nothing to do with actual Jew-hatred.

The notion that treating anti-Zionist agitation and attempts to silence and shun pro-Israel Jews as antisemitism is “viewpoint discrimination” is standard on the left. It’s been employed to defend BDS and so-called “liberated ethnic studies” courses in California.
Jonathan Greenblatt: In fighting antisemitism, Jews can be our own worst enemies - opinion
How can Jews stand together against antisemitism while respecting our ideological divides?

First, this isn’t a moment to try to win each other over. This is a moment to declare that every Jew matters and is worth protecting. We may disagree on many things, but we can appreciate that difference doesn’t have to equal division. We cannot allow the toxic partisanship that has seeped into so much of our society to poison our communal spaces. There are no “Tikkun Olam” Jews. There are no “Trump” Jews. There are only Jews, and we need to remember the dictum — you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Second, we should recognize that self-defense starts with self-love and self-knowledge. Jewish literacy is essential to our long-term survival. Many like to remark how Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel prayed with his feet — but he did so in part because he wrapped tefillin with his hands. This is not to say that we all need to observe our faith in the same manner. There are plenty of Jewish people who opt out of ritual entirely, and yet their connection to our peoplehood is as strong and as valid as those who daven, or pray, every day. But shared values that emanate from Torah still bind us as a people — we need to redouble, not just our efforts to pass on these values to our children in ways that relate to the next generation, but we also must relearn these values ourselves.

Third, we must never allow our ideological blinders to gloss over or ignore antisemitism from those who are generally our political allies. We must be morally firm and call out antisemitism where we see it, and not just when it is convenient politically. We must be equally fierce in the political circles where we belong, where we ultimately have more influence and clout, as in simply calling out hatred by pointing to those on the other side.

During his lifetime, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson shared his wisdom about the fact that while every Jewish person is a unique individual, as a people we share a “basic commonality that joins us into a single collective entity.” The Lubavitcher Rebbe understood that this unity has sustained the Jewish people throughout history.

If we look to our ancestors, we can see examples of how holding together at times of strife has made our community stronger. It’s quite possible that we may be living in one of those difficult periods again. I hope we can meet the moment.
Jewish Council for Public Affairs announces major organizational reset
On Monday, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs stated its intention to pursue a major organizational reset which will give it more latitude to pursue liberal advocacy.

“JCPA going forward will be a national convener of Jewish coalitions working to build a just and inclusive America—bringing together many local and national Jewish community relations and advocacy organizations in common cause with other diverse communities,” said the statement from the umbrella body for Jewish Community Relations Councils.

The advocacy group presents an unabashed liberal agenda to policymakers and the public, including expanding abortion access, ending the detention of illegal migrants and classifying climate change as “a key racial justice issue.”

In August 2020, JCPA signed onto a full-page New York Times ad in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. BLM has a history of antisemitic statements and actions.

“Now is the time for the American Jewish community to increase its voice and impact by dramatically expanding our civic and intergroup engagement with an effective and increasingly strategic network that mobilizes advocates, including through Jewish Community Relations Councils (JCRCs) and national organizations,” said David Bohm, JCPA Board Chair and leader of the Restructuring Team that conceptualized this reset. Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicate by email and never miss our top stories “As we succeed in advancing a just and inclusive society, the security and well-being of all, including the Jewish community and Israel will be greatly enhanced,” Bohm added.
'NYT' Response to Prior Crossword Swastika Accusations Resurfaces
The New York Times is facing further scrutiny amid a backlash prompted by social media accounts claiming the crossword it published last Sunday resembles a Nazi swastika, with the newspaper now having to defend another of its puzzles over the same claims.

Images of the most recent crossword were shared on Twitter, and a host of detractors also pointed out that the puzzle was published on the eve of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Pundit and commentator Meghan McCain has added her name to the list of critics.

Amid the online speculation, Jordan Cohen, executive director of communications at the NYT, told Newsweek on Monday that the only intentional aspect of the crossword's appearance was its symmetry.

"This is a common crossword design: Many open grids in crosswords have a similar spiral pattern because of the rules around rotational symmetry and black squares," Cohen said in a statement.

As discussion around the crossword continues on social media, Twitter users pointed out that the verified New York Times Games account had posted a tweet in October 2017 that insisted there was nothing untoward in another of its puzzles.

"Yes, hi. It's NOT a swastika," read the tweet. "Honest to God. No one sits down to make a crossword puzzle and says, 'Hey! You know what would look cool?'"


Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is not brave
Finally, in the op-ed’s penultimate paragraph, she claims that “more and more people today within and outside Israel oppose that state’s oppressive, apartheid policies and its betrayal of Jewish history”, before citing the following alleged quote by the late Israel Shahak: “The Nazis made me afraid to be a Jew and the Israelis made me ashamed to be a Jew.”

First, Shahak’s “Jewish Religion, Jewish History”, often cited by anti-Semites to affirm their hatred of Israel, CAMERA has noted, is a rehash of antisemitic themes going back to medieval times, including the claim that when Orthodox Jews engage in the ritual washing of their hands accompanied by special blessings, “on one of these two occasions he is worshiping God … but on the other he is worshiping Satan …” (p. 34). As Paul Bagdanor observed that Shahak argued that “Israeli Jews, and with them most Jews throughout the world, are undergoing a process of Nazification.”

This is who Alibhai-Brown decided to cite in order ‘prove’ Israeli villainy.

Moreover, the quote about Israel making Jews ashamed to be Jewish – attributed to Shahak by Alibahi-Brown – is likely a fake, as we’ve been unable to locate a primary source. Tellingly, Gilead Atzmon used that quote in his antisemitic book ‘The Wandering Who?’, but failed to include a footnote.

Alibahi-Brown was most certainly not “on edge” when she wrote this latest diatribe against Israel and Zionists, as she clearly knew full well that it would be published by i editors and that no harm would come to her career. In fact, the only negative outcome likely to be elicited by her column is the critical scrutiny in this post.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown fancies herself some sort of political dissident boldly speaking truth to power, when all she’s doing is regurgitating a variation of the same anti-Zionist agitprop peddled continually by global media outlets, well-funded NGOs and within academia.

Though she’s of course free to continue doing so, it can’t be stressed enough that denouncing Israel is practically de rigueur in Britain. It most certainly is not brave.
The Secretary of Evil: 97-year-old Nazi convicted for role in 10,500 murders
A 97-year-old German woman has been convicted of complicity in the murders of 10,505 people during the Holocaust, BBC News reported on Tuesday morning.

Between 1943-1945, then-18-year-old Irmgard Furchner worked as a typist at Stutthof Concentration Camp, where an estimated 65,000 people were killed during Second World War years, 1939-1945.

Furchner was sentenced to a two-year-suspended jail term on Tuesday, marking the end of her trial which began in October 2021.

Furchner is the first woman in decades to have been tried – and convicted – of Nazi-era crimes and due to her age at the time of her actions, she was tried as a juvenile.

Nazi Germany's “Secretary of Evil”
The start of Furchner’s trial was delayed briefly after she went on the run in September 2021 but she was caught hours after fleeing – after she failed to appear in court – and her trial was rescheduled to start in October 2021.

During her trial, the court heard testimonies of survivors of Stutthof, which is located near current-day Gdansk in Poland.

Furchner, who has been dubbed the “Secretary of Evil” by media covering the trial, previously denied in court any knowledge of Stutthof, although her husband’s testimony in 1954 showed that he was aware that people were being gassed to death at the camp.
After antisemitic Zoombombing of religious services, Ohio toughens laws
In its closing session, Ohio’s legislature passed a law imposing penalties of up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine for “Zoombombing” religious services, a practice that antisemites have used to intimidate Jews.

The law, “Increasing Penalties for Disturbing a Religious Service,” passed last week unanimously in the state Senate. It had previously passed in the state House, 95-1.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sought the law after discovering that disrupting a religious service was only considered a “class four misdemeanor,” incurring penalties of up to 30 days in jail and $250 fines. A Republican who was elected in 2018, Yost made the discovery while seeking legal action against abortion rights activists who have targeted anti-abortion clinics since the US Supreme Court ended federal abortion rights last summer. While anti-abortion protesters have for decades targeted abortion clinics, sometimes with deadly violence, some pro-abortion protesters have more recently sought to disrupt church services as part of their activism.

Yost wanted to make the offense a first-degree misdemeanor, which incurs harsher penalties. The Republican legislators Yost asked to advance the legislation consulted with religious communities, and as a result of talks with Jewish groups added into the legislation Zoombombing, which antisemites used multiple times to target Jewish services that went online because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Howie Beigelman, the executive director of Ohio Jewish Communities, which represents the state’s Jewish organizations on the state level, worked closely with the sponsors on the bill and credited the state’s Jewish federations, its Jewish community relations councils, its Jewish community security directors, and the state offices of the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee for lobbying for the bill.

“They wanted to do the bill,” Beigelman said of the sponsoring legislators. “And then they talked to us and we said generally the bill is important, but we also want you to be very specific about zoom bombing. And they like what’s that? I was like, Well, let me tell you, it’s happening a lot to our community.’”

The Ohio legislature last week also passed unanimously the “Testing Your Faith Act” which requires public colleges and universities to accommodate religious observance when it conflicts with exams and assignments.
Jew confronts far-right troll Nick Cotton

Polish couple killed by Nazis for hiding Jews declared martyrs by Pope
Pope Francis on Saturday declared as martyrs a Polish couple who were executed by German police during World War II for hiding Jews in their farmhouse.

A farmer and beekeeper, Jozef Ulma, and his wife Wiktoria in the Polish town of Markowa hid several members of the Jewish community, who were being hunted down during the German occupation of Poland. An informant apparently betrayed them, and the Jews were killed by police in March 1944. The couple was then shot to death along with their six young children, the oldest of whom was 8 years old.

Recognition of martyrdom would permit the couple to be beatified, the last formal step before possible sainthood. After beatification, a miracle attributed to their intercession would be necessary for eventual canonization, as the Catholic church’s sainthood process is called.

According to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, the couple had witnessed the execution of Jews who were seized from their homes during the summer of 1942.

While the search was on for other Jews, a Jewish family of six sought shelter with the Ulmas, who took them in, along with two sisters from another Jewish family, hiding them in the garret of their farmhouse. German police discovered the Jews on the farm and fatally shot them before they murdered the farmer, his wife, who was seven months pregnant, and their children.

According to the Vatican, Pope Francis learned about the Ulma family when he visited Poland during a 2016 pilgrimage. At a public audience in 2018, Francis hailed the family as “an example of faithfulness to God and His commandments, of love for neighbor and of respect for human dignity.”

Poland was the first country invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany in World War II. Members of Poland’s resistance and government-in-exile warned the world about the Nazis’ mass killing of Jews, and thousands of Poles risked their lives to help Jews — even though other Poles murdered or victimized their Jewish compatriots.

Nearly all of Poland’s roughly 3 million Jews were killed by the Germans and their collaborators during the Holocaust, and the Nazis built their major death camps in occupied Poland.
Man arrested for carving Nazi symbols into Beverly Hills menorah
A man was arrested after Nazi symbols were carved into a menorah in Beverly Hills, local police said.

Officers responded Sunday night to reports that a menorah on private property was being vandalized, police said in a statement.

Images from the scene showed a “SS” symbol etched into the base of the menorah.

Surveillance video also showed the suspect hurling objects at the menorah.

Use of the surveillance video led to the arrest of Eric Brian King, of Dallas, Texas, for investigation of felony vandalism and a hate crime, police said.

It was not immediately known if King had an attorney. Online Los Angeles County jail information showed that King, 47, was scheduled for a court appearance on Tuesday.

“A despicable act such as this will never be tolerated in our city,” Beverly Hills Police Chief Mark G. Stainbrook said.

The incident occurred on the first night of Hanukkah, which runs through December 26 this year.


Conspiracy theorist plotted to firebomb phone, TV and radio masts because he believed Britain was 'controlled by Israel' and Covid vaccine was a 'planned genocide' - as convicted terrorist faces jail
A conspiracy theorist is facing jail after being found guilty of plotting terror attacks on critical national infrastructure in a bid to 'topple the British government'.

Oliver Lewin, 38, planned a series of widespread coordinated attacks which included 'taking out' motorways and firebombing phone, radio and TV masts.

A court heard that he wanted to cause mass disruption to the UK's communication systems and travel infrastructure after becoming 'obsessed' with the idea that the country was being controlled by 'Jewish elites reporting directly to Israel'.

The former AV engineer was also deeply opposed to the Tory government and believed that 'white people across Europe were being systematically killed by the vaccine' in a 'planned genocide'.


Airbnb launches positive series of articles about Israeli hosts
Airbnb has quietly launched a series of articles about hosts of short-term apartment rentals in Israel. On its official website, the apartment rental giant published three articles on Friday, that are titled “Get to know our Host community in Israel.” The articles were also shared on Airbnb's social media platforms.

One of the articles highlights a woman named Anat who rents out her apartment in the city of Haifa. “The fact that she is a natural hostess who exudes a motherly warmth and loves finding out about people’s stories has made her hosting journey an easy success,” the article on the Airbnb site said. “I have a deep respect for those that travel,” Anat is quoted saying.

“I try to make every guest feel at home,” she said to Airbnb. “If I get a booking from a family with small children, I will make sure to have some candy for the little ones. If my guest brings a dog, I will put out a dog bowl.”

What the content writers of Airbnb were excited about is the fact that every guest receives a package of homemade cookies.

Why is Airbnb releasing these articles on Israeli hosts?
In 2018, Airbnb decided to remove all listings in Jewish settlements in the West Bank. "Airbnb blacklists Jewish apartments in Judea and Samaria - not Palestinian apartments, not apartments in Turkish occupied Cyprus, in Moroccan occupied Sahara, not in Tibet or the Crimea," former Israel ambassador to the United States Michael Oren wrote on Twitter after the decision was publicized. In 2019, after huge criticism, Airbnb decided not to delist properties within the West Bank.

Sources in the Israeli tourism industry have explained that Airbnb was interested in quietly getting back to business as usual in Israel. In addition, the company suffered huge damage to its image with Israelis and Jews worldwide.
PlantArcBio to grow corn twice the size amid droughts

Israeli organizations to provide South Sudanese children with life-saving heart surgery
Leading Israeli humanitarian aid organizations “Save a Child’s Heart” and “IsraAID” announced that they will provide life-saving surgeries to four children from South Sudan in Israel on Wednesday.

The children – Gai, 8, Habiba, 6, Phillip, 5, and Joel, 5 – are already in the care of programs provided by IsraAID. They were diagnosed during a medical mission to South Sudan by Save a Child’s Heart on March 2019, when Save a Child’s Heart pediatric cardiologist Dr. Akiva Tamir and Israeli Ambassador to South Sudan Hanan Goder traveled to Al Sabah Children’s Hospital to screen and diagnose children with heart disease.

Once the children arrive in Israel, they will undergo heart surgery by the Save a Child’s Heart medical team at Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. The children and their guardians will stay at the Save a Child’s Heart Children’s Home for several months as they undergo and recover from surgery.

South Sudan’s humanitarian crisis
South Sudan, the world’s youngest country, was formed in 2011. Two years later, the country entered a brutal civil war. Due to environmental disasters and armed conflict, there are over 2 million internally displaced people in South Sudan and another 10.26 million South Sudanese refugees worldwide.

“When I first spoke to the President of South Sudan about the initiative to bring children to Israel for life-saving heart surgery, he was very enthusiastic, but I was not sure if it would actually come about. But through the excellent cooperation of Save a Child's Heart and IsraAID, working together with the Ministry of Health in South Sudan, it is happening,” Israel’s Ambassador to South Sudan, Gershon Kedar, said.

Founded in 2001, IsraAID has developed into Israel’s leading non-profit humanitarian relief organization. IsraAID originally launched its mission to the country in 2011, where its local team of South Sudanese humanitarian experts focus on child protection, preventing and responding to gender-based violence, and promoting sexual and reproductive health.
Burial cave dedicated to Jesus midwife Salome reveals treasures; will open to public
Ahead of opening a burial cave dedicated to Salome, the midwife of Jesus, to the public, archaeologists have recently uncovered a number of priceless artifacts from its courtyard, the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday. The tomb is a centuries-old Christian pilgrimage site, located in the Lachish region in central Israel.

“According to a Christian tradition, Salome was the midwife from Bethlehem, who was called to participate in the birth of Jesus,” said IAA archaeologist Zvi Firer. “She could not believe that she was asked to deliver a virgin’s baby, and her hand became dry and was only healed when she held the baby’s cradle.”

The burial cave was discovered in 1982 by antiquities looters and subsequently excavated in 1984 by Prof. Amos Kloner of the IAA. But, despite ample proof of its use as a sacred Christian site, it was never opened to the public.

For the past two months, archaeologists have excavated an elaborate courtyard of 350 square meters (almost 4,000 square feet) at the entrance to the cave, filled with intricate stone carvings, soaring arches, a mosaic floor, and the remains of a shop where pilgrims may have rented oil lamps to light their way inside the cave for their prayers.

“We found dozens of these lamps covered with carvings of pomegranates and intricate geometric designs,” said Firer.

The lamps, including more than two dozen found intact, were found together in an area that archaeologists identified as a small marketplace in the courtyard.

“We believe that pilgrims would come here, rent an oil lamp, perform their prayers inside, and go on their way. It’s like today when you go to the grave of a revered rabbi and light a candle there,” Firer said.
At Hanukkah event, Biden slams ‘venom’ of antisemitism, unveils White House menorah
US President Joe Biden on Monday expressed alarm about growing antisemitism in the United States and around the globe and vowed to fight back against the scourge.

Speaking to guests gathered for a Hanukkah reception at the White House, Biden said “silence is complicity,” and added that it’s imperative that hate, violence and antisemitism are condemned by the nation.

“This year’s Hanukkah arrives in the midst of rising and emboldened antisemitism at home — and quite frankly, around the world,” Biden said. “I recognize your fear, your hurt, your worry that this vile and venom is becoming too normal.”

The president added: “I will not be silent. America will not be silent.”

The holiday celebration comes during a spate of antisemitic episodes. Former US president Donald Trump hosted a Holocaust-denying white supremacist at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The rapper Ye expressed love for Adolf Hitler in an interview. Basketball star Kyrie Irving appeared to promote an antisemitic film on social media. Neo-Nazi trolls are clamoring to return to Twitter as new CEO Elon Musk grants “amnesty” to suspended accounts.

“Today, we must all say clearly and forcefully: Antisemitism and all forms of hate and violence in this country have no safe harbor in America,” Biden said.

The Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group, tracked 2,717 antisemitic instances of assault, harassment and vandalism last year, a 34% increase over the previous year and the highest number since the New York City-based group began tracking them in 1979.


Detroit Pistons troll Kyrie Irving with Hanukkah display after antisemitism scandal
The Detroit Pistons wished Brooklyn Nets star guard Kyrie Irving a happy Hanukkah on Sunday night, the first night of the Jewish holiday, during an NBA basketball match in the US.

The Pistons appeared to be trolling Irving, who recently shared an antisemitic film on Twitter and initially refused to apologize.

The scoreboard displayed both a spinning globe and a Hanukkah graphic with a menorah while he was at the free-throw line.

The former is in reference to previous comments the controversial All-Star has made about the earth being flat. The latter appeared to be a pointed reference to the recent antisemitism scandal.

Irving was suspended for eight games in November after he tweeted an Amazon link to “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” a documentary that promotes the false idea that Jews were heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade, denies the Holocaust and says Black people are the real Jews.

Irving initially refused to apologize, saying, “I cannot be antisemitic if I know where I come from.” In addition to his suspension, Irving lost his deal with sportswear giant Nike.




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