From Ian:
2 Israelis killed, 1 injured in West Bank terror shooting
Two Israelis were shot dead and a third was wounded Sunday morning in a terror attack at the Barkan Industrial Park in the northern West Bank, the army said.The Magen David Adom medical service said that a man in his 30s and a woman had been critically injured and were later pronounced dead.
The woman who was killed in the attack was identified as Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 28, from Rosh Ha’ayin, and the man was named as Ziv Hajbi, 35, from Rishon Lezion.
The third victim, a woman in her 50s, was moderately wounded and taken to Petah Tikva’s Beilinson Hospital for treatment. A hospital spokesperson said the victim did not appear to be in life-threatening condition.
Security forces launched a manhunt for the shooter, who fled the scene after the attack.
“The suspect arrived at the industrial park and opened fire at three civilians. Large numbers of IDF and Shin Bet security service forces have launched a manhunt for the suspect, whose identity is known to security forces. In addition, large numbers of troops have spread out throughout the area to conduct searches and checks,” the army said.
The IDF spokesperson later confirmed that the shooting was a terror attack.
Terror shooting victims identified as Kim Levengrond Yehezkel and Ziv Hajbi
Authorities on Sunday afternoon identified a man and a woman shot dead in a terror attack in the West Bank earlier in the day as Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 29, a married mother of a baby, and Ziv Hajbi, a 35-year-old father of three.Yehezkel was from the central Israeli town of Rosh Ha’ayin, while Hajbi hailed from Rishon Lezion. They were shot dead by a Palestinian gunman at the Barkan Industrial Park near the settlement-city of Ariel.
A second woman was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment for a gunshot wound in her stomach and was in moderate condition.
The suspect, a 23-year-old Palestinian man from the northern West Bank, entered a factory where he was employed in the Barkan Industrial Park shortly before 8 a.m, armed with a locally produced Carlo-style submachine gun, according to army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.
Inside, he tied up and shot dead Yehezkel and Hajbi at close range, as well as wounding the third victim, according to eyewitnesses.
Terror victims mourned as dedicated parents, cut down in their primes
Family and friends of the victims in Sunday morning’s terror attack in the West Bank mourned the two casualties — both in their prime, both dedicated parents to young children — in the hours after the grisly shooting.Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 28, and Ziv Hajbi, 35, were shot dead by a Palestinian terrorist. Both had worked at Alon Group, which manufactures waste management systems, at the Barkan Industrial Park near the settlement-city of Ariel. Levengrond Yehezkel was secretary to the CEO, while Hajbi worked in accounting.
Their families both said they would donate their organs.
Levengrond Yehezkel will be buried in her hometown of Rosh Ha’ayin in central Israel at 10 p.m. on Sunday. Hajbi’s funeral will be held at 2 p.m. Monday in the southern community of Nir Yisrael.
“She was all smiles, beloved and sweet,” her aunt Yehudit said. “The skies have shattered over us. But Kim will always be with us. I’m angry. Someone needs to answer for this and fast. It doesn’t make sense that parents should bury their children.”
Her friend Natalie remembered “an amazing, wonderful, kind woman, all about giving. A wonderful mother.”
Throughout the day, friends and relatives of Levengrond Yehezkel arrived at her parents’ home in Rosh Ha’ayin. Kim and her husband Guy had lived in Barkan, where the attack took place, up until a year ago, when they moved into an apartment in Rosh Ha’ayin to be near Kim’s parents. They have an 18-month-old child. Despite the relocation, Kim continued to work at Alon Group, where she served as secretary to the CEO. She had studied law and was preparing for her bar exam.
Deputy minister lashes EU over response to West Bank terror attack
Michael Oren, deputy minister of diplomacy, on Sunday slammed the European Union over its response to a deadly terror attack in the West Bank, suggesting European nations back the “motivations” of the Palestinian killer.“EU again condemns terrorist murders of innocent Israelis by saying ‘violence can never be condoned,’” tweeted Oren, a former ambassador to the US and a current Kulanu coalition lawmaker.
“The EU never says that when terrorists kill Europeans,” he added. “Could it be that the EU agrees with the Palestinian terrorist’s motivations just not his methods?”
Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 29, a married mother of a baby, and Ziv Hajbi, a 35-year-old father of three, were shot dead by a Palestinian gunman at the Barkan Industrial Park near the settlement-city of Ariel earlier in the day.
Oren was reacting to a tweet from Emanuele Giaufret, the EU’s ambassador to Israel.
EU again condemns terrorist murders of innocent Israelis by saying “violence can never be condoned.” The EU never says that when terrorists kill Europeans. Could it be that the EU agrees with the Palestinian terrorist’s motivations just not his methods?
— Michael Oren (@DrMichaelOren) October 7, 2018
IDF hunts for armed Palestinian suspected of killing 2 in terror shooting
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday declared the fatal shooting in an industrial park in the northern West Bank to be a “severe terror attack” and said large numbers of troops, including special forces, were involved in the search for the suspected gunman, who was still believed to be armed.Shortly before 8 a.m., the suspect, a 23-year-old Palestinian man from the northern West Bank, entered a factory where he was employed in the Barkan Industrial Park, near the Ariel settlement-city, armed with a locally produced Carlo-style submachine gun, according to army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.
Inside, he shot dead an Israeli man and a woman. The female victim was first handcuffed and then shot at close range, according to eyewitnesses. The gunman also shot a second woman, 54, in the stomach. She was moderately wounded and taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.
The woman who was killed in the attack was identified as Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 28, from Rosh Ha’ayin, and the man was named as Ziv Hajbi, 35, from Rishon Lezion.
After the attack, the suspect fled the scene of the attack, still armed with the submachine gun, the military said.
A worker at the factory who was nearby told reporters that the terrorist also tried to shoot at him as he fled the scene. The worker, who carried a gun, fired back a shot at the gunman, but apparently missed.
Celebrating death: Hamas activists in Khan Younis in Gaza giving out candies in celebration following the murder of an Israeli man and women, gunned to death by a 23 year old Palestinian terrorist today in the Barkan industrial area. pic.twitter.com/xPizl92vfz
— Michael Dickson (@michaeldickson) October 7, 2018
Palestinian suspect in terror shooting said to have left suicide note
The suspected Palestinian terrorist in Sunday’s deadly shooting attack at a West Bank industrial park left a suicide letter with a friend three days ago, according to a television report.According to Hadashot television, the friend, who worked at the same factory in the Barkan Industrial Zone, did not report the letter to the authorities. He has been arrested and Israeli security forces are investigating whether advance knowledge of the letter could have prevented the attack, the network reported.
The Israel Defense Forces on Sunday declared the fatal shooting in the northern West Bank to be a “severe terror attack” and said large numbers of troops, including special forces, were involved in the search for the suspected gunman, who was still believed to be armed.
Shortly before 8 a.m., the suspect, a 23-year-old Palestinian man from the northern West Bank, entered a factory where he was employed in the Barkan Industrial Park, near the Ariel settlement-city, armed with a locally produced Carlo-style submachine gun, according to army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad praise deadly shooting in northern West Bank
Hamas on Sunday morning praised a fatal shooting attack that took place earlier in the day in the West Bank, calling it “heroic” and “a natural response to the Israeli occupation’s crimes.”Two people were killed and a third was moderately wounded in the attack at the Barkan Industrial Park in the northern West Bank, which the Israel Defense Forces said was an act of terrorism.
“The Hamas movement and the Palestinian people everywhere praise the heroic operation near the Ariel settlement,” Hamas said in a statement. “We applaud this heroic operation and affirm that it comes as a natural response to the Israeli occupation’s crimes at the expense of the Palestinian people.”
Palestinian Islamic Jihad also spoke highly of the attack, according to the PIJ-linked Palestine Today.
“We praise this martyrdom operation and affirm that settlements are a legitimate target for resistance fighters and revolutionaries,” Islamic Jihad said in a statement. “We call on our proud people in Jerusalem, the West Bank and elsewhere to rise up in the face of settlement terrorism until the West Bank is liberated from settlements and settlers.”
When talking about photo bias, we’re usually dealing with breaking news images that are lacking context, misleadingly framed, cynically staged, spuriously cropped, carelessly recycled or dubiously photoshopped. Sometimes, editors make boneheaded decisions on how to illustrate a story.We’ve also seen muddled photo essays resulting from computer glitches and even did a case study on a series of wire photos of a border clash that raised glaring questions of who the photographers were and how they got shots of the action so close-up and quick.
Which is brings us to Vogue, a monthly magazine best known for glamour shots of beautiful people wearing beautiful clothes in beautiful settings because its star photographers know how to create beautiful images of their subjects. Vogue’s Mideast edition, Vogue Arabia published a letter by Ahed Tamimi, who recently finished a term in prison for slapping an Israeli soldier. In front of cameras. Think about that.
She was trying to provoke a reaction as her mother filmed the incident.
Vogue Arabia sent one of its photographers to shoot a glamourous photo of the 17-year-old. She looks awfully nice for a girl just out of prison. I’m going to talk about how “the sausage” of the photo was made and then I’ll talk about its effect.
IsraellyCool: What The Ahed Tamimi Vogue Cover SHOULD HAVE Looked Like
Following my post about Vogue Arabia giving ‘Shirley Temper’ Ahed Tamimi the royal treatment (and by “royal”, think Asma al-Assad), I thought I would propose a number of alternative covers and story ideas for Vogue.
Netanyahu to meet Putin on Syria coordination amid row over missile system
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he will soon meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss coordination between the Israeli military and Russian forces operating in Syria.Netanyahu’s announcement came with ties to Moscow strained over Russia’s recent delivery of its advanced S-300 air defense system to Syria. Israel and the US are concerned the delivery of the system could complicate ongoing Israeli efforts to prevent Iran from deepening its military presence in Syria and transferring weapons to Hezbollah.
“A short time ago I spoke with President Putin. We agreed to meet soon in order to continue the important inter-military security coordination,” Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. “Israel will act at all times to prevent Iran from establishing a military presence in Syria and to thwart the transfer of lethal weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
The two men last met in July in Moscow, and also discussed the situation in Syria.
Avigdor Liberman: Israel will not heed ‘cynical grandstanding’ on Khan al-Ahmar
Thus, Israel’s fiercely independent and highly respected High Court needs no lectures on jurisprudence from other countries, neither with regard to international law nor otherwise.I can imagine the uproar that would occur if Israel were to similarly question the probity of other countries’ internal judicial processes.
Some have argued that relocating the residents to proper homes several kilometers to the west will somehow preclude an eventual political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is high time we replace theatrics with sensible discourse. In this regard, the idea that moving a small group of people within a several kilometer radius will prevent a resolution to such a complex historical conflict is absurd, to say the least.
Does Israel need to heed such cynical grandstanding? Do these people really need to pay with their health and lives and futures for it?
Not on my watch.
The Israeli government will continue to pursue a real, practical solution to the plight of these people, far too long exploited by an irresponsible
Palestinian leadership and its misguided supporters around the world.
As always, the Israeli government will do so while abiding scrupulously by the law and while balancing the different interests at stake, including the genuine needs of the residents themselves.
It is the legal thing to do.
It is the moral thing to do.
And despite the same old international clamor against Israel, it is the right thing to do.
Florida student denied entry into Israel was president of BDS group
The Tel Aviv District Court was set to hear an appeal on Sunday against the planned deportation of American BDS activist Lara Alqasem from Israel.Alqasem arrived at Ben-Gurion International Airport from Florida on Tuesday and was denied entry when her name came up in a Strategic Affairs Ministry database of anti-Israel activists. She was arrested and has been in detention since then.
Her case has garnered the attention of radical left-wing groups, who have accused Israel of denying her entry because of her Arab surname.
One of those to come to Alqasem’s defense was Zionist Union MK Merav Michaeli, who said the incident “exposes the unbearable ease of the deportation, defamation and incitement law, but also the stupidity of the boycott law itself.”
Michaeli was referring to the Knesset’s approval in May 2017 of a controversial law denying visas and residency permits to people who support boycotting Israel.
Alqasem joined the anti-Israel, pro-BDS group Students for Justice in Palestine in 2014 and was the group’s president in 2016-2017, while a student at the University of Florida.
Accusing Abbas of derailing Gaza talks, Egypt may end mediation
Amid mounting tensions between Israel and Hamas along the Gaza border, Egyptian intelligence officials are considering withdrawing from the delicate diplomatic efforts to restore calm to the Gaza Strip and to mediate inter-Palestinian reconciliation.Efforts to reconcile rival Palestinian factions Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, have been unsuccessful over the last decade, since Hamas violently routed Fatah from Gaza in 2007.
A Hamas delegation headed by deputy political leader Saleh Arouri and a delegation of senior Fatah representatives were in Cairo last week for another round of meetings with senior Egyptian intelligence officials and were supposed to stay there for several days, but departed after a mere 24 hours.
A senior Egyptian defense official told Israel Hayom this was the reason for Hamas’ decision to intensify its weekly riots along the border with Israel.
“If Egypt ceases its involvement in the talks, a military confrontation will very likely erupt in Gaza. Hamas will direct the pressure at Israel,” the official said. He added that Israel and Egypt have been coordinating their recent diplomatic steps.
Salah Al-Din Brigades memorializes one of their militant members in recently released video. He was killed at the #Gaza border participating in clashes against #IDF troops. Just another example of militants participating in border clashes at the security fence. #Israel pic.twitter.com/seRQgWJv3E
— Joe (@Jtruzmah) October 4, 2018
Hamas: Israel ready to help, but PA blocking fuel to Gaza power plant
A senior Hamas official on Saturday revealed that Israel has 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 diesel fuel needed to keep power plants in the Gaza Strip running. He said that the money was sent to the United Nations Office for Project Services.
“Israel agreed to the pumping of the fuel to the power plant 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 plant for more than four hours.”
Addressing the residents of the coastal enclave, the Hamas official asked rhetorically: “So who is besieging you, the people of Gaza?”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, at a press conference Thursday with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, called on the world to tell Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to stop “choking” Gaza, something that “could lead to very difficult consequences.”
Netanyahu said that over the last year, Abbas “has made the situation in Gaza more difficult by choking off the flow of funds from the Palestinian Authority to Gaza. As a result of this chokehold, pressures have been created there and as a result of the pressures, from time to time Hamas attacks Israel at a relatively low intensity, but the chokehold is tightening.”
Netanyahu said that Abbas has “interfered in all UN attempts to ease the plight in Gaza, including now and, of course, many countries, today I can say that even the donor countries are condemning him for this, and rightly so.”
Islamic Jihad showcases large female terrorist contingent
Media outlets affiliated with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group in the Gaza Strip on Saturday showcased the large contingent of women who have joined the organization’s ranks.The images show a large group of women taking part in military drills aimed at attacking Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Live-fire training against “IDF soldiers”They are shown carrying cardboard rifle cutouts and also shooting real weapons while surrounded by fellow terrorists in Israel Defense Forces uniforms.
The women, wearing the group’s uniform, are also seen marching in the streets of Gaza.
This is not the first time that images featuring female Islamic Jihad fighters have been made public. However, it is the first time they have been depicted in such large numbers engaging in military training.
In the past, Islamic Jihad has used female suicide bombers in attacks on Israelis.
Equality and women’s rights in the State of Palestine: Islamic Jihad holds terror training for women.
(Source: https://t.co/nTiJMQJvlt) pic.twitter.com/x4weN27qTg
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 6, 2018
Oh?
Who is that, exactly?
Who does John Kerry believe are the people in the Mideast who “would love to have the United States of American bomb Iran”? Because that’s an incendiary claim from a guy who was US’s top diplomat for 4 years. Is that something he believed back then? https://t.co/KjwnidDtcw
— Omri Ceren (@omriceren) October 7, 2018
The Khashoggi affair: Saudi journalist’s disappearance rocks Mideast, U.S.
Last Tuesday, Jamal Khashoggi entered the consulate of Saudi Arabia in Istanbul. He hasn’t been seen since.Turkish authorities said on Sunday that he was killed in the consulate and his body was then clandestinely taken out of the country. However Riyadh has insisted that Khashoggi left the consulate, and Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman invited Turkish authorities to search the premises. The disappearance has rocked the Middle East, media organizations and the United States, where Khashoggi had many friends. It comes amid Turkey-Saudi Arabia tensions and growing critiques of Riyadh’s policies at home and abroad.
Khashoggi is a prominent Saudi Arabian journalist who was once an insider and adviser of the kingdom. In the 1980s and 1990s he even met and traveled with Osama Bin Laden, before al-Qaeda oversaw the 9/11 attacks. In September 2017 he left Saudi Arabia after he said he was told by officials to stop writing and tweeting to his 1.6 million followers. He told an interview at the Oslo Freedom Forum in May that he feared being arrested if he returned to his country. Nevertheless he said he was still a “believer in reform from within the system,” and that he hoped the leaders in Riyadh would listen.
He went to the consulate to receive a document certifying that he was divorced so he could marry his Turkish fiancée Hatice Cengiz. “He told her to call an adviser to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan if he did not return,” according to the BBC. He didn’t return by nightfall.
Bill Law, who knew Khashoggi for 16 years after meeting him in Jeddah in 2002 wrote at Al-Jazeera that he feared for the writer’s safety. “This is very worrying, especially in the context of the ongoing crackdown on dissent led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.” The Istanbul public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation almost immediately. Turkish investigation sources told The Washington Post over the weekend that a “15-member team came from Saudi Arabia.” The murder was “pre-planned” and the body was secreted out of the consulate, while the alleged hit-squad left the country. Riyadh calls this assessment “baseless.”
Stuttgart advertises boycott-Israel group on its website
The German city of Stuttgart, in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg – famous as the headquarters for auto manufacturer Mercedes Benz – advertises on its website information for a group that wages a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against the Jewish state.The city’s promotion of the pro-BDS group Palestine Committee Stuttgart (Palästinakomitee Stuttgart) comes in stark contrast to the anti-BDS resolution passed on Sunday by the state’s Green Party at its conference. The resolution states that “BDS’s goal is a boycott of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel” and follows “the National Socialist slogan ‘Don’t buy from Jews.’”
According to the resolution, “the BDS campaign is to be assessed as antisemitic, hostile to Israel, reactionary and anti-enlightenment.”
The head of the Stuttgart branch of the German-Israel Friendship Society (DIG), Bärbel Illi, informed The Jerusalem Post on Saturday about the city’s website notice of the pro-BDS group.
Many people supported the anti-BDS resolution, including members of DIG, a number of whom are members of the Green Party; party chairman Oliver Hildenbrand; state parliament Green Party faction head Andreas Schwarz; and nearly the entire association of the party’s youth organization.
Daphne Anson: Conflict on Carnaby Street: “Terrorist supporters off our streets!” (video)
Puma, the leading international sponsor of the Israel Football Association, is the latest brand targetted by the BDS movement, and yesterday, 6 October, Inminds staged a demo outside the Puma store on Carnaby Street, which didn’t go quite according to plan.For there to wave the Israeli flag and denounce the “monstrous lies” emanating from the hate-mongers, was a small contingent of Zionist activists, including the stalwart Jonathan Hoffman.
At one point Mr Plod approaches one of the pro-Israel counter-protesters, and seems to remonstrate with him.
But then, just as Sandra Watfa (David Collier’stake on her below) launches into her customary Israel-denouncing rant, she is suddenly surrounded by the Zionists, who virtually drown her out with repetitive cries of “Terrorist supporters off our streets!”
Fangs as sharp as any puma’s are bared on both sides, Ms Watfa’s script flies from her hand, Mr Hoffman is manhandled, a burly security guy speaks to him sharply and is told “She hit me first!” and later “She’s an anti-Jewish racist!”
IsraellyCool: Roger Waters Does Not Seem to Realize Composer He is Honoring Had Honored Israel
Rock’n’roll BDS-hole Roger Waters’ new endeavor:Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters is adding another brick to his wall of musical accomplishments: narrating and adapting Igor Stravinsky’s classic modern fairy tale The Soldier’s Tale.
According to a press release, this project is but the latest in a string of forays into the world of high art for Waters. “Both here and in other works Waters certainly feels an affinity with this moment in the history of music whenever he has to decide how atonal to make his music. How radical should it be? And how is music related to the Classical and Romantic tradition? This is arguably the most important question that progressive music has to ask itself today.”
Waters’ choice of The Soldier’s Tale is serendipitous, give that “he has wanted for a long time to engage more deeply with the work of a composer whose weight and occasional inaccessibility may perhaps have much in common with” his own music.
Despite sounding awfully pretentious, Waters is also comfortably dumb; he has chosen to honor Igor Stravinsky, who was the antithesis of this BDS-hole, to the point he wrote a piece (Abraham and Isaac) in honor of Israel!
In NY, virtual reality puts a human face on the horrors of a Nazi death camp
Pinchas Gutter stands on the platform. Behind him, the trees appear to sway ever so slightly in the breeze. He recalls the moment he and his twin were cleaved apart — how all he remembers of Sabina, then 11, is her long, golden braid.Next the octogenarian stands inside the gas chamber where his sister and parents perished. His pain is as palpable as his determination to sear his story into the consciousness of his audience — a pain made all the more poignant by the fact that each viewer is actually “with” Gutter in the Nazi death machine.
Seen through a virtual reality headset, Gutter says that “to confront pain is the only way to heal.”
It is part of the virtual reality film “The Last Goodbye,” in which Gutter invites visitors to walk alongside him as he returns one last time to Majdanek, the place where his parents and his twin sister were murdered.
The 20 minute film experience, co-produced with the US Shoah Foundation, is part of “In Confidence: Holocaust History Told By Those Who Lived It,” a new multimedia installation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Through correspondence, journals, photographs, artwork, and testimonies the exhibit makes the past personal.
Police open probe after Virginia JCC vandalized with 19 swastikas
Virginia police opened an investigation on Saturday into an apparent hate crime at a Jewish Community Center in Fairfax where 19 swastikas were found spray-painted onto the building’s outer walls.Local authorities released photos from security camera footage, which showed a suspect arriving at the scene and defacing the JCC at around 4:30 a.m. early Saturday morning.
Building staff noticed the vandalism when they arrived to open the building at 7:00 a.m., the JCC’s Executive Director David Yaffe told local media.
“As many of us recognize, these acts do not represent the community around the J or the community in Northern Virginia,” JCC leadership said in a statement.
“The J as a whole, and particularly through the focused efforts of our Committee for a Just and Caring Community, will continue to participate as a positive force in both the Jewish and wider communities.”
Brazil’s Workers’ Party likens pro-Israel presidential front-runner to Hitler
Brazil’s Workers’ Party compared far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro to Adolf Hitler in a video published Thursday.The clip was posted on the party’s Twitter account and came as Bolsonaro saw a rise in the polls ahead of elections on Sunday.
Bolsonaro has a history of controversial statements. The Worker’s Party video shows him making offensive comments and includes images of Hitler.
Bolsonaro can be seen arguing that voting “won’t change anything” and saying that only a civil war will solve the country’s problems.
The candidate has gained about 10 percent in the polls since being stabbed while campaigning last month.
Often called Brazil’s Trump, Bolsonaro has vowed to move the country’s Israeli embassy to Jerusalem and has said he will close the Palestinian embassy in Brasilia.
Israeli singer performs in Hebrew for the Pope
Israeli singer Achinoam Nini performed for a very small – and very elite – audience last weekend. Pope Francis.Last Saturday, Nini and her family had a private audience with the Pope at the Vatican, and she sang two songs for him.
“He was so moved when I spoke and sang in Hebrew,” Nini, known internationally as Noa, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday. “He’s a wonderful man.”
Nini and guitarist Gil Dor performed two songs for the pope – adapted versions of “Ave Maria” and “Beautiful That Way.” On the latter song, Nini’s daughter, Yum, joined her in singing together for the pope.
“It seems the Holy Father loves Hebrew, and loves the song ‘Beautiful That Way,’” Nini wrote on Facebook several days ago, sharing a video of the meeting. “I decided to sing half the song in Hebrew… that way, Yum and I could connect the message of hope that shines strongly through this song, to our own culture, our quest for peace, and on into the future. Francis, who is all heart himself, was thrilled.”
White Night in Paris includes Israeli artists
Amid the flow of cultural events offered throughout the year in the French capital, residents and tourists are especially fond of the annual Paris White Night Rendezvous festival in October offering a variety of alternative music performances, video projections and artistic installations.This year’s all-night soirée on Saturday included Israeli street and urban artists, DJs, dance performances and an all-day festival combining different disciplines.
The invitation to the many Israeli artists was extended in the framework of the Israel-France cross-cultural season, launched on June 1 by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his visit to France, and which lasts until the end of November.
Over the last few months, Israeli artists have performed in Lyon, Toulouse, Marseilles and other cities alongside events dedicated to Israeli innovation and technology. On Monday, Nice will host a celebration of Israel’s 70 years of humanitarian aid and international cooperation, with diplomat Peleg Lewi representing the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
The Israeli curator of the Israel-France season Emmanuel Halperin reached out to numerous Israeli artists and French associations, encouraging partnership for joint projects. One of these French associations was the Néo Muralis artistic group, which came together on the backdrop of the cross-cultural season. Néo Muralis invited Israeli artists PESH, Nitzan Mintz and Dede for the Toulouse Mister Freeze street-art festival, and on Saturday hosted urban artists PESH and Pilpeled for the White Night happening in Paris. Eric Oxandaburu, project manager at The Next Moment association and one of Néo Muralis initiators, explained the two artists’s work being held in Paris’s 4th arrondissement. ‘’The idea is to create a kaleidoscope of artists, for us to rediscover the public space through their own eyes.’’
Cabinet approves immigration of 1,000 Ethiopian Falashmura to Israel
A plan to bring approximately 1,000 members of the Falashmura community to Israel from Ethiopia was approved by the cabinet on Sunday. The Falashmura are Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors converted to Christianity, often under duress, generations ago.There are approximately 8,000 tribe members in Ethiopia with close relatives in Israel who are waiting to immigrate.
Only tribe members with family already in Israel are included in the decision. They will be able to bring their partners and any unmarried children who do not have children of their own.
It remains unclear what will happen to the remaining 7,000 people.
Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon hailed the announcement, saying that budgets and political expediency should not be a barrier to bringing people to Israel.
“The cabinet decision we made today to bring the Falashmura to Israel is a just one. The Declaration of Independence states that the State of Israel will be open to Jewish immigration and the ingathering of exiles,” Kahlon said, according to the Kan national broadcaster.
“There are no budgetary, bureaucratic or political considerations when it comes to aliyah,” he added, using the Hebrew term for Jewish immigration to Israel.
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