Not only Miss Universe: Israel hosted the Flag Football World Championships (RealJerusalemStreets)

By RealJerusalemStreets

Elder wrote his opinion after watching Miss Universe's final competition broadcast from Eilat with its positive imagery projected to world audiences. 

However, while the international beauty contestants were arriving in Israel, another world championship competition was taking place in Jerusalem.

The 10th Flag Football World Championship games took place in Jerusalem, Israel, from December 6 to 8th. Due to a change in the weather, the finals were held at Teddy Stadium, instead of the entire games at the Kraft Family Sports Complex. A record of 39 teams from 23 countries competed. The USA men and women won the first place trophies again as expected, but Mexico gave them serious competition coming in second in both men's and women's flag football. 

The opening night event was held at the Ramada Renaissance Hotel for an estimated 900 participants, players, coaches, and managers. The program held on the last night of Hanukah started with the lighting of the large Hanukah menorah by Rabbi Aharon Katz, head of the Derech Etz Chaim.

For many of the players from Austria, Belarus, Brazil, Chile, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, South Korea, Team Neutral, Thailand, and the United States it was not only the first time in Israel and but also experiencing a Hanukah celebration, perhaps even having interaction with Jews. 

The program started EXACTLY on time. I arrived a minute late!

A short video of Jerusalem highlights was shown as the crowd waited for Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion to arrive.  He was very late to welcome the visitors, but they gave him a hero's welcome as he made his entrance.

Because of the coronavirus restrictions, the teams were not able to do any of the usual tourist stops and photo ops similar to the Miss Universe contestants. The footballers were restricted to the sports fields and back to their hotel. 

But the buzz and talk in the hotel ballroom were already of returning visits to Israel. The energy of the teams, seated by their country's flag was exhilarating, their behavior praiseworthy.

The world was hesitant to host due to the situation of the variants of coronavirus. However, Steve Leibowitz the President of AFI American Football in Israel was a driving force behind the games coming to Israel. Winners qualified for July 2022 World Games in Birmingham, AL when flag football is to be included for the first time. 

Tournament sponsors included NFL Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a long-time supporter of American football in Israel and donor of the Kraft Family Sports Campus. Kraft was not able to attend in person but sent a video message shown at the opening event.

Hundreds of young international sportspeople arrived in Israel for the first time, learned about Hanukah, and saw Israeli footballers wearing a kippah. 

Not as glamorous and sexy as a world beauty competition, but thousands watched their international teams playing flag football live from Jerusalem as the broadcast went around the world to fans.

I saw less BDS pressure on these world championship games than the Miss Universe pageant, maybe the sport was lucky to get less attention.

But the World Championship Flag Football games were a great success. Even the last game ending in cold and rain could not ruin the event. After all, what's a little mud in when we are talking about football. 

The final men's game is here, the others can be found on YouTube.

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Book Review: The Devil’s Breath (@RealJerusalemStreets)

By RealJerusalemStreets

I hesitated. At first, I said to myself--no way.

The fiction I really like to read would be a good murder mystery. However, a novel based in 1943-1944 - and in Auschwitz?

Unsettling as the concept was, the author and publisher, Tom Hogan, and his bio piqued my curiosity.

Hogan grew up in a German village with his US military family after World War II. As an eight-year-old, he visited Dachau with his family. He wondered how many of his neighbors knew about and participated in the Holocaust.

Hogan taught at Santa Clara University after graduating from Harvard with an MA in Biblical Archeology and developed curricula in Holocaust Studies for college and high school.

Along with survivors' testimonies, he presented the Shoah to US audiences.

Hogan left teaching in the 1980s, to join a growing company as its first creative director. Perhaps you may have heard of Oracle? Next, his venture capital company launched over 50 startups and he co-authored The Ultimate Startup Guide.

After leaving the tech world, Hogan returned to teaching Holocaust and Genocide Studies at UC Santa Cruz before he retired and began to write fiction.

Hogan's Heroes was the name of the American sitcom popular from 1965-1971, where during World War II, the inmates of the prisoner-of-war camp, the fictional Stalag 13, did their best to sabotage the German effort. Their escapades led to humorous results involving Col. Klink and Sargent Shultz, and these Nazis were portrayed as bumbling comedic characters. Cast member Robert Clary had a number tattooed on his arm, as the Jewish actor had really spent 3 years in a concentration camp before arriving in Hollywood.  He was often referred to as "cockroach" by the Nazis on the show, but it was a light feel-good program that always ended with Col Hogan's guys outsmarting the Germans.

Tom Hogan's The Devil's Breath is not light and not humorous. However, when the extermination camp details he has included get too heavy, readers are given a break to recover with his excellent character development. Lead characters Perla and Shimon Divko are transferred from the Warsaw Ghetto to Auschwitz and forced by Kommandant Rudolf Hess to solve a murder and a theft.

Hess is the only non-fiction character. In this genre, as opposed to memoirs, Holocaust expert Hogan is able to weave in historical information. I was at Auschwitz on a March of the Living trip years ago. Some of the facts are not only stranger than fiction, but worse as well, and I confess to skimming quickly over details of Kanada, the selection and gas chambers.

One example of adding positive information was the introduction of a drug connection along with the theft and murder of a Nazi officer in his office.  Previously I was not familiar with Pervitin , but went on to read about how it was used by the Nazis later in the war. The details in the book fit the information I found.

While The Devil's Breath is not a light read and should have trigger warnings for today's crowds, I felt it important and well done enough to share. As there are fewer survivors to tell their stories, Hogan has found a new approach to educate the public about the horrors of the Holocaust.

Title: The Devil's Breath ISBN: 978-1-7369436-1-8  

         Tom Hogan  274 pages Paperback/Kindle

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Report on Jerusalem correctly! (RealJerusalemStreets)

As a photojournalist I know publications much prefer to use free or stock photos rather than pay a photographer. That is expected. It has become the norm. However, what also should be expected is integrity in the use of old photographs.

Elder of Ziyon wrote on the negative reactions reported in Arab media to the proposed hotel development in the Jerusalem Armenian Quarter parking lot. 

His piece was republished the next day in the Algemeiner with a suitable heading: Palestinians Upset at Armenian Church Leasing Out Land to Australian Jew; Not Israeli, But Jew

However, it was the image used for Elder's piece that had me seeing red.  Algemeiner's photo editor selected an old photograph taken at the Western Wall Plaza during corona over a year ago!  An image not near the Armenian Quarter or its parking lot.

So upset at the error, I sent Elder messages and photos from my previous visits to the site which I have watched for years. The prospect of a hotel on the spot is an old story. I have documented its progress and slow development.

Bothered enough, I went back this morning to verify the scene and check the distances. 

Why make such a big deal over one photo?

For decades, close to a century, Arab leaders having troubles with their rule over unhappy populations have shouted "Al-Quds" as a distraction. And it has worked time and again.

The latest survey and report by Khali Shikaki on Domestic and Palestinian Authority/Israel issues showed 78%, a 10 % increase over the last poll in March, wanted Abu Mazen to resign. Abu Mazen knew he was in trouble when he called off the elections. The disappointment of those who expected elections and the death of Nizar Banat only added more bad news for him.

Then yesterday we saw multiple scenes on social media with thousands of Gazans wanting proposed work permits in Israel. Hamas used 'save Jerusalem' in May as a rallying call over the flimsy excuse of a few security barriers. 

To use a photo of the Kotel Plaza for a situation in the Armenian Quarter is not good journalism. It is not only wrong, it could be dangerous. 

I went back this morning to do a video of the area near the Armenian Parking lot. It should look familiar to anyone who went by taxi or the small buses to the Kotel in the past.

In Jerusalem, nothing is simple (or flat), and even searching on Google maps or taking still images, it is often difficult to show the real Jerusalem streets.

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Foreign Funding and Influence in US Universities (RealJerusalemStreets)

 

The clock is ticking.

    The Iranian regime and Ayatollahs are waiting and watching. 

    Patiently, watching, as the pattern of a Persian rug is spun and woven to completion.

Let's imagine: Iranians in the United States conducting online reconnaissance of university professors, then sending “phishing” emails to get their credentials to obtain unauthorized access to victim professor accounts to steal intellectual property, research, and other academic data.

Only this is not the plot of a new best-selling fiction novel or cable tv thriller. It has happened in the United States and around the world.

In Section 117 of the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965, the United States Congress requires U.S. colleges and universities to report twice a year to the U.S. Department of Education all foreign gifts and contracts over $250,000. While Section 117 does not prohibit institutions from taking foreign money, it does mandate accurate and transparent disclosures of amounts and sources.

In June 2020, the Section 117 information reporting portal was upgraded.  It yields significant information on compliance and showed 7,000 transactions and approximately $3.8 billion of foreign gifts and contracts from institutions, including 60 institutions previously not reporting.

Twelve compliance investigations revealed $6.5 billion in previously unreported foreign money to the following twelve institutions: Georgetown University, Texas A&M University, Rutgers University, Cornell University, University of Maryland, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and recently, Harvard University, Yale University, University of Texas, Case Western Reserve University, Fordham University, and Stanford University.

"For at least two decades, the industry has been on direct notice that at least some of these foreign sources are hostile to the United States and are targeting their investments...to project soft power, steal sensitive and proprietary research, and spread propaganda," stated a 34-page report of the US Department of Education General Counsel, published in October 2020.

The concern is that foreign money buys influence or control over teaching and research.

Donations from Arab countries for a Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University was one of the reasons for the HEA statute. Other concerns at the time included Japanese companies partnering with the U.S. The idea was transparency in reporting could counteract the distorting influence of foreign money on teaching and research. The Chinese influence has grown over recent years. Beginning in 2009, the flow of foreign money, sourced from the governments of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and China rose substantially. 

In 2008, a Senate committee expressed new concerns over national security and domestic policy impact with post 9/11 Saudi Arabian conditional and substantial donations to Middle Eastern studies centers. However, the Education Department and Congress did not take action.

The FBI  has warned, "Foreign adversaries and competitors take advantage of” the American higher education and research enterprise to “improve their economies and militaries by stealing intellectual property to gain advantages over the United States.” These nations “use varied means to acquire information and technology to gain political, military, and economic advantages” including recruiting individuals for “espionage,” exploiting the student visa program for “improper purposes,” and spreading false information for “political or other reasons.”

The higher education sector self-reported over $6.6 billion from Qatar, China, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, with the most recent July 31, 2020, reporting period yielding an additional $1.05 billion reported from these countries alone, concluded the US Department of Education. 

Returning to Iran, in March 2018, the Justice Department charged nine Iranians affiliated with a Tehran-based company, the Mabna Institute, with hacking into 144 American universities to steal sensitive data and intellectual property on behalf of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Gholamreza Rafatnejad and Ehsan Mohammadi, two of the defendants, founded the Mabna Institute in 2013 to assist Iranian universities and scientific and research organizations in stealing access to non-Iranian scientific resources. The defendants targeted data, including science and technology, engineering, social sciences, medical, and other professional fields around the world. Approximately 31 terabytes of US academic data and intellectual property was reported stolen according to the Indictment. United States v. Rafatnejad et al., No. 18-cr-00094 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 7, 2018).

After multiple examples of serious breaches of political and intellectual security with a lack of oversight, the DOE report concludes: "U.S. institutions are technological treasure troves where leading and internationally competitive fields, such as nanoscience, are booming. For too long, these institutions have provided an unprecedented level of access to foreign governments and their instrumentalities in an environment lacking transparency and oversight by the industry, the Department, and our partner agencies." 

"Iran's decision to continue violating its commitments, to raise the enrichment level and advance the industrial ability to enrich uranium underground, cannot be explained in any way except as the continued realization of its intention to develop a military nuclear program. Israel will not allow Iran to manufacture nuclear weapons," announced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Will a Biden administration monitor foreign government influence in the US? Will the US be prepared for future cyber attacks from Iran and other hostile regimes?

Should we hold our breath for the new US Congress to follow up on the important issues affecting institutions of higher learning and demand full disclosure of foreign funding as Section 117 requires?

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Cancel culture (The Real Jerusalem Streets)

Here we go again. Another day and another example of the new censorship spreading due to progressive thought police.

The publisher of a book about cancel culture by Julie Burchill has cancelled it after the writer was accused of Islamophobia on Twitter. Little, Brown said that Burchill comments were "not defensible from a moral or intellectual standpoint" and "crossed a line with regard to race and religion."

Cancel culture and mob rule of the politically correct woke are taking over. Intolerance to ideas by progressive ideology coupled with a desire to seek retribution by ostracizing those not sharing those views has become a threat to democracy and freedom of speech. According to Robert King, presently serving as the United States Department of Education assistant secretary of postsecondary education, cancel culture is "dangerous to our democracy when administrators cave to the mob." The tradition of vigorous debate and discussion, at the core of American values is being silenced by those who do not agree with you and is stifling freedom of speech.

"Those who cancel ideas, and burn books, end up canceling people and burning them as well" stated Reed Rubinstein, Lead General Counsel for the US Department of Education in his introductory remarks in an online Dept of Ed event titled "What is to Be Done? Confronting a Culture of Censorship on Campus."

Academic freedom based on the Bill of Rights which provides for freedom of speech is being challenged.  The emerging prominence of social progressives shuts out not only conservative voices but an academic's ability to express his or her opinions.

Kristina Arriaga, Commissioner to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom showed how laws become inefficient and useless if not culturally supported. We are told being a dissenter is actually a threat to the tribe, a threat to our way of life. It was reported that 63% of Americans are afraid to speak their mind. Polarization is growing stronger.  It is a vital human right to speak out. No one can take what is in our minds and hearts away from us. "Silencing is not good" emphasized Arriaga, the human rights expert.

The first night of Hanukkah Ivanka Trump posted a family photo to say "Happy Chanukah from our family to yours!"  In response, the tweet received hundreds of vicious, threatening comments.

The hateful comments on the Hanukkah tweet are one recent example of the vitriol, Ivanka has received from strangers on social media. 

A Tennessee lawyer was forced from his position by a state board because a lawyer he was investigating called him an "anti-Muslim bigot."

A meme against Joe Biden roused a complaint against a veteran elementary principal who was then removed by the school board. Postings on her private social media, including support for the police and Republican candidates were reasons given to force her resignation.

A former Supervisor of Special Education in Pennsylvania said she was forced to resign after reposting criticism of Black Lives Matter on Facebook for ignoring black conservatives, black unborn babies, and black police officers. 

"The animosity against ‘Israel’ on campus, used to mask animosity against Jewishness did not cease, even as the classroom was replaced with the Zoom call," wrote Blake Flayton in "The Hate that Can't Be Contained" for Tablet. His article contains a long list of incidents against Jewish students in leading universities from the East Coast to the West.

In response to US university professors and students' harassment, the US Department of Education recently initiated a hotline to report abuse and seek assistance. The new hotline freespeech@ed.gov is open to emails for reporting abuse on campus.

Cancel culture mobs have taken down statues of Southern Civil War leaders along Monument Avenue and vandalized General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, VA. In Boston, Abraham Lincoln was a victim of the politically correct ideology.

Rewriting history by removing "offending" books from library shelves and scrubbing names from buildings has already occurred. Thomas Wolfe's "You Can't Go Home Again" is no longer available in a Massachusetts library. Flannery O'Connor, Mark Twain, and others are being banned. American literature is being lost to political correctness.

In 1949, English novelist George Orwell published 1984, as a dystopian social science fiction novel.  Orwell developed in his work the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, repression in society, and the role of truth and fact in politics.

The Ministry of Truth in 1984 controls information - news, education, entertainment, and the arts. By correcting historical records to agree with Big Brother's pronouncements the Party is able to manipulate what is seen to be true.

Barricade the streets. Defund the police. Let mobs rule and governments cave under pressure.

Daily it appears we are taking another step towards 1984 being a prophetic vision and not a work of fiction.

Will the media and social media manipulate what we are allowed to see and say?

Will the new US administration hold off threats to free speech and democracy?

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