From Ian:
Iran suspended from world judo federation over Israel boycott policy
Iran has been suspended from international judo competitions because of its policy of boycotting bouts with Israeli athletes.Less than a month after Iranian athlete Saeid Mollaei walked off his national team in protest of the boycott policy, the International Judo Federation (IJF) said Wednesday that Iran was suspended ahead of a full hearing.
The Iranian judo star said he was afraid to return home after exposing and criticizing his government’s pressure on him to deliberately lose his semifinal bout in last month’s World Championships in Tokyo so as not to risk facing Israel’s Sagi Muki, the eventual winner, in the Tokyo final.
“Following what happened during the last World Judo Championships Tokyo 2019, the International Judo Federation pronounces against the Iran Judo Federation a protective suspension from all competitions, administrative and social activities organized or authorized by International Judo Federation and its Unions,” the IJF said in a statement on its website.
“The Commission has a strong reason to believe that the Iran Judo Federation will continue or repeatedly engage in misconduct or commit any other offence against the legitimate interests, principles or objectives of the IJF,” the statement said.
Iran’s judo federation is accused of discriminating against Israeli athletes and breaking rules over manipulating competition results.
The suspension went into force immediately, and is subject to an appeal that can be filed by the Iranian federation within 21 days.
UK Labour Party denounced over anti-Semitism conference scheduled for Shabbat
The British Labour Party’s latest attempt to shake long-standing allegations of anti-Jewish bias drew harsh criticism this week after it emerged that a planned meeting to discuss the issue was scheduled to be held on a Saturday, the Jewish day of rest.On Tuesday, the Jewish Labour Movement issued a harsh statement condemning the party for effectively sidelining Jews from the debate, which will focus on streamlining the process of expelling members found guilty of anti-Semitism.
In a statement posted on Twitter, the JLM called the choice of date for the meeting an “institutional failing” and decried the party leadership’s “complete failure in both judgement and commitment to tackle anti-Semitism.”
“We have learnt tonight from press reports that the Party wishes to make sweeping changes to the disciplinary rules on anti-Semitism, without consulting us, its only Jewish affiliate, or any communal organization. To add insult to injury, they will debate these changes at conference on the Jewish Sabbath, when religiously observant Jewish Labor delegates will be silenced, unable to participate in the debate.”
The Jewish community “has zero confidence” that the measures being debated will solve the anti-Semitism crisis, the statement continued, accusing party leaders of “engaging in anti-Semitism or turning a blind eye to it.”
“It will simply streamline the process of letting anti-Semites off the hook.”
Gil Troy: American Jews should learn from Australia’s Zionist ‘Kanga-Jews’
Last month, I had a delightfully anachronistic experience. I met representatives of seven youth movements, from Right to Left. These smart, idealistic, passionately committed twentysomethings proudly call themselves “Zionist.”That Friday night I sang and danced-in the Shabbat with dozens of students from one Jewish high school. Most are “nonreligious” – many drove there. Nevertheless, they welcomed the Sabbath Queen with a hassidic-level nuclear-powered intensity. They do this weekly, voluntarily, joyously!
Welcome to Australia, where I recently completed a 29-speech, 11-day, three-city tour with the Zionist Federation of Australia. It’s truly “down under,” charmingly upside down.
Unlike their American cousins, most Australian Jews attend Jewish day school, join youth movements, visit Israel – repeatedly – and cherish their Jewish traditions.
Ninety-two percent have visited Israel. In America it’s barely 50%, having doubled thanks to Birthright. In Australia, 33% intermarry, twice as many as did 20 years ago, but half the American rate. And, unlike many Americans, most Australian Jews still consider intermarriage a threat to the communal future, not an “opportunity.”
Many Australian students are “out” as Zionists. Considering themselves Jews “first,” they are proudly nationalist. Similarly, most communal leaders are passionate Zionists. They’re often to the community’s “Right,” religiously, politically. They’re modern Maccabees, not Social Justice Warriors in rabbinic robes. In America, many non-Orthodox rabbis and community leaders lead the charge against Israel, wasting precious Torah-teaching time sermonizing against Netanyahu, politicizing the relationship, then wondering why so many Jews seem fed up with Israel – and Judaism.
Hillel Fuld: One year later – Ari Fuld’s brother recalls lost hero
Luckily, my father, the rock of this family, the one who told us countless times over the past year that this is the card we were dealt and we need to live, luckily he spoke on my behalf and brought the world to tears.Over the next 12 months, I learned about heroism. I thought I knew Miriam. I didn’t. She taught me who she was. Like who she really was. A hero. A superhero. Just like her husband.
I thought I knew Tamar. I didn’t. I got to know her. A rock. Like her Abba. She got engaged and married to Michaya, a man Ari loved.
Naomi. “How was she strong?” A question I asked myself thousands of times. Thousands.
Yakir. A 6” 6’ giant whose insides make his physical body seem microscopic. And Natan, such maturity. Strength. The little guy is anything but little.
My brothers? Broken but strong. Every one of them.
As for me, there were books. There were words. There were stories. There were messages. Everything contributed a little bit to helping me get out of bed.
Ari created a tsunami in this world the ripples of which I believe we’ll feel for decades. He left this world the way only he would want to leave this world. He wrote the script of his death and that script was his life. The life of a hero.
He left behind a legacy of a hero, an extended family of heroes, a group of close friends who are all heroes, and me, his very sad little brother.
One whole year.
Alex Ryvchin: Zionism and the “big lie”: How Soviet antisemitism shaped contemporary anti-Zionism
The Arab-Israeli conflict traverses decades, manifests in regular wars, terrorism and endless political skirmishes in international forums. It is also a battle to establish narratives — victims and aggressors, Davids and Goliaths, oppressors and oppressed. Language and the meaning given to basic concepts form a key part of this battle. It is easy for Jewish people to establish a claim to the territory known as Judea and Samaria. The later formulation “West Bank,” coined by the Jordanians following their occupation of the area in 1948 is a bland geographic descriptor that strips the territory of its historical significance.The Associated Press recently stumbled into the morass of political language when it declined to identify the men who tortured and killed Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 as Palestinian terrorists, instead calling them “guerrillas” and “gunmen.”
There is no term in the vernacular of the conflict that is misapplied and distorted more than “Zionism.”
Zionism, correctly understood, refers simply to the return of Jewish people to “Zion” — one of several names given to Jerusalem and the surrounding lands in which the Jews lived and governed in ancient times. In the late nineteenth century, the idea of returning to those lands shifted from a seemingly intangible ideal and wistful age-old expression of yearning for freedom, to a precise, secular, political movement.
The aim of Zionism was to reconstitute a Jewish state in the territory the Jews knew as Eretz Yisrael (The Land of Israel), and which had been renamed “Palestine” following the suppression of the final Jewish rebellion by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in the year 135 CE. The Balfour Declaration, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 (II), and a succession of binding instruments of international law from the San Remo Resolution to the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, had all recognised that the Jews were a distinct people with an unbroken connection to the land and a right to reform their state in some part of that land.
Zionism therefore was the foundational movement of the modern state of Israel. As such, those determined to erase an autonomous Jewish presence from the Middle East have assessed that if they can succeed in depicting Zionism as something loathsome and unjust, the case for Israel can be dramatically undermined.
The contemporary campaign to distort the meaning of Zionism and to associate it with popular concepts of evil, has its origins for the most part in the rapid deterioration of Soviet-Israeli relations, which conditioned attitudes to Israel among the political left.
Huge tech companies like YouTube and Facebook have developed algorithms that they use to determine “hate speech.” When the determination is made, the entry is banned. The algorithms are needed to handle the vast amounts of material posted on these sites, too much for humans to monitor and then rationally decide. Instead, a computer makes the decision. Certainly, computers make the determination in the first stages of “hate-speech” selection.Billions of elements in the system are filtered through the hate-speech algorithm.
The words “Zionist” and “Zionism” seem to have become trigger words. That means posting a presentation on YouTube about being a Zionist may land you, your site, or your organization in the category of being banned due to “hate-speech.”
That is exactly what happened to JBS TV last week.
On Friday, YouTube banned a JBS presentation. A speech delivered by JBS TV president and CEO Mark S. Golub and then presented on its station before being uploaded to YouTube, titled Being a Liberal America Zionist Today, was removed from the YouTube site. The taped presentation was delivered in an established Reform temple, L’Dor V’Dor Congregation, located in the very liberal town of Little Neck, New York.
The exact quote from the screenshot on YouTube after Rabbi Golub’s presentation was pulled read, “Removed for violating YouTube’s policy of hate speech.” The video was down for six hours, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Israeli, American Left ‘criminalizing politics’
Conservative author and radio personality Mark Levin has never been shy about criticizing opponents on the Left or his support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump.Fresh off his latest best-seller, “Unfreedom of the Press,” Levin spoke with JNS on the stakes of the upcoming Israeli elections, the criminal investigations into Netanyahu, as well as how the Left in both countries is attempting to criminalize politics.
Q: Would you say that by announcing the possibility of a defense pact with the State of Israel and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights ahead of the last election Trump is trying to sway the election in Netanyahu’s favor?
“No. Every time our president takes actions that support our greatest ally, the Israelis, it is said to be political. The problem is as a result of [the Israeli] political system; somebody is always running for office. So what’s our president supposed to do? You had an election in the spring, then a few months later, you have another election. The Left and some of that media will interpret it as such. But you know he intends to meet Netanyahu in October at the UN, and so a few weeks before he says, ‘this is one of the things I want to discuss.’ If I were an Israeli, I’d view that as an extremely positive thing.”
“I noticed that Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz immediately attacked it, suggesting that in so many words Israel would be a small player. When it comes to its own defense (as a result of the United States), that’s not true. That’s preposterous. First of all, Israel doesn’t have to agree to anything. If you have a strong prime minister like Netanyahu, he would make sure nothing like that would happen. Secondly, when Gantz makes a comment like that, he’s really smearing my president, because Trump has no intention of doing such a thing.”
Avi Shlaim drops a bombshell at London conference
Avi Shlaim, an emeritus professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford, has been chairing sessions at a conference in London called ‘Jews of Iraq: Engagement with Modernities’. Shlaim, who was born in Iraq but left for Israel as a five-year-old, revealed to the audience he has nearly completed a memoir. Its provisional title is : From Baghdad to Jerusalem: Memoir of an Arab-Jew. The main focus, he said, was on ‘The Baghdad Bombs and the Jewish exodus from Iraq, 1950 – 51.’ Waving a piece of paper, he then presented ‘new evidence of Israeli involvement in the bombs’.There followed uproar, as Shlaim’s claim was fiercely disputed by members of the audience. (There was also some controversy over the expression ‘Arab-Jew’.)
The venerable professor is no stranger to controversy. He has moved from mildly critical of Israel to becoming a staunch anti-Zionist during his career. Now that he has resurrected the old ‘Baghdad bombs’ chestnut, it is perhaps time to dig into Point of No Return’s archives and revisit the subject.
Mordechai Ben Porat, Mossad’s leading operative in Baghdad, had his name cleared in an Israeli court when he sued an Israeli magazine for libel. The court heard evidence in support of the theory that non – Jews threw the January 1951 bombs and that Muslim peddlars were tipped off to clear the scene just before grenades were thrown at the Messouda Shemtob synagogue, which was being used as a registration centre for would-be emigrants. This was the only fatal bombing (four were killed).
The so-called new historian Tom Segev refuted the charge that Zionists were behind the bombs.
It is a mystery why the Mossad might have thought it necessary to set off bombs when by late 1950 there was a backlog of tens of thousands of Jews stranded in Iraq who had already registered to leave. When the Massouda Shemtob bombing occurred, there were only six weeks still to go before the deadline for emigration expired. Indeed, the Iraqi government toyed with the idea of dumping these Jews on Israel’s borders or in the Kuwaiti desert because Israel was not shipping them out fast enough.
The American Left Is Not Truly Pro-Palestinian
As Israel headed into its second set of elections this year, the latest talking point of the American anti-Israel left was Benjamin Netanayahu’s pledge to formalize Israel’s sovereignty over the Jordan Valley.Some media outlets, anti-Israel organizations, and leftist politicians falsely claimed that Israel was annexing the West Bank. Not only is this far from the truth, but it highlights the fact that these groups are not pro-Palestinian, only anti-Israel.
Much of American Jewry is woefully misinformed about the issues of the Palestinian community. According to the popular narrative, the only thing in the way of Palestinian prosperity is Israel, which subjugates the Palestinians with its racist policies, apartheid laws, and occupation. The best way to fight back, they say, is to boycott Israeli goods and demand that American policy towards Israel be radically altered.
One group fighting back against this misinformation is Fuel for Truth, a nonprofit organization that holds programs in Boston, Miami, New York, and Los Angeles to teach “Israel advocacy training and Jewish communal engagement for population segments unreached or underserved by traditional organizations and institutions.”
Ron Wasserman, the organization’s chairman, describes himself as “pro-Palestinian,” but not in the same way that groups like Jewish Voice For Peace, IfNotNow, and others claim to be. He is actually looking for the Palestinians people to thrive, he says. When discussing these issues with people on the left, he asks them, “How are you helping the Palestinians? How are you helping the Palestinians face the real issues they have every day?”
Report finds alarming spike in Israel-related anti-Semitism on US college campuses
The number of Israel-related anti-Semitic incidents against Jewish students on campuses increased 70% from 2017 to 2018, according to a report published on Tuesday by the nonprofit watchdog AMCHA Initiative.For its report, AMCHA monitored more than 400 college campuses across America for anti-Semitic activity. The report, titled “The Harassment of Jewish Students on US Campuses: How Eliminationist Anti-Zionism and Academic BDS Incite Campus Anti-Semitism,” highlights the increases in campus anti-Semitism in the past year, as well as recommendations for how universities can tackle the issue.
“While acts of classical anti-Semitism in the US reached near-historic levels in 2018, and included the deadliest attack against Jews in American history, the nation’s colleges and universities revealed a somewhat different but nonetheless troubling story. On US campuses across the country, harassment motivated by classical anti-Semitism actually decreased, and significantly so. At the same time, however, the number of Israel-related acts of harassment increased significantly,” according to the report.
The report documented how academic BDS-compliant behavior was linked to 86% of Israel-related acts of anti-Semitic harassment of students. Overall, academic BDS activity more than doubled from 2017 to 2018, while promotion or implementation of academic BDS increased by more than 100% in the same time frame.
The report further showed that expressions calling for the total boycott or exclusion of pro-Israel students from campus life nearly tripled from 2017 to 2018. In addition, acts accusing Jewish and pro-Israel students of supporting racism, genocide, and other evils more than doubled, while there was a 147% increase in linking Jewish and pro-Israel students to “white supremacy.”
Expression promoting or condoning terrorism against Israel also increased by 67%.
Department of Ed: Duke-UNC Mideast Studies Has ‘Little or No Relevance’ to Grant Program
The US Department of Education deemed that the Duke-University of North Carolina Consortium for Middle East Studies misused federal funding in hosting an antisemitic and anti-Israel conference in March.A letter from US Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education Robert King stated that the consortium has “little or no relevance to Title VI” under the Higher Education Act of 1965 that deals with higher education.
“Conflict Over Gaza: People, Politics and Possibilities” reportedly used $5,000 of taxpayer funds from the US Education Department.
“Although a conference focused on ‘Love and Desire in Modern Iran’ and one focused on Middle East film criticism may be relevant in academia, we do not see how these activities support the development of foreign language and international expertise for the benefit of US national security and economic stability,” stated King.
The letter contended that “foreign language instruction and area studies advancing the security and economic stability of the United States have taken ‘a back seat’ to other priorities at Duke-UNC CMES.”
Israeli embassy in Belgium condemns anti-Semitic sign language gesture
Israel’s embassy in Belgium on Tuesday condemned a hook-nosed gesture in a Belgian university’s sign-language dictionary that refers to “Jews.”“The Embassy of #Israel expresses its shock and dismay following the ugly initiative of creating a new sign in Flemish sign language for ‘Jew’: a hooked nose. Its sole purpose is the promotion of #AntiSemitic stereotypes,” the embassy wrote on Twitter alongside a Times of Israel report on the gesture.
Emmanuel Nahshon, Israel’s ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg and former Foreign Ministry spokesperson, posted a video of the gesture on Twitter Tuesday.
“This is sickening. Beyond words,” he wrote.
The European Jewish Association on Monday protested in a statement the gesture’s inclusion in online videos on the website of the dictionary, which was compiled in conjunction with the University of Ghent. In a letter to the rector, it demanded the clips be removed.
The first videos, that function as sign language definitions for Jew, “seem standard,” the Association’s director, Menachem Margolin, wrote in the statement. Both videos show a presenter stroking an imaginary beard.
“The second involving side-locks are borderline acceptable if misleading, and the last two are simply racist and demeaning to Jews, using a gesticulation of a large and hooked nose to define Jew,” he added.
There’s no mitigating the sheer bias in @nytimes piece on a cable car ‘Judaizing Jerusalem’ but the least we could do was achieve this published correction about the Western Wall. https://t.co/ApikvhcdIn pic.twitter.com/dlVdLxn6VF
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) September 18, 2019
Hasidic man beaten and robbed in Brooklyn
A Hasidic Jewish man was assaulted and robbed in Brooklyn in an incident captured on video and posted on social media.Authorities said the Tuesday evening attack in the heavily Jewish Williamsburg neighborhood is not being considered a hate crime because no anti-Semitic slurs were made, CBS New York reported. New York Police are calling the incident, which was captured on a surveillance camera, a random attack and robbery.
Four men cornered the man, with long sidelocks and wearing a long black coat, then punched and kicked him. The victim, 24, surrendered his cellphone to his attackers.
Former New York state assemblyman Dov Hikind in a statement called on the police department to increase patrols in Jewish areas such as Williamsburg “until this wave of violent anti-Semitism subsides.” Hikind is organizing a rally at City Hall Park on Sunday to call for an end to attacks against Jews.
SHOCKING VIDEO: A Hasidic Jew gets assaulted and attacked in the head in Brooklyn on Warsoff Place between Flushing x Park avenues, anyone with info please call @WspuShomrim 7182370202 or @NYPD79Pct (added another angle) pic.twitter.com/gbxj2rpfML
— WILLIAMSBURG NEWS (@WMSBG) September 18, 2019
The Anti-Defamation League announced in a statement that it is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual or individuals responsible.
“The video footage of this violent encounter is incredibly disturbing, and we are glad that the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is assisting in the investigation of this horrific crime,” said Evan Bernstein, the ADL’s New York-New Jersey regional director. “This incident comes at a time when visibly observant Jewish individuals are unable to walk the streets of Brooklyn without feeling fearful that they may be assaulted or attacked because of their religion or faith.”
Antisemitic incidents rampant in recent weeks across Ukraine
Desecration of Holocaust memorials, Nazi salutes at a football game and threats against Jewish leaders – including newly elected President Volodymyr Zelensky – are just some of the antisemitic incidents that have taken place across the Ukraine in the last few weeks.A Holocaust memorial was vandalized on Tuesday afternoon in Golovanevsk (also known as Holovanivs’k) commemorating the murder of some 900 Jews from the village between late 1941 and early 1942.
“The Jewish population of the village was annihilated in two major murder operations: in late September 1941, when 570 people were shot at three murder sites located next to each other, and in February 1942, when 165 Jews were shot,” according to Yad Vashem.
Antisemitic graffiti including swastikas and a note threatening another Holocaust were found on Sunday on a Holocaust memorial in Bogdanovka near Odessa. The note threatened both Zelensky and Ukranian Jewish Committee director-general Eduard Dolinsky, saying “the sale of Ukrainian land will quickly lead you to a second Holocaust.”
According to Yad Vashem, tens of thousands of Jews were killed at the site, which was a concentration camp established by the Romanian occupation authorities.
It is estimated that 54,000 Jews from Odessa and Bessarabia were imprisoned there.
Following a Typhus outbreak in December 1941, a decision was made to liquidate the camp. Some 5,000 sick and disabled prisoners were locked into two stables, which were then burnt down.
Canadian Officials Face Criticism for Honoring Ukrainian Nazi Collaborators
Canadian officials are receiving backlash from the Jewish community for honoring members of Ukrainian organizations that helped the Nazis in World War II.A new monument in Sambir, Ukraine, honors members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)—two groups that supported the Nazis, and helped round up and execute Jews after the Germans invaded Ukraine, according to historians. In 1943, the UPA started massacring Polish civilians, killing an estimated 100,000 people.
The statue is situated at the edge of a cemetery where more than 1,200 Jews, murdered by the Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators, are buried.
Canada’s Ambassador to Ukraine Roman Waschuk, speaking at the monument’s unveiling on Aug. 21, said the statue is a memorial to 17 OUN members who Ukrainians say were killed by the Nazis. Military personnel from the Canadian Forces also attended the event at the request of the Canadian embassy in Ukraine.
The event was condemned by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Director general of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee Eduard Dolinsky called the monument a desecration and a “double murder of the Jewish victims.”
“It’s like putting a monument to killers on the top of the graves of their victims,” he explained. “All Jews of Sambir were murdered by Nazis and their collaborators from OUN and UPA.”
Wiesenthal Center denounces threats, vandalism at atrocity site in Romania
The Weisenthal Center announced yesterday in Jerusalem that it denounces the vandalism with swastikas of a Holocaust memorial in Bogdaovka, Ukraine, where one of the great atrocities of the Holocaust took place. The massacre by Romanian soldiers, the regular Ukrainian police Kazachievici, civilians and ethnic Germans murdered over 40,000 Jews.Bogdaovka was the location of an extermination camp in Transnistria, Romania, with mostly Ukrainians from Odessa and the rest from Bessarabia. With the outbreak of typhoid, the German and Romanian administrator decided to kill all the internees.
The massacre took place from December 21 through December 31 in 1941. In the first stage, the infirm were forcibly packed into two locked stables, doused with kerosene and set ablaze. In the next stage, other prisoners were led to a ravine and shot in the neck or killed by hand grenades. The rest of the prisoners froze to death while digging pits in the freezing cold with their own hands. The Romanian administrator then ordered that all the bodies be burned.
In the center’s press statement, Director for Eastern European Affairs and Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff also noted that there were threats made against three prominent Jews: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Jewish activist Eduard Dolinsky and former minister Evgeny Chervonenko, now a television presenter.
Zuroff’s statement said that antisemitic vandalism was “frequent” in the Ukraine and was due, in part, to the failure of Ukrainian authorities to criminalize antisemitic acts. He stated that as long as the perpetrators of “these disgusting and offensive actions” are not punished, “they will continue and increase.” The center urges expediting the passing of legislation to outlaw “antisemitism and all other forms of racial hatred and xenophobia.”
Association of British Scrabble Players Updates Definition of ‘Jew’ as ‘Offensive’
The Association of British Scrabble Players updated its guide to label the listed definitions of “jew” and “jews” as “offensive” after receiving complaints from British Jews.Dave Rich, head of policy at the Jewish organization Community Security Trust, tweeted a screenshot of the association’s online dictionary, which defines “jews” as “to swindle” and “jew” as “to haggle, get the better of.”
Chairman of the ABSP, Mike Whiteoak, told The Jewish Chronicle that the association did not publish its own dictionary, but rather published “online lists of words on our website under different categories.” He added, “The words and the definitions are taken from the actual dictionary, which is published by HarperCollins — and we’re not responsible for how they define them.”
Whiteoak, who is Jewish, said the ABSP had decided “to take the time to go through the list and add ‘offensive’ to words that obviously were so,” including the word “jew.”
Rich said of the ABSP’s decision, “It is progress of sorts that the ABSP has finally labelled their definition as offensive, but this still does not address the fact that they are helping to perpetuate, and implicitly legitimize, antisemitic usages of the word ‘Jew.’ This is different from including swear words or other racist insults, because ‘Jew’ is a normal word that antisemites have given an alternative meaning as a way of slandering all Jewish people.”
UK Investors: London’s Tech Scene Has a Lot to Learn From the Israeli Ecosystem
Investors taking part in the Meet and Pitch event held during Calcalist’s third Mind the Tech conference in London last week tended to repeat one major advantage the Israeli ecosystem has. “What I love about Tel Aviv is that everyone is working within and for the ecosystem,” Alston Zecha, a director at London-headquartered venture capital firm Eight Roads Ventures, told Calcalist at the event. Even competing companies talk to each other and that is something the London ecosystem could benefit from as well, he added.The sheer number of startups within the Israeli ecosystem encourages cooperation and mutual inspiration, Mario Cohen, founder and CEO of Madrid and London-based firm Demtech Ventures, told Calcalist. Within an ecosystem where everyone knows each other, new companies are established on top of existing ones, utilizing the accumulated experience from older companies, he explained.
Hundreds of entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders from Israel and the UK attended Calcalist’s conference, including over 100 executives from Israeli startups. The conference included the Meet and Pitch event, which brought together Israeli entrepreneurs with executives in UK corporations and funds for a speed networking session.
Neil McGeough, the technology manager at British supermarket chain Tesco, came to the conference to scout for technologies that can improve the company’s services throughout the supply chain. The Israeli ecosystem is vast and Israeli entrepreneurs have a can-do spirit that is very exciting, McGeough told Calcalist. He added that it is hard to say which technologies will prevail, but automation is definitely one of the key areas for every industry.
DreaMed wins FDA clearance for AI insulin recommendation technology
DreaMed Diabetes, the Petah Tikva-based developer of personalized diabetes management solutions, has received US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance for its artificial intelligence-powered insulin recommendations technology.The company’s AI-based insulin dosing decision-support software, DreaMed Advisor Pro, aims to assist people with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) using insulin-pump therapy with continuous glucose sensors or blood glucose meters.
Some 1.25 million Americans have T1D, including 200,000 people under the age of 20. By 2050, the number is expected to soar to some 5 million in the United States alone. Individuals with T1D are required to take insulin to keep blood glucose levels under control.
Approximately one-quarter of US patients with T1D use both insulin pumps and continuous glucose sensors, and about 40% use insulin pumps and blood glucose meters to manage glucose levels.
The cloud-based Advisor Pro software generates insulin delivery recommendations by analyzing information from continuous glucose sensors, self-monitoring blood glucose meters and insulin pump data.
The technology, which received a European CE Mark last year, sends personalized, real-time recommendations to healthcare providers on how to optimize a patient’s insulin pump settings.
Tel Aviv neighborhood listed among world’s ‘coolest’
Tel Aviv’s Kerem Hateimanim and Carmel Market neighborhood has been named among the world’s “coolest” by global magazine Time Out.According to a survey of 27,000 city-dwellers around the globe and the magazine’s local editors and contributing writers, the Tel Aviv neighborhood was ranked 15th among the “planet’s cultural and culinary hot spots right now.”
Kerem Hateimanim, which literally means “the Yemenite Vineyard,” was home to many of the 49,000 Yemenite Jews who were transported to Israel in a secret operation between June 1949 and September 1950.
Today, the neighborhood’s narrow streets are home to a “hotbed of sun-chapped surfers, strolling Filipino caretakers, hungry foodies, global nomadic types and ageless Yemenites hawking home-cooked deliciousness straight out of their ground-floor kitchens.”
While many basic buildings have since been converted into luxurious apartments in recent years, the neighborhood – squeezed between the Mediterranean Sea and the Carmel Market – has succeeded in maintaining its authenticity.
The bustling Carmel Market is in sharp contrast to the tranquil alleyways of Kerem Hateimanim, described by Time Out as “the neighborhood’s coolest hangout.” Offering recommendations of places to eat, drink and stay, the magazine recommends purchasing food and a beverage at the vibrant market and taking a short stroll through the Kerem to Tel Aviv’s sandy beaches.
Groundbreaking study: Ancient tin ingots found in Israel were mined in England
To historians of the ancient Near East, the period from the late fourth millennium BCE until around 1200 BCE—that is, the biblical period through the time of Moses—is known as the Bronze Age because of the common use of bronze weapons, tools, and other items. It was followed by the Iron Age, which was in full swing by the time of King David in the 10th century BCE. But archaeologists have long been puzzled about how the ancient residents of the region produced bronze, which requires the smelting of copper—which is abundant in the Levant—with tin—which is not. A new study, based on a comparison of the age of various samples (which can be determined chemically) suggests it was imported from Britain, as Amanda Borschel-Dan writes:According to the authors [of the study], the most likely suppliers of the 13th- and 12th-century BCE tin ingots from Israel were tin mines from Cornwall and Devon. . . . The scientists studied samples that were discovered . . . off the coasts of Mochlos, Crete and Uluburun, Turkey as well as in three locations near Haifa.
an earlier find of a 13th-century BCE shipwreck at Hishuley Carmel in 2012 also was a source of the study’s tin ingots. That shipwreck, [one of the study’s authors wrote in an earlier article], “provides direct evidence for marine transport of copper and tin along the Israeli coast and may indicate inland and maritime trade-routes of metals in the Mediterranean.”
Knowing the origin of the Israeli tin ingots points to a complicated and far-reaching ancient trade route.
Holocaust Survivor Edward Mosberg Has A Message To DENIERS | Huckabee
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