Why is anti-Semitism treated as less bad than other forms of racism? Why is it a growing force in some sections of the left? Why is it often greeted with the words 'well, he has a point' rather than with the stern, irate condemnations we would expect in response to racism more broadly?
It's because of identity politics.
Anti-Semitism is the oldest hatred. It has exploded in societies numerous times over the millennia, often with unprecedented murderous consequences. It sometimes changes shape – going from being a religiously motivated hatred to a form of biological racism, from a far-right pursuit to a shamefully left-wing phenomenon – but it is always there, in one form or another. And today, one of the forms it takes is identitarian categorisation.
Identity politics has helped to resuscitate anti-Semitism. One of the worst things identity politics does is categorise people according to whether they are oppressed or privileged. It creates hierarchies of victimhood. Intersectionality is an avowedly sectarian, divisive cause, given to grouping entire peoples according to whether they are historic victims or the beneficiaries of privilege. This very easily morphs into a form of moral categorisation: the victim groups are good, the privileged groups are bad. So black people deserve our sympathy and our support, while white people – the most privileged, apparently – deserve scorn, and constant lecturing ('Dear white people'), and re-education. Witness how virtually every corporation in the West is now reprimanding and controlling its workforce through the mad ideologies of 'white fragility' and 'white privilege'.
Identitarianism is a toxic, divisive politics. And it has proven particularly bad for Jewish people. Where do they go in the woke racists' categories? Which inhuman identitarian box must they be placed in? It's the 'privileged' one. Consider how both far-right and far-left racists flit between terms like 'white privilege' and 'Jewish privilege'. Jews are successful, right? They aren't struggling. Therefore, they are 'privileged'. And 'privileged' is bad. It's immoral. The 'privileged' are the new oppressors, requiring constant condemnation. White people, 'cis' people, people of Indian Hindu heritage, Jews… all privileged, all bad, all on the receiving end of the new hatreds whipped up by the destructive politics of identity.
Wiley's racist rants contained elements of the old anti-Semitism, especially the vile trope about Jews running the world. But they had a big dose of identitarian anti-Semitism, too. His belief that Jews conspire in the repression of blacks, and that Jews (being white) can be racist but black people (being black) cannot be racist, springs directly from the identitarian ideology. It's time to face facts: the new politics of identity, this racialisation of every facet of life, the myopic obsession over skin colour and 'privilege' and heritage, have breathed life back into actual racism, including the oldest racism. Identity politics is a gateway drug to actual racial hatred. Reject it.
In the last eight months, we've seen two mass murders of Jews—one attempted and one successful—by people who expressed interest in racially exclusive Black Israelism. Grafton Thomas, who burst into a Monsey, New York, rabbi's home during a Hanukkah celebration and hacked at people with a machete, rambled in his journal about "Ebinoid Israelites" and "Semitic genocide." David Anderson, who, along with an accomplice, sprayed a Jersey City kosher market with gunfire and killed three people (and a cop earlier), was steeped in Black Israelism, though he was wary of the organized sects. One wonders: When the coronavirus pandemic loosens its grip on public spaces and the proselytizing bands of Black Hebrew Israelites return to street corners to shout racist abuse at passersby, as they have done for decades without causing much controversy, will they draw the attention of anti-racist protesters?
And again, there is the steady anti-Jewish street violence. In New York City in the last two years, social media has recorded a sizable fraction of it in Brooklyn neighborhoods where Blacks and Jews coexist. Some of the perpetrators of those hate crimes revealed Black Israelite beliefs. One man beat and choked an Orthodox passerby while yelling about "fake Jews." Another shouted "They're not Jews!" and threw rocks at a group of Jewish women and children. Someone accosted a Forward journalist and screamed that she and her friends were "fake Jews … Whose time was almost up!" A woman berated an Israeli student on the subway: "You ain't even a Jew, you white." As Griff noted ominously to Nick Cannon, anticipating Wiley: "Now because you recognize [your Hebrew origin], you know who they are."
There is not a racial crisis between Blacks and Jews. High-profile African Americans, including Charles Barkley, Stephen A. Smith, Michael Wilbon, Zach Banner, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, quickly and resolutely criticized DeSean Jackson and Stephen Jackson. And not all people influenced by Black Israelism—a broad group that includes thousands of "African Hebrew Israelites" living in Israel—are anti-Semites. But in our increasingly panicked politics, where fanciful and vicious conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and QAnon have seen viral adoption, the sudden mainstreaming of a racist conspiracy theory with demonstrated links to violence should stir serious concern.
Yet when Black people express anti-Semitism it is continually treated as nothing to worry about. It is not hard to understand why. Anti-racist thought developed in response to the racial caste system in America and is primarily concerned with power. For those who are marginalized, it sees an accretion of victimhood; a disabled Black woman experiences compounding oppression at the intersection of her identities. On the other hand, those at the top of the racial caste system—whites—are invested with an almost mystical power that tends to flatten their other identities. Jews are generally regarded as white and privileged, so in practice, Jewishness seldom registers as a marginalizable identity. Anti-racists are dumb to our global history of persecution and vulnerability in the present.
Because anti-Semitism, like all conspiracy theories, mimics a politics of emancipation, anti-Semites believe themselves to be opponents of injustice. Among progressives today, the movement to redefine racism as "prejudice plus power"—that is, to downgrade nonsystemic forms of racism to mere personal "prejudice"—has ominous consequences for Jews. It fosters the belief that people who are thought to be powerful are deserving of hostility. And when racism poses as resistance by victims of racism, as anti-Semitism often does, it disqualifies Jews from concern.
Those who favor this revisionist definition have made so much headway that Merriam-Webster has agreed to incorporate it. How will we address a form of racism that purports to "punch up" against an evil elite? Most anti-Semitism in the West is nonsystemic, but its very nature is being systematically eclipsed. The loneliest hatred lives on, as it has for thousands of years—outside the ambit of our racial reckoning.
Pro-Israel advocate and president of the Zionist Organization of America Morton Klein announced via his Twitter page on Tuesday that he had 2-hour conversation with rapper Ice Cube where he claims that the musical artist supports condemning antisemitism and racism.
"I, Mort Klein, just had a 2-hour conversation with Ice Cube. We both grew up poor in Black hoods. Cube told me he thanked Jews for starting NAACP, many Black schools and fighting for Black civil rights. Cube told me he supports condemning Black and all antisemitism, and I condemned all racism," Klein said on Twitter Tuesday.
Shout out to Mort Klein who had the courage to seek the truth and speak with me and see for himself I am obviously NOT an anti-Semite or racist. I admire him for the advocacy of his people and look forward to talking more on how Black and Jewish communities can work together... https://t.co/dnVijJkR8q
Ice Cube has been immersed in a row as of late, after condemning NBA Hall-of-Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for writing an article mentioning the rapper on the topic of antisemitism, as well as tweeting an image of a mural that was removed from a wall in London in 2012 after complaints that the image was antisemitic.
The rapper vehemently denies that he supports antisemitism – or racism for that matter - mentioning that he only took issue with the article because he was mentioned in the article without being contacted first.
"Just for the record: I still love Kareem Abdul Jabbar definitely had a right to write against Antisemitism and racism," Ice Cube wrote on his Twitter page on Monday. "I was just hurt to be added into that article without a conversation to tell him that I am neither. But there is no wedge between me and my brother."
The #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate campaign has launched today and gone global, with Jewish communities around the world, including in Australia and the United States, joining British Jews in walking out of Twitter and other social media platforms for 48 hours to protest antisemitic hatred on the platforms.
The hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate has also been trending on Twitter, while numerous politicians from across the political spectrum and celebrities have joined the walkout, which began as the idea of actress Tracy Ann Oberman, with whom we are proud to be closely associated, who was joined by activists including Saul Freeman, Fiona Sharpe and others.
Celebrity backers include the historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore, former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, actors Jason Isaacs and Eddie Marsan, the broadcaster Ian Dale, the comedy writer Armando Iannucci, musician Billy Bragg, and Sarah Brown, the non-profit executive and wife of a former Prime Minister.
Emma Barnett, the BBC presenter, also gave an impassioned monologue on her radio show about why Wiley's antisemitism – which was the trigger for the walkout – "burns deep", while Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has written to the chief executives of Twitter and Facebook (which owns Instagram) accusing them of complicity for not doing more to stamp out antisemitism on their platforms.
Facebook has sent a message to advertisers, the Government and NGOs in a desperate bid to stem rising backlash over its failure to delete antisemitic performer Wiley's Instagram messages.
The e-mail from Steve Hatch, Facebook's Vice-President for Northern Europe, which we have reproduced in full below, sought to justify the steps that Facebook has taken, but even as the e-mail was sent, Wiley continued to post prolifically on Facebook.
So far it appears that Facebook has done little more than to remove several of Wiley's antisemitic posts and enforce a block on his official Instagram account for 7 days (Facebook owns Instagram).
In its statement, Facebook said that "No one at Facebook finds this type of content and behaviour anything other than abhorrent."
The statement explained that after Wiley's posts were reported to it, its teams investigated and gathered "contextual advice from our partners who represent the Jewish community. Their partnership and expertise is invaluable in understanding the nuances of antisemitic language."
It added that "Our dedicated law enforcement engagement team was also made aware that a criminal report had been made to the Metropolitan Police," after Campaign Against Antisemitism made a complaint to the Metropolitan Police regarding Wiley's posts.
Facebook continued: "These initial investigations led us to remove a number of posts from Wiley's Instagram account. Generally, the first time we remove a user's post we let them know why they broke our guidelines as we think it's important they have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes. But in common with many platforms, on Facebook and Instagram if a user repeatedly breaks our rules we take a series of further enforcement actions. These can range from different types of restrictions on their activity to a total removal of their account. We have enforced this policy numerous times globally and locally regarding hate speech including the suspension and subsequent removal of numerous UK organizations and individuals from our platforms."
Boris Johnson regards rapper Wiley's string of antisemitic tweets as "abhorrent" and believes Twitter's response was "not good enough", the prime minister's official spokesman has said.
But Mr Johnson's spokesman said the PM was not taking part in a 48-hour boycott of the social media site observed by some MPs and celebrities in protest at its failure to take down the messages.
The home secretary, Priti Patel, wrote to Twitter and Instagram on Sunday demanding a "full explanation" of why the rapper's offensive comments were allowed to remain on his accounts for 12 hours after they were first posted.
And the PM's spokesman today told reporters: "The prime minister would echo the comments of the home secretary yesterday that the antisemitic posts by Wiley are abhorrent. The prime minister would also echo the home secretary's comments that this material should not have been able to remain on Twitter and Instagram for so long."
The spokesman added: "Social media companies need to go much further and faster in removing hateful comment such as this."
"The home secretary has written to Twitter and Instagram seeking an explanation and we expect to be given a full response. The message is clear: Twitter needs to do better on this."
'Imam of Peace' Mohammad Tawhidi Joins Campaign Against Anti-Semitism on Twitter
Full interview from earlier with @Danwootton on the wannabe Che Guevaras of BLM Oxford. Including the white girl nervously encouraged to do the black power salute... https://t.co/g8btoHp65b
An Arab Israeli tahini maker that faced a boycott call from the community after it donated funds to an LGBT support line has seen its sales spike despite the embargo, apparently due to backing from other Israelis.
Al Arz Tahini saw its market share increase by nearly 28 percent in the week after the boycott was started, the Calcalist financial website reported Tuesday.
Al Arz, based in the northern city of Nazareth, is one of Israel's largest producers of the popular sesame paste, making an estimated one-fifth of the country's commercially sold tahini.
The company had announced on June 1 plans to fund a crisis hotline for LGBT youth with The Aguda – The Association for LGBTQ Equality in Israel. In response, some in the Arab community called for a boycott of the company's products, though others expressed support.
Videos appeared on social media showing Arab Israeli shoppers and store owners throwing containers of Al Arz tahini in the garbage in protest of the company's decision, which some Muslim religious leaders criticized.
Alongside calls for a boycott, however, were Arab and Jewish Israelis who pushed back with expressions of support for the LGBT community on social media. Some Arab Israeli politicians also came out against the boycott – albeit without directly naming the LGBT community.
During the week of July 12-18 the company's sales increased by 27.6% compared to the week before, the Calcalist report said, citing data from StoreNext, a market analysis venture.
At the end of June Al Arz's market share was 16.9%. During the first week of July it climbed to 18.5% and the following week to 22.6%.
If you thought Tisha B'Av was about the destruction of the holy temples and two Jewish states in ancient times, think again. According to J Street, the real meaning of the day is that the Israeli government is oppressing the Palestinian Arabs and will thereby cause the destruction of the Jewish state in our own times.
It may be hard to believe that any self-described Jewish organization could so viciously distort the meaning of a sacred Jewish day. But J Street has never met a Jewish religious commemoration that it hasn't turned into a propaganda weapon for slamming Israel.
On Passover, J Street complained about the "plagues" for which it blames Israel, such as "the plague of home destruction." According to J Street's "Haggadah," if the Israeli army undertakes a court-sanctioned dismantling of a home used by terrorists, then it is to blame for "encouraging retaliatory terrorist attacks."
On Rosh Hashanah, when Jews engage in "cheshbon nefesh" or "soul searching," meaning spiritual introspection and self-assessment – J Street announced that everyone should "engage in cheshbon hanefesh" over Israel's "demolition of Palestinian villages."
Israel, of course, does not demolish Palestinian villages. J Street was referring to instances in which handfuls of illegal Arab settlers squat on Israeli land, call themselves a "village" and then accuse Israel of "demolishing" them when the police dare to enforce the law. But as far as J Street is concerned, if facts get in the way of the narrative, well, just push them aside.
Considering the way J Street has mangled the meaning of other sacred days on the Jewish calendar, maybe I shouldn't be surprised at J Street's crude exploitation of Tisha B'Av. But that doesn't make it any more acceptable.
In fact, the definition in question was previously adopted by the U.S. Department of State under the Obama administration and has been praised by mainstream Jewish organizations like the American Jewish Committee and Anti-Defamation League. It is virtually identical to the working definition developed by the intergovernmental International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, adopted by 26 countries and the European Union.
Green also falsely reports that the definition broadly includes "opposition to the state of Israel." To the contrary, the definition explicitly states: "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic."
Regarding Israel, the definition includes only opposition which involves age-old antisemitic tropes used against Israel, which applies a discriminatory standard against Israel, or denies it the right to exist. Specifically, the definition details "Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis," "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis," "Blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions," "Applying double standards by requiring of it behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation," "Multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations," and "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist."
Thus, opposition to Israel, for example, on the basis of plans to extend sovereignty over the Green Line, or for its communities in disputed areas, for corruption, for its relationship to the United States or anywhere else, for its human rights record if the standards by which it is judged are applied consistently compared to other countries, or for any number of other reasons, are all within bounds. That is, much criticism of Israel is not included in the definition adopted by the Education Department, and before that, the U.S. Department of State.
But the truth about the definition's contents, origins and backers undermine the desired narrative, so they must be massaged to conform the predetermined template, or as Weiss succinctly put it: " the numbing process of making it ideologically kosher."
The Gaza Strip has of course not been controlled by the Palestinian Authority since Hamas executed a violent coup in June 2007 and Hamas control of the territory did not end in 2014, despite a supposed Hamas-Fatah deal in that year.
In April 2019 CAMERA UK prompted the BBC to correct a report which – apparently on the basis of that backgrounder – made the exact same claim. The same month the BBC also corrected its Palestinian territories profile and timeline which had no less erroneously claimed that Hamas handed over control of the Gaza Strip to a unity government in October 2017.
Despite having made those three corrections concerning the very basic issue of which Palestinian faction controls the Gaza Strip, the BBC obviously did not check additional content – including its backgrounder – for similar issues and both audiences and BBC journalists are hence likely to be misled by those factual inaccuracies which have remained online for years.
CAMERA UK has contacted the BBC to request a correction.
Given that Khalifa had worked for the Muslim Brotherhood connected IRW since 1999, his opinions concerning Hamas are of no less interest than his antisemitic comments. Readers may recall that in 2014 the BBC promoted the charity's denial of "any links with Hamas" in response to a statement made by the Israeli embassy in London mentioning IRW's designation in Israel due to its association with Hamas affiliated organisations. Later the same year the BBC published a remarkably superficial article concerning a self-commissioned 'audit' which supposedly cleared IRW of "accusations it has funded terrorism".
With IRW having been the recipient of funding from the British government (as well as the UN and the European Commission), the story of Khalifa's resignation was understandably picked up by additional UK media outlets including the Guardian, Metro, the Daily Mail and the Jewish Chronicle.
Notably, we have to date been unable to find any coverage of the story on the BBC News website, including on its 'Charity Commission' page and 'Charities' page.
A man armed with an ax burst into a synagogue in southeastern Ukraine on Tuesday morning and was disarmed and chased away by the security guard.
The attempted attack in Mariupol during the morning prayers was captured by the synagogue's security cameras.
A rabbi and several worshipers were inside the building at the time, according to the Jewish News of the United Jewish Community of Ukraine. The report did not specify if the guard suffered injuries.
In footage of the attack, the security guard can be seen wrestling with the attacker for control of the ax. The two exchange blows before the attacker finally runs off emptyhanded.
He then returns, hurls the contents of a sack, and walks off. According to the report, he threw feces, sand and other materials at the synagogue.
The local police have been alerted and are searching for the man, according to the community's Rabbi Menachem Mendel Cohen, who witnessed the attack.
The bullet hole-ridden door of a German synagogue that held firm in a botched far-right attack on Yom Kippur last year was being replaced on Tuesday, a week after the suspect in the attack went on trial. It is slated to become part of a memorial.
The suspect, Stephan Balliet, is alleged to have posted an anti-Semitic screed before carrying out the October 9 attack in the eastern city of Halle. He broadcast the shooting live on a popular gaming site.
Prosecutors say he repeatedly tried, but failed, to force his way into the synagogue with 52 worshipers inside, before shooting and killing a woman in the street outside and a man at a nearby kebab shop.
The damaged door, pockmarked with bullet holes, became a symbol of concern about rising anti-Semitism in Germany.
On Tuesday, a carpenter removed the door, news agency dpa reported. A new one was being installed in its place.
The head of Halle's Jewish community, Max Privorozki, said that a memorial will be built and the old door will be a central part of it.
Over 100,000 viewers worldwide tuned into a series of online lessons hosted this week by Yeshivat HaKotel, a major religious Zionist hesder yeshiva located across from the Temple Mount and the Western Wall.
Dubbed the "Jewish Unity" event, the lessons featured dozens of rabbis, lecturers, and teachers representing the spectrum of the Torah world: men and women, ultra-Orthodox and national-religious, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, from Israel and from diaspora communities around the world.
The speakers addressed a variety of topics that are relevant to the days priorto Tisha B'Av, a national as well as a religious day of mourning the destruction of the two temples, including redemption, rebuilding the Temple, interpersonal mitzvot, and more.
Over 190 Torah personalities each shared their unique perspective and demonstrated the diversity of the Torah world. Notable speakers included Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau, Chief Sephardi Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem Shlomo Amar, Rabbi Chaim Druckman, Rabbi Eliyahu Rachamim Zeini, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and more.
"The yearning for the rebuilding of Jerusalem is strengthened in complex times," explained Moti Jerbi, CEO of Yeshivat Hakotel. "The entire Jewish world is trying to recover from the corona virus, and at this time we are asking the entire jewish people to come together around Torah, love for fellow Jews and the rebuilding of Jerusalem. We thank the almost 200 speakers who participated in this most important project.
"During these complicated times, we do not take their time for granted. All lessons are available on the Yeshivat Hakotel's YouTube channel, and everyone is welcome to continue viewing them."
An Orthodox Jewish woman who hopes to represent Israel at the Olympic Games in Tokyo next year is trying to persuade International Olympic Association not to hold a key athletic event on Shabbat.
In an interview on Monday with the UK paper The Telegraph, New Jersey-born Bracha "Beatie" Deutsch — a champion marathon runner, mother of five children and resident of Jerusalem — explained that there were two conditions on her participation at the Games, only one of which was within her control.
As a marathon runner, Deutsch is within touching distance of the qualification standard for Tokyo of 2 hr 29 min 30 sec, having clocked in at 2 hr 32 min in January's marathon in Jerusalem. But a bigger hurdle is the decision of Games' organizers to hold the marathon on a Saturday.
"When I set myself the goal of representing Israel in the Olympics, the marathon was on a Sunday," the 28-year-old Deutsch told the newspaper. "They then moved all the outdoor distance events to Sapporo and condensed them into four days. The women's marathon is on Shabbat."
Deutsch's attempts to overturn the International Olympic Committee's decision have fallen flat, despite hoping there might be room for negotiation now the Games have been postponed until 2021.
"I wrote to them to see if there was a possibility of switching the marathon with the race walk [on Friday]," she said. "So far, they've not been very receptive."
Deutsch, who immigated to Israel from the US at the age of 19, said that the Olympic authorities needed to show more cultural sensitivity.
The government is examining a proposal to establish a town expressly for immigrants from Ethiopia. If the idea is approved, it could come under criticism as a supposed attempt to separate that immigrant community from the rest of the country's residents.
The proposal is the brainchild of Deputy Public Security Minister Gadi Yevarkan, himself a member of the Ethiopian-Israeli community, who recently met with Construction and Housing Minister Yakov Litzman. The two agreed on a series of actions to be taken to improve the lot of Ethiopian Israelis.
Yevarkan presented an overview of the community's housing needs, and also suggested ideas to promote employment initiatives in the community.
The two sides agreed that Yevarkan would compile housing plans that would be submitted to the Construction and Housing Ministry for evaluation by its professional staff. It appears that such a plan might be given a green light and approved for central Israel.
Yevarkan told Israel Hayom, "I'm excited, this is great news. The significance of establishing a town for the Beta [Israel] community is the fulfillment of the dream of our forefathers, going back generations, to build a home in the ancestral land they dreamed of.
Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel and Minister for Community Empowerment and Advancement Orly Levi-Abekasis announced July 18 that their respective ministries will advance plans to promote urban agriculture across Israel. The announcement was hailed by many environmental activists and groups.
Israel is currently experiencing an unprecedented economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic. But for some Israelis, the pandemic also represents an opportunity for change. The Radical group is made up of such people and its Idea Lab promotes groundbreaking, innovative initiatives. A few weeks ago, the group launched a competition for globe-changing ideas. There were 700 ideas submitted to Radical, which promised to present the winning idea to the relevant authorities and work toward real, concrete results. The contest led directly to Gamliel and Levy-Abekasis' announcement.
"Minister Gamliel sees great importance in developing urban agriculture — a significant and relevant issue especially in the corona period," her office told the press. The winning idea "implements the objectives of the environment protection ministry while adding an angle of innovation."
Tel Aviv University professor Alon Eliran and activist Tami Zori were the ones to propose the winning idea. Their Forest City vision offers holistic, radical answers to the needs of our modern cities, designed for cars instead of people.
The Forest City concept is simple: planting trees and other plants across the urban setting so that vegetation covers much of the asphalt and cement landscape, producing a harmonious and multi-purpose environment. Eliran and Zori proposed a new urban concept in which nature becomes an integral component of the city habitat. Their plan calls for municipalities to encourage residents to cultivate all sorts of vegetation, including edible plants and medicinal herbs, plants that promise to contribute to residents' nutritional needs. Residents who take part in the project are to receive funding. Organic waste will not be discarded but used as fertilizer, to minimize environmental impact. Municipalities will take measures to encourage urban landscaping, such as subsidizing water expenses for buildings with gardens or reducing taxes. (h/t Zvi)
A group of Yeroham residents have banded together to refurbish a 2,000-year-old archaeological site that was recently defaced with graffiti.
Prior to the vandalism, the site, a small fort which served as a way station for travelers on ancient trade roads, had already suffered from neglect and damage. Hikers tossed away litter and lit campfires in the structure's chambers, and broke the arches that had held up the building's roof.
The graffiti was the last straw. Archaeologists teamed up with the IAA's educational center in the Negev to organize volunteers to clean up the site. Instructors from BeYachad Academy in Yeroham, as well as other local residents, removed the graffiti, weeded, and collected trash, and in return were treated to a mini-seminar about the site and the finds that have been dug up there.
One of the BeYachad staff said, "It's very moving to help preserve the site. Taking part in cleaning and refurbishing the post was an opportunity to learn about it up close, and feel a connection with it."
The IAA is hoping that the city will adopt the site and hold activities and volunteer maintenance days there on a regular basis.
Meanwhile, the IAA's Antiquities Theft Prevention Unit is trying to track down the vandals.
Pandemic, climate change, and international socioeconomic depression are all leading factors in the crash and burn of Negev viticulture — a millennium and a half ago.
A new archaeological study of Byzantine-era trash dumps in the Negev Highlands offers an eerily relevant analysis of how the strong Byzantine empire of the mid-6th century began to crumble while international markets were tanked by a butterfly-effect list of causes. Contributing factors to the doomsday atmosphere included the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA), a bizarre widespread climate anomaly that began with a series of massive volcanic eruptions in the 530s and 540s CE, and the Justinian Plague of 541-549 CE.
The study was published Monday in the prestigious peer-reviewed Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).
"It is compelling and crazy that you have these double disasters — on one hand the Little Ice Age and on the other hand the plague — while during the age of Justinian, the Byzantine empire reached its greatest expansion. It was all downhill from there, from the mid-6th century onwards," said lead author of the study Daniel Fuks, a PhD student in the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University.
Using organic evidence collected at three Negev sites — Elusa, Shivta and Nessana — and 11 midden pits, an interdisciplinary team of Israeli archaeologists charted the rise and fall of commercial viticulture in the Negev Highlands, and how international disasters may have played a role in its demise and the domino effect of global markets.
The study is part of the ongoing Negev Byzantine Bio-Archaeology Research Program's "Crisis on the Margins of the Byzantine Empire" project, headed by Prof. Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa. Fuks, who spoke to The Times of Israel from Cambridge where he will shortly begin a postdoc, completed the study out of Bar-Ilan University Prof. Ehud Weiss's archaeobotany lab.
The greening of the Byzantine-era desert was made possible by rainwater runoff farming and fertilizing the vineyards through bird droppings from local dovecotes. Fuks took the evidence of this agriculture — some 10,000 seeds of grape, wheat and barley from the trash pits — to Bar-Ilan Prof. Weiss's archaeobotany lab.
The remains of a 1,300-year-old church featuring fine mosaic floors were uncovered in the village of Kfar Kama in the Lower Galilee, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Tuesday.
"The church, measuring 12 × 36 m., includes a large courtyard, a narthex foyer and a central hall," IAA archaeologist Nurit Feig said in a press release. "This church presented three apses [prayer niches], The nave and the aisles were paved with mosaics which partially survived. Their colorful decoration stands out, incorporating geometric patterns, and blue, black, and red floral patterns. A special discovery was the small reliquary, a stone box used to preserve sacred relics."
The church was first found during the excavation ahead of the construction of a playground in the village at the initiative of the Kfar Kama Local Council and the Jewish National Fund.
Another church, dating back to the 6th century, was discovered in the town, a Circassian center, in the 1960s.
"This was probably the village church, whilst the church now discovered was probably part of a contemporary monastery on the outskirts of the village," said Prof. Moti Aviam of the Kinneret Academic College, who collaborated in the excavation.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Egypt's Economic Court sentenced Tik Tok influencers Haneen Hossam, Mawaddah al-Adham and three others to two years in prison and a LE 300,000 fine for violating family values and promoting debauchery and immorality via their accounts on social networking websites.
They were also accused of cooperating with organized human trafficking rings, and of using women to commit crimes that violate the principles and values of Egyptian society.\
Al-Adham's TikTok videos look just like any other TikTok videos.
She dresses provocatively for an Egyptian but nothing seems to be illegal.
However, the Arabic versions of the story add a sinister twist. Her lawyer says that she was asked to undergo a "virginity exam" as part of the prosecution along with an examination of her bank accounts.
Al-Adham refused, and for all we know this may have been a factor in her sentence.
Egyptian police and military have been known to use "virginity tests" as weapons to control women. It is not something that is often discussed in English. If this was demanded of al-Adham, it is a truly disgusting indictment of the Egyptian justice system.
British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis accused Twitter and Facebook of "complicity" in online anti-Semitism on Sunday, charging that the two social media giants' "inaction" had allowed hate to flourish on their platforms.
"For too long, social media has been a safe space for those who peddle hatred and prejudice," Mirvis wrote in letters sent to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who is Jewish.
"Free speech is an essential cornerstone of any civilized society, but when it is used to incite hatred and violence against others, social media companies have a responsibility to act and must do so without delay," he wrote.
"Over the next two days, many people around the world, including myself, will be suspending their social media activity in protest against the woeful lack of responsible leadership from companies including Twitter and Facebook," Mirvis continued.
"This cannot be allowed to stand. Your inaction amounts to complicity. I urge you to take swift action to challenge the hatred that currently thrives on your platform."
A host of British politicians, celebrities, high-profile figures and other users said they were signing off of Twitter for two days starting Monday morning to protest anti-Semitic hate on the social media platform.
The protest, promoted under the hashtag #NoSafeSpaceForJewHate, was sparked by Twitter's handling of a recent anti-Semitic rant by UK rap artist Wiley, and came as anti-hate groups have stepped up pressure for social media platforms to clamp down on rampant hate speech.
Wiley, 41, whose real name is Richard Cowie, posted a stream of anti-Semitic tweets Friday, claiming connections between the Jewish community and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as repeated tropes about Jews and money.
The tweets were up for 12 hours before Twitter finally deleted some of them under its "hateful conduct policy," though others remain. He also posted anti-Semitic content on Instagram, which appeared not to have been deleted.
The grime musician, who has half a million Twitter followers, was given a seven-day suspension from the platform. Amid a wave of backlash his management company said it had cut all ties with him. He is also facing a police investigation.
Among the people and organizations going silent until Wednesday are British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and his predecessor Jonathan Sacks, members of Parliament, Israeli elected officials and leading Jewish organizations in Canada and the United States.
Before going dark, Mirvis posted a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey calling for action against anti-Semitism on the platform he co-founded more than a decade ago. "Your inaction amounts to complicity," Mirvis wrote.
The protest took root after Jewish actress Tracy-Ann Oberman, who became famous for her role on "EastEnders," tweeted on Friday night that she was considering abandoning Twitter over Wiley's two-day spree of aggressively anti-Semitic posts.
HonestReporting is joining a widespread 48-hour Twitter 'blackout' after the musician known as Wiley was allowed to tweet incitement against Jews for hours unimpeded. We stand together with the demands of other Jewish organizations that are calling on Twitter to act more quickly to prevent the spread of dangerous hate speech to large audiences.
Rapper Richard Kylea Cowie Jr., better known by his stage name Wiley, spent hours on Friday mounting a relentless attack against Jews, including calls for black people to go to "war" against Jews. Wiley claimed in these tweets that Jews had usurped black people as the Hebrews, a conspiracy theory that has led to acts of terrorism against Jews, such as the stabbing attack in Monsey in New York in December 2019. Wiley also called for Jews to be shot.
Wiley's extended rant on Twitter saw him repeatedly invoking conspiracy theories positing that Jews were responsible for the international slave trade, claiming that Jews had cheated him and were "snakes", comparing Jews to the Ku Klux Klan, and suggesting that Jews should "hold some corn" – a colloquialism meaning that the subjects be shot.
Over the course of several hours, Wiley issued dozens of offensive tweets to his audience of over 493k followers. Twitter's reaction was to delete a handful of his tweets and briefly suspend his account – a woefully inadequate response.
Yet despite Wiley's large online following, his protracted rant was initially met with little coverage in the traditional media.
For years, HonestReporting has been urging the broadcast media to adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. More recently, HonestReporting has taken the step of urging social media giants such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to adopt the same standard, on the understanding that social media networks are now as influential as traditional media outlets – if not more.
StandWithUs: Why I Speak Up For Israel
Brave and outspoken, Col. Richard Kemp has been on the front line in some of the world's toughest hotspots for the last 30 years. A former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, Col. Kemp is an ardent and devoted advocate for Israel and has spoken in support of Israel multiple times at the United Nations and in forums around the world. Join StandWithUs TV as we discuss what drives Col. Kemp's unwavering support and love for the Jewish state.
A visit to Libya by French writer and intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy has led to controversy over who invited him and escorted him amid a civil war in the country. Protests erupted near Tarhuna, southeast of Tripoli, and one man shouted "Jewish dog" at the French writer's convoy, according to a video posted online. Levy is Jewish.
Levy wrote on Twitter that he is doing a reporting trip to the "killing fields" of Libya. He posted a photo of what he said were Libyan police protecting a free press. In the photo, men with AK-47s and covered faces can be seen, apparently protecting him. "So different from the thugs who tried to block my convoy on my way back to Misrata."
#Tarhuna. Just after my reportage on the killing fields. These are the true Libyan police who protect free press. So different from the thugs who tried to block my convoy on my way back to #Misrata. The full reportage will be published soon. pic.twitter.com/JYW1Aa5Y2V
Turkey's pro-government Anadolu media appeared to highlight the "Jewish" aspect of the trip. He was called a "controversial French Jewish intellectual" in a headline on the pro-AK Party website, which is one of the main backers of Turkey's militarist government.
Ankara's ruling regime has been escalating the conflict in Libya in recent months, shipping Syrian mercenaries recruited from refugee camps to Libya and also sending drones and weapons to Tripoli. Libya is in the middle of a civil war between the Turkish-backed government in Tripoli and the Egyptian-backed forces in eastern Libya, called the Libyan National Army.
Turkish media slammed Bernard-Henri Levy for being Jewish. It noted that the interior minister of Tripoli had "denied reports of inviting [the] controversial French Jewish intellectual."
The Government of National Accord appeared to say the journalist had come without an official government invitation and that the "public has the absolute right to react to any public event." The Tripoli government might take harsh measures against any party involved in Levy's visit, Anadolu reported.
My family background and history allow for a unique perspective when it comes to Israeli politics. The paternal side of my family arrived in Israel in the 1930s from Yemen; the maternal side of my family arrived in the 1950s from Poland.
However, on social media, the dialogue pertaining to Israel pegs every member of my family, including me, as some "European white colonizer" with no connection to the region.
The absurdity of these claims gets overlooked, because of the simplicity of the argument. It attempts to paint a picture of the light-skinned European-looking Jew oppressing the darker-skinned indigenous Palestinian, to make it more easily relatable with North American politics, in a wilful distortion of history.
The effect has more than one advantage, as their statements can fit neatly in the character restrictions allotted in social media, while the proper response, which would involve explaining the Jewish people's long history in the Diaspora, isn't so easily summarized.
Explaining that history also does not have the same visual impact as picturing light-skinned people coming from Europe, to supplant the darker Middle Eastern natives.
The easiest way to combat this image is by simply stating how Jews like me exist, and as a majority in Israel. It is an effective counter, as it provides a glaring contradiction to their simplistic narrative, which proceeds to fall apart quickly. In comes this article in 972 online (an Israeli media), which tries to portray us speaking about our existence as "propaganda."
What's incredibly ironic is that this piece is written by another Mizrahi Jew. While trying to brush away other Mizrahi voices, who wish to state a simple fact that throws a big wrench into a toxic narrative, she attempts to lift her own.
The same people elevating this voice, are the ones who repeatedly use any grievances we have, and twist it into demonization, with the aim of dismantling the very state many Mizrahi Jews now call home.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has been a voice against hatred in all forms since the 1970s. He may not dwell on it, he but knows firsthand how hate unanswered can explode into violence.
In 1973, the Hanafi Muslim Center in Washington, DC, was attacked after Hamaas Abdul Khaalis – its head and Elijah Muhammed's former right-hand man – criticized the Nation Islam for being anti-white. The assassins failed to kill Hamaas, but slaughtered his son, Daud. Then they forced Hamaas's wife, Bibi Khaalis, to watch them drown two children in an upstairs bathtub and took her to the basement, where her 9-day-old daughter was drowned in a sink. Bibi was bound, gagged and shot eight times. Khaalis's daughter, Amina, was shot three times in a closet. Kareem, who had endowed the Hanafi Center, was a pallbearer at the children's funerals. When nine black Muslim extremists were tried for the crime, Farrakhan used his radio broadcasts to warn jurors of dire consequences if any were convicted.
As Americans struggle to sort out the post-George Floyd world, we should be increasingly concerned over selective outrage based on color and politics. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed the re-election bid of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Even before her election to Congress, Omar tweeted: "Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel."
New York Times columnist Bari Weiss – whose public resignation from that paper exposed a biased and toxic environment replete with double standards – had correctly pointed out that Omar's statement updated the age-old "conspiracy theory of the Jew as the hypnotic conspirator." Omar wasn't done. She disparaged historic congressional support for Israel, saying as, "It's all about the Benjamins." Then came another wishy-washy apology, followed by noises from House Democrats that they would condemn Omar for her anti-Semitic comment in no uncertain terms. Instead, they blinked. The House Democratic establishment, led by Pelosi, pushed through a toothless resolution condemning a laundry list of bigotries, but not anti-Semitism in particular, and failing to mention her name.
Our national political leadership, cultural and social media influencers, and corporate giants – not least the NFL and NBA – would be wise to follow Kareem's slam dunk against anti-Semitism and restore a level playing field in the battle against hate of all kinds.
Kezban Özer is a mother who lost five children to the devastating earthquake that shook Turkey in 1983. Mustafa Bozdemir won the World Press Photo of the Year, in 1984, for capturing her heartache.
Earlier this month, Ilia Rashad Muhammad exploited Özer's pain in a despicable way, by using Bozdemir's photo for one of many lies (see the 1:40 mark in the video below) among the hodgepodge of anti-Jewish delusion put together by the Louis Farrakhan admirer in a 4 ½ minute video.
Rashad Muhammad praises a statement, which he admits was falsely attributed to Adolph Hitler, whose Nazi party also abused Black people, as "facts that White and Jewish world powers are largely maintained by keeping Black people ignorant of our true identity of being the prophetic children of Israel."
In forwarding his anti-Jewish agenda, Muhammad condescendingly strips Black people of agency. He claims they have been "kept ignorant" by the Jews – as if incapable of maintaining their own historical record. He negates the beauty, accomplishments, culture and struggles of Black people urging them to hijack that of the Jews.
Though he aims to wrest the Jewish homeland from the Jewish people by saying it belongs to his race, he doesn't question the claim of the Palestinian Arabs who have also been trying to gain contril and wrest it away from the Jews (despite the Jews extending generous land offers that the Palestinian Arab leadership never accepted).
Israel is not in Africa, it's in Asia where much of the Middle East, and their predominantly lighter complected citizens, live. With the exception of Beta Israel and the other Ethiopian Jews who are integral to Israeli society, most Black people in the Middle East (of which there are not many due to the brutal conditions Arabs subjected them to) are descendants of the millions of men and women violently captured by the Arabs (and Turks) and kept as slaves until they accepted Islam to gain freedom.
Jay Elec is far too smart to just outright say what—rather than who—it was he bagged in England, or to spell out what he thinks it means for a proud follower of the NOI to sleep with and then homewreck the prototypical rich Jew. Here on "Soulja Slim," that psychosexual fascination with the Jews is slyly glanced at without being named. "The Synagogue of Satan wants to hang me by my collar," Jay raps in the very next line after the Rothschild name check. Only the very obtuse could miss the reference in that one: In a 2018 speech, Farrakhan asked his followers, "I wonder, will you recognize Satan? I wonder if you will see the satanic Jew and the synagogue of Satan?"
Elsewhere on the album, Jay raps about driving through the desert listening to Farrakhan lectures along with "Serge Gainsbourg or Madonna or a podcast on piranhas," just one of the album's many effortlessly dexterous internal rhymes. "Du'a's up for the honorable Louis Farrakhan/Who pulled me out the grave and pointed me towards the Sunnah," he raps on "Flux Capacitor." "Satan struck Palestine with yet another mortar," Jay frets on "Fruits of the Spirit." By now, Jay hasn't earned the assumption that he's only talking about his objections to specific Israeli policies here.
What makes the record a mainstream hip-hop event isn't the skill of Jay Electronica or the constant invocation of Farrakhan, who has long been selling himself as a "peacemaker" in the rap world. Rather, it's the tacit blessing being bestowed on both men by Jay-Z, the titan whose Roc Nation label released A Written Testimony and whose Tidal streaming service has extensively promoted the album.
Jay-Z, one of the dominant figures in hip-hop, and therefore in American life, appears on eight of the 10 tracks on A Written Testimony, and Jay Elec can hardly believe his luck. Having Jay-Z as a sidekick on his full-length debut, he raps, is like winning the lottery—and he's right. His weird tapestry of Farrakhan acclamation is legitimated and popularized through Jay-Z's presence. More than that, A Written Testimony has some of the best rapping of Jay-Z's entire, nearly three-decade career. Thanks to Jay Elec, Jay-Z, now 50 years old and an elder statesman of whom little is now expected in the way of actual art, is possessed of a new sense of poetry and purpose.
A Jewish fan—or at least this Jewish fan, who has been listening to Jay-Z since he was 11 years old—can't help but wonder whether this breakthrough was really worth it, though, and wonder at what Jay really believes in his heart. Does he buy into NOI's rhetoric on some level, a possibility for which there is at least some evidence, or is he simply supporting a friend and artistic collaborator whose work he wants to boost? Put another way: Is Jay-Z guilty of worse sins than moral deafness? Given the depth of his participation in Testimony, the answer might not even matter much.
British Rapper Wiley Dropped By Manager Over Anti-Semitic Tweets
London-based A-List Management company cut ties Saturday with grime rapper Wiley following his anti-Semitic rant on Twitter.
Announcing the decision, John Woolf, Wiley's manager and one of the company's founders, said "there is no place in society for antisemitism."
The move followed Wiley's massive anti-Semitic outburst on social media, which appeared to invoke some of the beliefs of the Nation of Islam movement, which saw its leader Louis Farrakhan claim that Jews are not the real people of Israel.
In his other tweets, at times expletives-ridden, the rapper, who is Member of the Order of the British Empire and boasts a solid following on social media, also alleged a link between the Jewish community and the Ku Klux Klan in the US.
The American Jewish Congress on Sunday blasted controversial Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar for invoking anti-Semitic tropes in her campaign materials.
Omar again found herself in hot water after her campaign sent out a mailer identifying three Jewish donors who support her Democratic primary opponent.
"As she tries to fend off a difficult primary challenge, Rep. Omar attacked Antone Melton-Meaux, her primary opponent, for large donations he has received from donors outside the district, identifying by name only three donors – all of whom are Jewish," the AJC said in a statement.
"By deliberately mentioning only Jewish donors by name, painting Mr. Melton-Meaux as being in their 'pocket,' and questioning whether the voters can 'trust Melton-Meaux's money' the campaign flyer risks invoking age-old anti-Semitic myths that wealthy Jews control politicians and the government through money and influence.
"Rep. Omar has a long history of controversial and anti-Semitic remarks," the statement continued.
"Last year, Rep. Omar implied that Jews are 'buying' support for Israel. She has also suggested that support for Israel constitutes 'allegiance' to a foreign country, invoking the hurtful 'dual loyalty' trope that has been used to persecute and harm Jews. Rep. Omar's comments last year prompted the US House of Representatives to pass a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of hate.
Nationally the breakdown of trust with Jews has left Labour facing potentially catastrophic legal bills. You got a taste of the toxic legacy Corbyn bequeathed his party this week when it had to pay damages and hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs to John Ware of Panorama and former Labour officials, who told the BBC last year how Corbyn's Labour was failing to confront racism. At the time, Corbyn's Labour accused Ware of 'deliberate and malicious misrepresentations' and said much the same about the whistleblowers. Keir Starmer has been left with the bill. Corbyn, of course, would not accept Labour's apology and called it a political rather than a legal decision. In all likelihood, Ware and the whistleblowers will announce they are suing him on Monday. Hundreds of left wingers have donated over £100,000 to a crowd funding appeal to cover Corbyn's legal costs. They appear to believe that if the case went to court a meticulous, fact-checked Panorama documentary, which offered the far left the right to reply to every criticism made of it, would be exposed as a pack of lies.
Good luck with that.
Meanwhile there are dozens of legal actions stemming from an 850-page report the Corbyn faction wrote to justify itself while it still controlled the party. I've read the whole thing and it is a mishmash of confidential emails and WhatsApp messages the Corbynites strung together to imply that Labour officials opposed to Corbyn deliberately scuppered investigations into anti-Semitism to make the saintly leader look bad.
Names are not redacted. Privacy is not respected. When I first spoke to lawyers representing the maligned officials they wondered if they could sue the Labour party over an internal report. Perhaps they could only sue whoever leaked it to the press. It turns out they can sue Labour. Teams of solicitors are now involved in preparing multiple actions for libel, breach of data privacy and misuse of private information for about 40 clients. The costs to Labour could run into millions of pounds. So devastating are the potential losses, the Telegraph quoted one unnamed Labour frontbencher predicting they could bankrupt the party.
Corbyn and his comrades were not content to lead Labour to its worst defeat since 1935. They have left the party a legacy of booby traps that are exploding under it as it tries to rebuild from the wreckage.
VIDEO HAS SOUND.
It's been an extremely tough week for millionaire Jeremy Corbyn. Please donate money to Jeremy's pointless court cases as Unite union subs might not be able to cover all of his legal bills.
They've created America's first-ever chair in Palestinian Studies.
Brown University, the Ivy League college founded in 1764, is the latest high-profile academic institution to go all in for Palestine, a country that does not exist. Columbia University's Center for Palestine Studies, a Ramallah on the Hudson, still occupies first place in excusing Palestinian violence, exaggerating Israeli responses to Palestinian terrorism, and inculcating new generations of BDS ideologues. But Brown has just upped the ante by endowing America's first-ever chair in Palestinian Studies.
This is not merely a symbolic gesture, but a significant commitment, hailed in the press as a "milestone" and proclaimed as Palestinians "Finally getting a place at the academic table." Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, its Center for Middle East Studies, and its New Directions in Palestinian Studies research initiative will now collaborate in a synergistic venture, spending money and hiring teachers to indoctrinate students and "inform the community" about the evils of Israeli colonialism, while stamping its imprimatur on the virtues of the Palestinian cause. Call it the Providence Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The new position is named for Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, whom Brown University calls "a towering and beloved figure of Palestinian and Arab literature and humanistic values." Humanistic values? Mahmoud Darwish was many things, but a humanist he was not. As a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), he wrote and edited its monthly journal and served as director of its research center. He was also the author of the Palestinian Declaration of Independence. In the picture below he is seated between two of the Palestinians' arch-terrorists, Yasser Arafat, leader of the PLO, and George Habash, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Darwish's self-indulgent and self-pitying poetry is filled with antagonistic, bellicose imagery. As a prime example, consider his most famous poem, "Identity Card," which ends with this quatrain: And yet, if I were to become hungry I shall eat the flesh of my usurper. Beware, beware of my hunger And of my anger!
Has the Ivy League so completely rewritten the history of humanism that Darwish's poetic invocations of cannibalistic murder are now hip and cool beyond a Palestinian audience?
The remains of 286 Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust were found in two basements in a town in southwest Ukraine.
The remains, mostly women and children, will be buried in a mass grave in the ancient Jewish cemetery in Sataniv, the Ynet news site reported.
The town had an organized Jewish community for about 500 years before the Nazis captured it in 1941 and began systematically killing its Jews, according to the Yad Vashem website.
On May 15, 1942, Nazi troops and Ukrainian military police locked the 286 Jews in the cellars and suffocated them.
After World War II, the bodies were left in place in the cellars with a sign indicating that they were Nazi victims. The ruined house above them eventually covered the cellars with a heap of rubble and an outdoor market operated over the area for many years, according Ynet.
Rabbi Alexander Feingold, of the Khmelnytsky and Ternopil districts in Ukraine, told Ynet that his community waged a six-year legal battle with the property owner to search the cellars. Though the community lost in the courts, it eventually reached an agreement with the landowner, according to the report. Some of the bodies were discovered in 2019, and the rest were found about two weeks ago.
Feingold said a park will be established in memory of the victims near the site of the massacre.
A swastika and other graffiti were spray-painted on several buildings, including a Jewish organization, in a shopping strip in a heavily Jewish Cleveland suburb.
The graffiti, which also said "666," a term referring to the devil, and the phrase "Party with the Devil B*tch," was discovered Sunday.
The vandalized storefront buildings in University Heights include the Waxman Torah Center, which also is home to the Jewish Learning Connection outreach organization. The building bears signs for both.
The swastika was painted on the wall of Friedman, Leavitt & Associates, an accounting firm that has been at the same location for 30 years, the Cleveland Jewish News reported. Other graffiti was found on Mika's Wig Boutique & Spa.
Among the strip of storefronts are a kosher butcher and several Jewish-owned shops.
Graffiti also was discovered on a supermarket across the street that has been vandalized previously.
A University Heights Police spokesperson told the Cleveland Jewish News that it is in possession of security video and is investigating.
Ness Ziona, Israel-based Nextage Innovation, a maker of cannabis-based products, said Monday it has entered into an agreement in principle with Israel's Tempo Beverages Ltd. to set up a joint firm to develop cannabis-based products for the foods and beverage industries.
The joint venture will also develop and sell new technologies for the food and beverage industry, the two firms said in a statement.
Tempo, which produces, imports and markets alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, is Israel's largest brewer and second-largest beverages firm. The firm is part owned by the brewer Heineken International Beheer B.V.
Nextage said in the statement that the joint venture is a "significant strategic milestone" to consolidate its position at the forefront of cannabis-based products.
Nextage Innovation holds a license from the Israeli Health Ministry for the development, testing and manufacturing of cannabis products, and was founded in 2018, according to the database of Start-Up Nation Central. The firm is soon to be part of the shell company Micromedic Technologies Ltd., a holding biopharmaceutical firm traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.
The firms said the company will be owned in equal parts and that a final agreement will be signed within 90 days.
Zebra Medical Vision, an Israeli startup that uses machine learning technology to read and analyze data from CT and X-ray scans, said it has received a nod from the US Food and Drug Administration that will allow the firm to market its product in the US, to help physicians detect the buildup of calcium in coronary arteries, which serves as a measure of heart disease risk.
Zebra's AI-based automated coronary calcium detection product is capable of automatically calculating a patient's coronary calcium score from CT scans, providing physicians with important data that enables them to assess the risk of coronary artery disease, Zebra said.
A coronary calcium scan measures the amount of calcium in the walls of coronary arteries. Overview. Calcification is a sign of atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease, or coronary microvascular disease.
The approval is the first Zebra has received from the FDA and "one of the first ones for AI" in healthcare imaging, Eyal Gura, the co-founder and chairman of Zebra said by email.
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common type of heart disease and a major cause of death in the US, both in men and women, according to the US National Library of Medicine.
The disease occurs when the arteries that supply blood to the heart harden and narrow, due to the buildup of cholesterol and other materials on the inner walls of the arteries. As a result, the heart muscle can't get the blood or oxygen it needs.
According to estimates, nearly one-half of men and one-third of women over 40 years old will develop some symptoms of CAD in the United States.
Moderna Inc said on Monday it has started a U.S. government-backed late-stage trial for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the first to be implemented under the Trump administration's Operation Warp Speed anti-coronavirus program.
News of the study, which will test the response to the vaccine in 30,000 adults who do not have the respiratory illness, pushed shares in Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna up 11% at $81.31 before the bell.
The federal government is supporting Moderna's vaccine project with nearly a billion dollars and has chosen it as one of the first to enter large-scale human trials.
More than 150 vaccine candidates are in various stages of development, with 23 prospects in human trials across the globe. Moderna and British firm AstraZeneca Plc are leading the race with their candidates in late-stage studies.
While rival AstraZeneca said last week it was still on track to be producing doses by September, they and other drugmakers are now targeting delivery of a fully-tested vaccines by the end of the year at the earliest.
"Having a safe and effective vaccine distributed by the end of 2020 is a stretch goal, but it's the right goal for the American people," National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said.
Moderna said it remains on track to deliver about 500 million doses a year, and possibly up to 1 billion doses a year, beginning 2021.
Israeli blood testing startup S.D. Sight Diagnostics has raised $71 million from international venture capital funds and US corporations, Clal Biotechnology Industries revealed in a report sent to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange last week. Sight Diagnostics has yet to announce the details of the new funding round, but Clal Biotechnology Industries stated in its report that, following the news, its Anatomy Technology Fund, of which it holds a 50% stake, now owns 4% of Sight Diagnostics.
Sight raised a $27.8 million series C round in December 2018, with the round being led by Longliv Ventures, a member of multinational health and beauty conglomerate the CK Hutchison Group. Existing investors OurCrowd, Go Capital, and New Alliance Capital also participated.
Sight isn't involved in Covid-19 detection, but its complete blood count (CBC) test is being used across the world to help treat coronavirus patients who require constant testing to determine their condition.
"After proving our technology in malaria detection, it became overwhelmingly clear to us that the CBC, the world's most common blood test, is where we'd make the most impact," said Sarah Levy, Sight's CTO, following the series C announcement. "The ability to create rich digital images of blood samples and analyze them in minutes has enormous potential to improve diagnostics and patient care."
As the coronavirus crisis seems poised to stay with us for the near future, with no vaccine expected in the coming months, a host of Israeli companies and researchers are developing technological tools to make our lives as easy as possible in the meantime, preventing infections and helping authorities get more data and invest fewer resources.
Here are several examples featured on Friday in a report by Channel 12, many of which are still in development and testing stages. Fresh start
Aura Air is a startup that says it has developed an air freshener that kills the coronavirus with 99.99 percent efficiency.
Its CEO, Aviad Schneiderman, said its product could render indoor spaces safe, as studies around the world show the vast majority of COVID-19 infections happen indoors.
"Our level of disinfection and purification is one of the highest, we know to clear the air of germs, viruses, bacteria, mold, fungi and more," he said, adding that a trial has been conducted at Sheba Medical Center and will soon start in a school.
A new blood test can detect various types of cancer years before previously possible with traditional detection methods, according to a new research published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
Early detection of cancer has the potential to significantly decrease death rates caused by the disease. Scientists have tried for years to develop a cancer screening-test that would reliably detect malignancy potential before tumor cells have the chance to spread, making treatment more effective. But until today, most attempts were unsuccessful or had partial results at best.
Developed by a Sino-US startup, the groundbreaking new blood test is referred to as PanSeer. It was developed by an international team of scientists at the University of California, who were successfully able to diagnose five different types of cancer long before symptoms appeared in the patients it tested.
The five types of cancer that PanSeer can currently detect are stomach cancer, esophageal cancer, bowel cancer, lung cancer and liver cancer, all fairly common.
The test is based on a technique that was developed over a decade and allows detection of malignant tumors in their early stages, which haven't led to any symptoms yet and were thus undetectable with previous methods.
Previous detections methods typically involved researchers collecting blood samples from people already diagnosed with the disease.
The Morris and Rosalind Goodman Family Foundation, based in Montreal, Canada, announced Monday that they have launched a scholarship program aimed at supporting Israeli graduate students of Ethiopian descent, in partnership with Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, according to a press release from the organization.
Noting the under-representation of Ethiopian-Israelis within academia, Morris and Rosalind Goodman Family Foundation said that the scholarship's goal is to help the community overcome hurdles presented in their integration into Israeli society.
The scholarship will provide Ethiopian Israeli graduate students who are engaged in social, community or academic leadership activities financial assistance to help in easing the monetary burden of their studies, which will be divided equally between students at Tel Aviv University (TAU) and Hebrew University (HU).
The press release added that the result of the initiative is to support a new generation of Ethiopian-Israeli leaders in academic and the wider Israeli society.
"The intention of this grant is to help on multiple levels," says Maxyne Finkelstein, President of MRGFF. "It is to assist students with financial needs and also to raise awareness of the importance of graduate studies for this population in the context of creating greater social and economic benefit through advanced education."
Both TAU and HU commended the initiative and highlighted their commitment to supporting Ethiopian-Israeli graduate students on their path to positions of leadership.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Jordan's Ad Dustour newspaper columnist Marwan Soudah writes about the Jewish Zionist plan to for world domination– a plan that he happily credits his Soviet Union-era scholars for teaching him.
During my academic studies in the Soviet Union and beyond, I became acquainted with scores of scholars, specialists, researchers, orientalists, writers, and journalists from Russia, both civilians and military. They devoted most of their time and their entire efforts to denuding the expansionist Zionist thought and practice in Palestine and the Arab world, and to concentrate efforts to curb the global and racist-slavery goals of Zionism that set their sights on infringing on the peoples of Russia and the globe, and dividing people into two parts, two camps, two worlds facing and contradicting, neither valid nor free. They are: the Jews of Zionism "born full and civilized"; And .. Goyim; gentiles who are meant to be servants and inferior slaves.
Among these distinguished scholars wereYuri Ivanov; Vladimir Begon; Yevgeny Yvesev. Galina Nikitina; Vladimir Kiseleyov; Professor Gedanov; F. P. Pulshakov and the two magnificent internationalist generals: Yevgeny Shikatikhin and Professor Alexander Romanenko. The latter fought in Chinese military uniforms to confront the Zionist war pilots in the airspace of Korea and the People's Republic of China, and the foundations of the global front against Zionism and others. During the successive decades of their difficult struggles, they warned a lot about the hideous Zionist goals that "will not stop in and around Palestine", and some of them paid with their lives, dying was the price of their faith, the necessity of stopping the imperialist Zionist expansion of thought and practice on the ground…
They warned, according to their analyses and private information available to them, that: Signing a peace treaty or agreement with "Israel" will only mean one thing: a new stage of rest for Zionism during which it is preparing to implement a renewed aggression in the Palestinian territories, and to prepare for another outside it, in the Arab world.
They said that Zionism …does not believe in agreements and peace, because it is voraciously looking for their oil wells, water and wealth. In their studies, they indicated that peace agreements with the Zionists openly implied: a renewed geographical expansion, a new displacement of Arabs from their homelands, and Zionist plans to create new, more acute internal problems in the Arab countries.
Those patriotic scholars who support us say that Zionism aims, through its pure Jewish state, to distract Jews from its hidden economic-political goal of world domination. They mouth statements of their devotion to the Jewish ideals and the so-called "liberation of persecuted Jews in their societies." In this way, the Zionists established the so-called "movements for national liberation", in order to enable them to mobilize fabricated and politically domesticated fighters capable of fighting and dying to accomplish the Zionist cosmic mission as war and terror, to continuously expand capital and industries, to convert the Arab "goyim" into "Black labor" that has no rights.
Anyone who doubts the links between antisemitism and modern "progressive' socialism should try to explain this article where "Zionists' regard the rest of the world as "goyim" meant to serve them and their plans to take over the world.
