From Ian:
Arab MK Claims Ari Fuld Executed Palestinian Terrorist; Likud MK: ‘She Called Fuld a Murderer’
An Israeli-Arab MK is being referred to the Knesset Ethics Committee after she appeared to claim that the late Israeli-American Ari Fuld killed the Palestinian terrorist who attacked him in an extra-judicial execution.Fuld, a well known pro-Israel activist, was stabbed to death last month in the Gush Etzion bloc near Jerusalem by a Palestinian teenager. As he bled to death, he pursued and shot his attacker before collapsing. It is believed that his actions prevented further casualties. The terrorist was not killed and underwent treatment at an Israeli hospital.
According to Israel’s Channel Two, at a Knesset committee on women’s rights, Likud MKs Sharon Heskel and Amir Ohana spoke in favor of arming Israeli civilians in order to quickly neutralize terrorists who commit attacks.
Heskel specifically cited Fuld as an example, calling him a “hero” who “with his body and his life prevented the death of additional innocent civilians.”
In response, Joint List MK Aida Tomeh-Suleiman said, “You know how many lives you would save if the settlers got out of there.”
MK Ohana then pointed out the number of attacks prevented or ameliorated by armed civilians, again citing Fuld as an example.
Suleiman hit back even harder, saying in an apparent reference to Fuld, “In other words, you would execute on the spot.”
In a complaint to the Knesset Ethics Committee delivered on Thursday, Heskel wrote of Suleiman, “She called Fuld a murderer who executed the wounded man.”
US Jews help families of terrorists
On January 4, 2017, a Palestinian-Arab terrorist drove a truck into a group of Israeli soldiers, killing four and injuring 17 others. The attack was immediately identified as terrorism, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the scene of the attack and said the perpetrator was “by all indications a supporter of the Islamic State.”Fast forward to October 2018, Israel decided to expel the terrorist’s family from Israel, as they have links to ISIS, are not citizens and present a security concern. Opposing the state in court is Hamoked, an organization supported by the New Israel Fund, which assisted the relatives of the terrorist to petition against their deportation from Israel.
Thankfully, they lost and this family – and their security concerns – have been expelled.
Israeli soldiers are killed, and American Jews who support the New Israel Fund stand with the family members of the terrorists – sickening and despicable.
The parents of one of the soldiers who was killed in the attack said today in court, “We are here to prevent the next attack, God forbid. It is delusional that the governments of Europe and the New Israel Fund provide legal protection to the lowly terrorists who murdered our Shir and many other Israelis. We will fight here to the last drop of our blood against those who make their living by murdering Jews.”
Hamoked has received more than $720,000 from New Israel Fund donors, like the Leichtag Foundation, and Oz Benamram of White & Case while claiming to work “for the enforcement of standards and values of international human rights and humanitarian law.”
Hamoked – using American Jewish donor money – defends the families of terrorists.
Swedish prosecutors appeal decision not to deport Gazan who firebombed synagogue
Swedish prosecutors appealed to their country’s Supreme Court against a lower tribunal’s decision not to deport a Palestinian immigrant who firebombed a synagogue.The unusual appeal announced Thursday by the Public Prosecutor’s Office is of a June court decision not to deport Gaza-born Feras Alnadim, who attacked a synagogue in Gothenburg in December with two accomplices. The appeal follows vocal protests of the trial by Israel and the World Jewish Congress.
Last month, a Swedish appeals court overturned a criminal tribunal’s ruling from June stating that Alnadim would be deported at the end of his two-year prison term. The firebombing, he and his accomplices said, was payback for President Donald Trump’s decision to have the United States recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Since Alnadim committed a crime that “could be perceived as a threat to other Jews,” and Israel “might be interested in the matter,” the appeals court ruled that one “cannot safeguard the man’s fundamental human rights if he is deported to Palestine,” the judge wrote in his opinion.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to appeal the ruling in the Supreme Court because “there is no reason to assume that the man would be subjected to death penalty, torture or other inhuman treatment upon return to Palestine,” the office wrote in a statement Thursday.
Government said to use Canary Mission blacklist to bar visitors
Reports by a secretive right-wing website that collects and publishes information about anti-Israel activity of university students and others are being used by Israeli authorities to question or ban people attempting to enter the country, according to a report Thursday.Documents submitted by the Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy Ministry on Thursday show that an American student was barred from entering Israel because of “suspicion of boycott activity” based on four Facebook posts and information on the Canary Mission website, the Haaretz daily reported.
Canary Mission is an anonymous website that aims to name and shame anti-Israel activists on campus.
The site “documents individuals and organizations that promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews on North American college campuses,” according to its “About us” page.
Critics have accused it of seeking to intimidate pro-Palestinian college students and stifle their activism with the threat of a blacklist.
VIDEO: Anti-Israel Activist Linda Sarsour Says Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ‘Works For
Us On the Inside’
At a rally yesterday against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Women’s March organizer and anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour introduced Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) to attendees as a politician “who works for us on the inside.”Promoting Gillibrand, Sarsour stated (video above): “I want to introduce to you another champion, another one of our people who works for us on the inside. Someone who understands that she works for the people of this country, who’s been speaking up against sexual assault and sexual violence before there was a Brett Kavanaugh. Please give it up for the senator.”
The controversial Sarsour co-hosted the Washington, D.C. rally on Thursday outside the Supreme Court together with another anti-Israel radical and fellow Women’s March organizer, Tamika Mallory.
Gillibrand’s colleague in the Senate, Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), also spoke at Sarsour’s anti-Kavanaugh event. “I believe Christine Blasey Ford! I am angry on behalf of women who have been told to sit down and shut up one time too many!” Warren declared.
Chele Farley, Gillibrand’s Republican opponent in next month’s election, slammed the New York senator for rallying with Sarsour and Mallory despite the duo’s anti-Israel track record.
“Kirsten Gillibrand is a disgrace, she has abandoned New Yorkers, turned her back on Israel and is clearly focused on running for president in 2020,” said Farley in a campaign statement emailed to reporters.
Firefighters battle to control huge blaze said sparked by Gaza balloon
Firefighters and security services fought to control a huge blaze at Moshav Ein Habesor in southern Israel Saturday evening, thought to have been ignited by an incendiary device launched from the Gaza Strip.Farmers, firefighters, and security officers worked together to try to stop the flames from reaching nearby greenhouses, the Ynet news site reported.
“A local resident saw a Molotov cocktail landing and within minutes the fire broke out, and we rushed to the site and tried to control the fire. But since this is a very dry area, the fire simply spread. Many people rushed to help, but it’s very dangerous,” a witness told Ynet.
A spokesman for the Fire and Rescue Services said since the morning, firefighters worked to extinguish seven blazes near Israeli towns along the border caused by incendiary balloons launched from Gaza.
Gazans frequently launch incendiary kites and balloons into Israel, sparking fires that have destroyed forests, burned crops, and killed livestock.
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Saturday ordered Gaza’s fishing zones constrained due to the escalation of border violence along the southern frontier.The fishing zone will be curtailed from nine to six nautical miles, the Defense Ministry said, following deliberations between Liberman and defense officials.
“The defense minister’s decision was made following the violent rioting over the weekend near the fence and attempts to harm IDF forces and launch confrontational flotillas” at the maritime border, the ministry said.
Earlier the navy stopped a Palestinian boat off the Gaza coast that had sailed outside permitted fishing waters. Troops detained its two occupants.
Also Saturday the IDF conducted controlled detonations of explosive devices hurled at army troops during the previous day’s violent protests.
Three Palestinians, including a 14-year-old boy, were reported killed and dozens injured as some 20,000 Palestinians took part in violent clashes Friday along the Gaza border, throwing hand grenades and trying to breach the barrier.
During the riots, the army said Israeli aircraft struck two Hamas positions in the northern Gaza Strip after Palestinians threw grenades and explosive devices at Israeli troops.
Palestinian human rights activist Hamid Abdul Khaliq Ahmad Al-Masri, member of Hamas’ Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, dies from wounds sustained in a “resistance tunnel” several days ago, where he was exercising his UNRWA-backed right to peaceful protest. https://t.co/NSKDkd9ePd pic.twitter.com/aKbwquTUxR
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 6, 2018
Abbas’s ultimatum to Hamas: ‘Four weeks to hand over Gaza’
In talks between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas gave Hamas an ultimatum – give the PA full control of the Gaza Strip by the end of the month, or suffer the consequences, according to a statement made by an official in the PA presidency bureau to Kan news on Thursday night.Hamas leadership and senior Palestinian Authority officials concluded a round of talks in Cairo with little results, Israeli media reported Thursday night.
Abbas is reportedly threatening cessation of all funds to the Strip if Hamas refuses.
“Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas, President of the PA] is trying to deteriorate the situation in Gaza,” MK Yuval Steinitz commented on Army Radio.
Last week, Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar claimed that Abbas is planning on taking severe measures against the organization, such as stopping the transfer of salaries to Hamas clerks – a longtime issue and well known ultimatum card between the Palestinian leader and Hamas.
The two factions have been attempting to reach reconciliation and understandings for several years, more adamantly so with the mediation of Egypt over recent months. Hamas is currently accusing the PA of leading Gaza towards conflict and further sabotaging the ties, and is asking Egypt to pressure Abbas to agree to reconciliation, Israeli media reported Friday.
Liberman rebukes Europeans for interfering in ‘internal’ Khan al-Ahmar affair
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman sent a letter to eight European ambassadors in Israel criticizing them for their “flagrant interference in Israel’s sovereign affairs” after their respective governments signed a joint statement at the UN calling on Jerusalem to reverse its decision to demolish a Palestinian village in the West Bank.Liberman’s memo was sent earlier this week to the ambassadors of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Poland, and the Netherlands, the French daily Le Monde reported Saturday.
The defense minister chided the eight countries, who in their joint September statement warned that the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar “would be very serious and would severely threaten the viability of the two-state solution and undermine prospects for peace.”
“The statement invokes the absurd claim that relocating the residents to proper homes nearby will somehow preclude an eventual political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” Liberman wrote, referencing the state’s plans to relocate the Bedouin residents to a site near the Palestinian town of Abu Dis.
Residents of Khan al-Ahmar — 180 in number, according to the UN — have vehemently opposed the state’s plan, saying that they were never consulted, the location is unsuitable for their rural way of life and is next to a garbage dump, and residents of Abu Dis have warned them to stay away.
The defense minister argued that Khan al-Ahmar is an “internal” Israeli matter and that other countries have no right to intervene after the High Court of Justice deemed legitimate, last May, the state’s desire to raze the hamlet built without the necessary permits.
Trump Administration’s Counterterrorism Strategy Stresses Continued Threats from Iran, ISIS
US President Donald Trump’s administration has released its “America First” national security strategy, highlighting the Iranian regime and Sunni Islamist terrorist organizations like ISIS as the main threats to US and global security.The National Strategy for Counterterrorism document, published on Tuesday, said that “ISIS remains the foremost radical Islamist terrorist group and the primary transnational terrorist threat to the United States, despite ongoing United States and coalition civilian and military efforts that have diminished the group’s footprint in Iraq and Syria, killed thousands of its members, and curtailed its global expansion.”
The strategy asserted that ISIS “remains robust, with eight official branches and more than two dozen networks regularly conducting terrorist and insurgent operations across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.” It also pointed to the group’s “sophisticated and durable media and online presence that allows it to encourage and enable sympathizers worldwide to conduct dozens of attacks within target countries, including the United States.”
Terrorist attacks by ISIS, Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups “will probably remain the most frequent form of radical Islamist terrorism in the United States for the next several years,” the strategy forecast.
The document held up the Iranian regime as “the most prominent state sponsor of terrorism, supporting militant and terrorist groups across the Middle East and cultivating a network of operatives that pose a threat in the United States and globally.”
“These groups, most notably Lebanese Hezbollah, use terrorism and other asymmetric means in partnership with Iran to expand their influence in Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian territories, Syria, and Yemen and to destabilize their rivals,” it said.
Saudi cleric calls for Muslim-Christian-Jewish peace delegation to Jerusalem
The head of the Saudi-based Muslim World League has called for a Muslim-Christian-Jewish interfaith delegation to travel to Jerusalem to promote the cause of peace by finding common ground between religions.Dr. Mohammed bin Abdul Karim al-Issa, who is an ally of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, told Fox News in an interview Thursday: “We should send a peace convoy that is representative of all three Abrahamic religions. They should be Muslim, Christian and Jewish and they should visit all holy sites.
“They should meet everyone and find common ground, and they should provide fertile ground to find solutions for peace.”
The call is highly unusual given that Saudi Arabia has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel, and that much of the Arab world does not recognize Israel and rejects its claims to Jerusalem.
The former Saudi justice minister added that such a delegation should be “independent of politics” and “should have no political agenda whatsoever. They will be more influential without a political agenda because they are independent.”
Such a visit “is not from Saudi Arabia and it should not represent Saudi Arabia. It comes from the Muslim world, the Christian world and the Jewish world. It has no relevance to any country whatsoever,” al-Issa said.
PM’s wife Sara Netanyahu to face trial for fraud
Sara Netanyahu’s trial in the Prepared Food Affair is due to start on Sunday before Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court President Judge Avital Chen.In June, Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit filed an indictment against the prime minister’s wife for fraud with aggravated circumstances and breach of public trust in an explosive development which shook the country.
When Leah Rabin was about to be indicted in 1977, then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin resigned from office due to his wife’s scandal, but there has been no real discussion of that as a scenario this time.
It is unclear how much Sara Netanyahu’s public trial will damage Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu politically, since The Jerusalem Post has reported that he is also likely to face an indictment announcement in early 2019.
Originally, the trial was set for July, but it was delayed by health problems for one of Netanyahu’s lawyers, Jacob Weinroth, and then again by the Jewish holidays.
Netanyahu’s defense lawyers approached Mandelblit a number of times, offering a plea deal in which she would return some of the funds and take public responsibility, as long as she would not be slapped with any kind of criminal record.
Ultimately, despite media reports that a deal might be near, the Post’s sources proved correct that no deal was reached, leading to an indictment.
Golan Druze gather at border, chanting loyalty to Syria’s Assad
Carrying Syrian flags and pictures of President Bashar al-Assad, dozens of Arab Druze who live on the Golan Heights gathered on Saturday to celebrate what they consider to be success in the Syrian civil war.Dressed in traditional black garb and white hats, the small crowd chanted and shouted into megaphones, pledging loyalty to Assad, while Syrian soldiers, hundreds of meters away, across a security fence and on the opposite side of a valley, yelled back in support.
The Druze are an Arab minority who practice an offshoot of Islam and whose adherents in Syria have long been loyal to the ruling Assad family.
Emil Masoud, 38, who lives in the village of Massade, said they gathered to “celebrate the final stages of the war … and to celebrate with our people in Syria the final stage of victory.” Israel has largely stayed on the sidelines of Syria’s seven-year civil war.
The border itself has been mostly calm, with occasional stray fire from Syria or brief exchanges, though heavy fighting could be easily heard and seen in the distance.
UN Palestinian refugee agency vows to maintain East Jerusalem services
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees vowed Saturday to continue operations in Jerusalem despite Israeli plans to remove it.The Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, said that education, health care, and other services to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are “important work.”
On Thursday, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said Israeli authorities will take over the organization’s services, most notably schooling for 1,800 students, without giving an exact timeline.
Barkat, whose term as mayor ends at the end of the month, accused UNRWA of failing those under its purview and instead inciting terror activity.
According to Barkat’s plan, the seven UNRWA-run schools — with a total of 1,800 students — which operate without a license from the Education Ministry will be closed at the end of the current academic year, and the pupils absorbed into existing municipal schools.
Barkat wants to expropriate or lease the existing UNRWA schools to use as municipal buildings, and in addition will construct an educational and municipal services complex near the East Jerusalem neighborhood “whose services will be far superior to those that UNRWA has provided.”
Reporter who interviewed Hamas leader: I was tricked by the Israeli press
In a video released on Friday evening in Italian with Arabic subtitles, Italian reporter Francesca Borri claims that her interview with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was not written specifically for Yedioth Ahronoth, but rather she was “tricked” by the publication, and the claim that the interview was made for the media outlet is false in its entirety, Ynet News reported.“I am a freelancer and my stories are translated into 24 languages,” Borri said, “Sinwar knew it… I do not work for Israeli media.”
Francesca Borri recently interviewed the Hamas leader in Gaza. During the conversation, Sinwar said, “I do not want more wars. End the siege.”
“There is a real opportunity for change: war is not our interest, but at the moment an explosion is inevitable,” said Sinwar.
The Hamas leader says he took the interview with Borri now because he “sees a real opportunity for change.”
A portion of the interview was published in Hebrew on Yedioth Ahronoth on Thursday, and the full interview was released Friday.
However, the Hamas leader was unaware that this interview was intended to be published for an Israeli publication.
Francesca Borri believes she was “tricked by the Israeli press.” The video was intended to tell Arabic-speaking audiences and her readers that her affiliations remain independent and to clarify the intention of the interview.
Hamas: Israel ready to help, but PA blocking fuel to Gaza power plant
A senior Hamas official on Saturday revealed that Israel had agreed to help solve the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip, but the Palestinian Authority was hindering efforts to improve the situation there.Essam Aldalis, deputy head of Hamas’s “Political Department,” said that Qatar has paid for the fuel need to keep the power plants in the Gaza Strip running. He said that the money was sent to the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS). “Israel agreed to the pumping of the fuel to the power plan in the Gaza Strip,” Aladils said on Twitter. “The Palestinian Authority threatened the transportation company workers and the employees of the electricity company that they would be held accountable if they received the fuel and operated the power plan for more than 4 hours.”
Addressing the residents of the coastal enclave, the Hamas official asked rhetorically: “So who is besieging you, the people of Gaza?” According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Gaza Strip has suffered from a chronic electricity deficit for the past decade. “The situation has further deteriorated since April 2017 in the context of disputes between the de facto authorities in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority,” OCHA said. “The ongoing power shortage has severely impacted the avail lability of essential services, particularly health, water and sanitation services, and undermined Gaza’s fragile economy, particularly the manufacturing and agriculture sectors.”
According to a report in Haaretz last week, Qatar has agreed to finance the purchase of fuel for the Gaza Strip’s power plant. The arrangement, which was reached at the recent conference in New York of countries that donate to the Palestinians, is supposed to go into effect in the coming days and will allow a significant increase in the supply of power to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the report said. Israel, the report added, hopes that this development will reduce the risk of a military confrontation with Hamas.
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip currently have around five hours of electricity each day.
Last year, PA President Mahmoud Abbas imposed a series of economic and financial sanctions on the Gaza Strip as part of his effort to force Hamas to relinquish control over the coastal enclave. Khalil al Haya, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, said on Saturday that the weekly protests along the border with Israel will continue until the blockade on the area is lifted. He said that Hamas was not sacred of Israeli threats to launch a military operation in the Gaza Strip in response to the ongoing violence along the border. Addressing Israel, al Haya said: “Lift the blockade imposed on the Palestinian people and give them their rights so that calm will prevail. Otherwise, there will be no calm in the region and along the border.”
Austria slated to ban Hezbollah and Hamas symbols
Austria’s conservative government plans to impose a ban of Islamic extremist symbols from the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. The ban is scheduled to go into effect in March.Austrian media reported this past week that the government’s ban will be expanded to include symbols of Turkey’s ultra-radical nationalist Grey Wolves, the Kurdistan Workers Party, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Croatian fascist movement Ustasha.
The Alpine state currently prohibits symbols associated with al-Qaeda and Islamic State, including groups affiliated with these Sunni terrorist movements. Violations of the law against proscribed symbols from terrorist organizations can result in a 4,000-euro penalty, wrote the paper Der Standard, adding that a repeat offense can mean a 10,000-euro fine. The paper said the list of banned symbols has not yet been published by the government and will be announced in the next few weeks or months. Austria also bans symbols associated with the National Socialists.
The Wiener Zeitung paper said the ban of Hezbollah symbols would apply to Izzadin al-Qassam Brigades, the group’s so-called military wing. In 2013, the European Union merely proscribed the brigades for being a terrorist organization. Hezbollah’s leadership, however, considers itself to be a unified organization without divisions into military and political wings. The EU ban of Hezbollah’s military wing was prompted by a Hezbollah terrorist attack on an Israeli tour bus in 2012 that resulted in the deaths of five Israelis and their Bulgarian Muslim bus driver.
In rare criticism, Russian chief rabbi blasts supply of S-300 missiles to Syria
The chief rabbi of Russia said that Moscow’s decision to give Syria advanced anti-aircraft missiles is a “mistake,” offering a rare rebuke of his country’s defense policy.Berel Lazar, of the Chabad Hasidic movement, made his remarks Thursday at a conference organized by the Limmud FSU cultural group in Sighet, Romania.
Russia is giving Syria the S-300 system following the downing last month of a Russian intelligence gathering aircraft by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli strike over Syrian airspace. Russia has blamed Israel for the incident, which killed 15 Russian soldiers.
“I think it’s a mistake that will only augment the region’s problems,” Lazar, who meets regularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, told the Israeli journalist Eli Mandelbaum about the missile transfer.
Lazar’s group, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Russia, often speaks out against expressions of anti-Semitism in Russia and aspects of Russia’s policy concerning Israel, including its voting in 2017 in favor of a UN resolution that ignores Jerusalem’s significance to Jews. But Lazar, who has said he opposes excessive involvement by Jewish community leaders in Russian politics, has seldom criticized Russia publicly over its bilateral relations with Israel on subjects devoid of a religious dimension.
Non-Jewish activists bring Jewish cemeteries to Polish parliament
An exhibition highlighting the destruction of Jewish cemeteries in Poland opened in that country’s parliament.A group of non-Jewish activists called Currently Absent launched the exhibition bearing the same title on Tuesday at the Sejm, the Polish parliament, where it was hosted by Speaker Marek Kuchcinski of the ruling Law and Justice party.
It features photographs of 10 out of 31 destroyed and re-purposed Jewish cemeteries in Poland that the group has documented, including ones that today function as shooting ranges, factories, children’s playgrounds and a swimming pool.
“This is an important project, we are honored to host in the Sejm,” Kuchciński said at the opening.
The exhibition by Currently Absent opened amid a debate in Poland over protests by Jewish groups on cemetery desecration. The group photographed translucent plastic slabs shaped like headstones, complete with Hebrew-language epitaphs, at sites that used to be Jewish cemeteries, resulting in eerie, ghost-like visuals that recall the locale’s history.
Last month, the World Zionist Organization strongly protested what it said was the destruction of a Jewish cemetery in the town of Klimontow, near Krakow, during the construction of a sports complex being funded by the state. The complex, comprising a basketball and soccer court, was inaugurated on Sept. 6 at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, according to the municipality’s website. It said the project has received more than $90,000 in government funding.
Separately, haredi Orthodox followers of the Modzitz Hasidic dynasty, which is based in Israel, are fighting for access to the recently renovated courtyard of a school in Kazimierz Dolny, in eastern Poland, where they say their movement’s founder is buried.
France’s Culture Minister Announces Prize for Fighting Anti-Semitism
France’s Ministry of Culture has launched a new award for initiatives to combat anti-Semitism named in honor of Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old French Jew murdered in 2006, Ben Cohen reported in The Algemeiner on Thursday.Halimi was kidnapped by the self-styled “Gang of Barbarians,” a group of largely Muslim men, who tortured him to death because he was Jewish and thought his family or other Jews would pay for his freedom. Halimi’s burned and naked body was left for dead by a railway track outside of Paris. He died of his wounds just a few hours after being discovered.
The award in his honor was announced on Monday by French Culture Minister Françoise Nyssen, and will be awarded annually on February 13, the anniversary of Halimi’s death. Nyssen said the award “will reward projects run by young people under the age of 25 to fight racist and antisemitic stereotypes.”
The minister also remembered the ten Jews murdered in France since the Halimi killing, saying that the award was in recognition of them too.
The victims, “murdered on French soil because they were Jewish,” Nyssen said, included three children and a teacher killed in an attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse in 2012, the victims of the kosher market siege in Paris in January 2015, as well as the murder of elderly Paris widows Sarah Halimi and Mireille Knoll, who were murdered in their own homes in April 2017 and March 2018 respectively.
On Thursday, Mireille Knoll’s son Daniel praised his mother as a woman who “did not live a banal life.” He added that “She died in horrible circumstances. People need to know that we can still die today because we are Jewish.”
Adam Sandler sang Bar Mitzvah Torah blessing with Howard Stern
Adam Sandler has a Netflix stand-up special in the works, and Howard Stern saw it, having pointed out that Sandler mentions his bar mitzvah in his routine on a recent episode of his SiriusXM radio show last week.“Isn’t that the single most weird situation in your whole performance life?” Stern asked Sandler, who was his guest last Wednesday, about the tradition.
“Yes,” Sandler responded.
“People are evaluating you on how well you sing this secret language,” Stern continues, before Sandler interrupts: “That you don’t know what it means.”
Then they both launch into the traditional Torah blessing, on air, more or less in sync with each other.
Stern also explains that he was bar mitzvahed at a synagogue in Roosevelt, Long Island. In the past, Stern has played recordings of his performance that day.
Sandler’s special, which is expected to be released next year, is rumored to include a new song about his bar mitzvah.
Jewish Argentinian artist’s exhibit depicts year after Six Day War
Nineteen sixty-seven was, of course, a milestone year in the annals of this country, with the effects of the Six Day War still very much with us, for good or for bad. But, for much of the Western world, it was 1968 that proved to be a watershed, on a political and sociopolitical front, as tens of thousands of people, including a significant number of youngsters, took to the streets in major cities across the globe to protest about a slew of issues, from the war in Vietnam to civil rights and downright annoying bureaucracy in the upper echelons of officialdom.As a teenager at the time, Marcelo Brodsky says, the tumultuous events of the late Sixties caught his youthful imagination and emotional mind-set, and continue to resonate in his life half a century on. The 50-year mark provided the Jewish Argentinean artist with a pretext for unearthing some iconic images of some of the mass public expressions of dissent of yesteryear and breathing new life into them.
The result of that line of thought takes in a bunch of exhibitions of Brodsky’s works which are currently on display around the world, including in the United States, Portugal, Lithuania, Italy, Germany and Israel. The local offering, “1968, The Fire of Ideas,” curated by Eyal Ben Dov, opens on Friday, October 12, at the Musrara Nagar Multidisciplinary School of Art and Society, running through to December 12.
As any parent who has, or has had, teenaged offspring can, no doubt, testify, 14 is an age at which one tends to form a well-defined, albeit generally transient take on life, and to soak up the impact of seismic events in a pretty unadulterated manner. That was certainly the case for Brodsky, who, at the age of 14 caught sight on TV of what was going down on the streets of Paris, Washington and London, and elsewhere across the globe. “It changed very much the way I relate to the world,” he states in a telephone conversation from Berlin, where he was busy hanging works for a show at the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. “It was a big influence in terms of the way I understood freedom, more openness, sexual life, more access to politics and young people in the streets and poetry in the streets. I liked that very much.”
The tragic tale of Superman’s Jewish creators, told in graphic novel form
When Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel created the Superman character in the early 1930s, they were still living at their parents’ homes.Of course, the character and his story — the arrival from another planet, his dual identities as mild-mannered reporter and flying, bulletproof crime fighter — would go on to change the comics industry in several ways and pave the way for the super-heroization of our popular culture.
But Siegel and Shuster originally just wanted to make a little income to support themselves and their families, who had both immigrated from Eastern Europe not long before. They had bonded and began collaborating in high school in Cleveland, and although they were ambitious, they could not have conceived of how influential and popular the character would become. Sadly, they signed over the rights to the Man of Steel early on, dooming themselves to careers full of frustration and misfortune.
The story of these two Jewish comic book legends — Shuster the quiet, reserved artist, and Siegel the earnest, competitive writer — is dramatic and heartbreaking in its own right, and it’s now chronicled in a graphic novel titled “The Joe Shuster Story: The Artist Behind Superman,” written by Julian Voloj and exquisitely illustrated by Thomas Campi. (Voloj, who is Jewish, is also the author of the graphic novel “Ghetto Brother: Warrior to Peacemaker,” about a Jewish and Puerto Rican gang leader in the Bronx.)
JTA spoke with Voloj about the project and Jewish comic book history just before New York Comic Con, which starts Thursday. (Voloj’s wife, Lisa Keys, is an editor with 70 Faces Media, JTA’s parent company.)
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