27 Nov 2015
7 Nov 2015
The Lost Tribes Of Israel
The mystery of the 10 Lost Tribes of Israel has fascinated people through the ages. Explorers claim to have discovered evidence of the "lost tribes" all over the world, from Australia to Siberia, but few if any such claims have been backed up by solid evidence. But now a provocative possibility about the whereabouts of one of the tribes has emerged--and it's 4,000 miles from Israel--in Southern Africa. Host and explorer Josh Bernstein retraces the amazing journey that the Lemba people claim they made centuries ago. It stretches from the heart of modern South Africa to the ancient stone cities of Zimbabwe...and then onto the shores of the Mediterranean and the city of Jerusalem. And the evidence for this journey is more than anecdotal. As Josh discovers, recent DNA studies point to the Lemba's true origin in the Middle East.
5 Oct 2015
Punk Jews
Profiling Hassidic punk rockers, Yiddish street performers, African-American Jewish activists and more, Punk Jews explores an emerging movement of provocateurs and committed Jews who are asking, each in his or her own way, what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century.
16 Sept 2015
Sensitive Site: Clashes at Holy site enter third day in Israel
The al-Aqsa mosque complex in the heart of Jerusalem, has witnessed a third day of clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians. Police tried to clear the protesters, some of whom barricaded themselves inside the holy site.
From the site: The Temple Mount Faithful | Working to Rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount
Do not fear any human power, trust only the G‑d of our forefathers. Remove the foreign Arab Islamic occupation of the Holy Temple Mount of the G‑d of Israel, purify the Holy Hill of G‑d Almighty like our forefathers did in times past and rebuild the end-time Holy Third Temple of G‑d. Stop immediately the pagan abomination and the shameful situation on the Holy Hill of G‑d. Remove immediately the flags of ISIS, Hamas, and other foreign flags from the location of the Holy Temple of G‑d. Stop immediately the incitement against the G‑d and people of Israel perpetrated by the Arab Islamic Mufti and other Islamic speakers from the most Holy Hill of G‑d in Jerusalem, the location of the Shekina of G‑d, which is now in captivity by the agents of the Satan of ISIS and other cruel terrorists.
Never ever in the history of Israel have the people of G‑d allowed such a terrible and satanic anti-godly event to happen on the holiest place of G‑d in the entire universe and it should immediately be stopped. It breaks the heart of the people of Israel and many righteous friends of Israel throughout the world. More of this here..
3 Sept 2015
The Best of Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, professor and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli--Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust.
8 Jul 2015
Hillary Clinton Tells Israeli Billionaire and Mega-Donor She Will Support Israel, Fight Palestinian Movement
Israeli-American Haim Saban is one of America's richest men, the owner of numerous media and entertainment outlets — and a big Democratic donor. When the Democratic National Committee needed a new building, he coughed up $7 million to fund it, “one of the largest known donations ever made to an American political party.” What does Saban want for all that money? “I’m a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel,” he said.
In order to pursue this objective, Saban has been pouring money into Hillary Clinton's super PAC, $2 million by one estimate. This week, Hillary returned the favor. She wrote a long letter to Saban praising Israel and pledging to fight the Palestinian-led boycott movement, which seeks to use economic pressures to end the occupation of their territories. Saban was so proud of the letter he took the rare step of publishing it in full through a public relations firm, broadcasting it to the world. Here it is.
In the letter, Clinton clearly links the boycott movement to anti-semitism, even raising the terrorist attack in Paris. She also condemns the increasingly popular apartheid analogy, one that current Secretary of State John Kerry used. This is likely intentional messaging, distancing herself from Obama so as to tell pro-Israel donors like Saban that she's on their team.
1 Jul 2015
Orthodox Jews Can’t Protest Gay Pride Parade, Hire Mexicans Instead
Some of the most curious costumes worn along the parade route belonged to protesters. Behind a barricade, a group of men wore the fringed Jewish prayer garment known as the tzitzit and held up anti-gay signs bearing the logo of a group calling itself the Jewish Political Action Committee. “Judaism prohibits homosexuality,” one sign read.
But the men were not Jewish. They were Mexican laborers, protesting because they were paid to protest, said one of the men, who would not give his name. Heshie Freed, a member of the political action committee, an Orthodox Jewish group based in Brooklyn, said that the men were supplementary troops, filling in for the Jewish students who would normally be called upon to demonstrate.
“The rabbis said that the yeshiva boys shouldn’t come out for this because of what they would see at the parade,” Mr. Freed said.
24 Feb 2015
Orthodox Jews in talks with US health officials over oral suction circumcision
The Orthodox Jewish tradition known as oral suction circumcision reaches back to biblical times but it has created a modern-day dilemma for New York City health officials, who have linked it to 17 cases of infant herpes since 2000. Two died and two others suffered brain damage.
Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration, which came into power a year ago with a promise to reconsider an existing regulation on the ritual, is now negotiating with a group of rabbis over how to protect children's health while still preserving religious freedom. 'The talks are ongoing but I cannot go into particulars,' said Avi Fink, the mayor's deputy director of intergovernmental affairs who has been leading the talks. 'Our goal is to achieve awareness of the risks.'
13 Jan 2015
Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Newspaper Edits Female World Leaders Out of Charlie Hebdo March
The historic march across Paris included over 40 world leaders expressing solidarity for France after the Charlie Hebdo massacre, but if you read this Haredi newspaper, you’d believe that none of them were women.
The image that ran on the front page of the Israeli newspaper The Announcer edited two female world leaders out of the image, originally provided by wire service GPO: German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini. A third woman in a blue scarf who we can’t identify was also photoshopped out.
B.T.W.:
2 Jan 2015
Ultra-Orthodox Jews Delay Flights Over Seating
Yet again, the takeoff of a flight from New York to Israel was delayed because haredi (ultra-Orthodox) male Jewish passengers refused to sit next to women because their faith forbids it. The Dec. 20 El Al flight’s takeoff was delayed for 30 minutes when haredi men balked at sitting between two women, and other passengers refused to accommodate them in protest until one passenger finally relented.
In October, a Delta flight was delayed after haredim refused to sit with members of the opposite sex, resulting in the plane arriving an hour late. In September, a group of haredim turned another El Al flight into a nightmare when they stood in the aisles rather than sit next to members of the opposite sex.
By any measure, the haredis’ behavior is an asinine display. That one would board a plane fully expecting the crew and passengers to accommodate their wish to not be seated next to a member of half the human race is entitlement in the extreme. And yet not only are these unruly passengers who are disturbing the peace not kicked off the plane and arrested, but they are accommodated because they say those three magic words that in one breath excuse a host of idiocy, ignorance, and irrationality: “It’s my faith.”
Also see: Photo of haredi man covered in bag puzzles foreign media (ynetnews 2013)
22 Nov 2014
Modern Israel Is Looking Like Nazi Germany
The genocidal public discourse against Palestinians and non-Jews in Israel is reaching fever pitch, and if we’ve learned anything from the horrors of the 20th century it is that fascism doesn’t stop, it must be stopped. We need to call time on Israeli fascism.
Independent Israeli journalist David Sheen brought this image to attention, with this tweet:
You may find this image shocking, eerily reminiscent of the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany, African Americans through the era of the Jim Crow segregation laws, or the UK hotel signs of the 1950’s reading ‘No Blacks, no dogs, no Irish’. I do not make these comparisons for kicks, hype or wanton disregard for these past horrors. It is because of those disgraceful periods in our history that we must not stand by while it happens again.
Fascism Grips Israel (Global Research) - Einstein Letter Warning Of Zionist Facism In Israel
26 Oct 2014
Yoav Shamir confronts Norman Finkelstein
Norman Finkelstein has an interesting philosophical view of how he feels about "anti semitism."
19 Apr 2014
Leaflet Tells Jews To Register In East Ukraine
*World leaders and Jewish groups condemned a leaflet handed out in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk in which Jews were told to "register" with the pro-Russian militants who have taken over a government office in an attempt to make Ukraine part of Russia, according to Ukrainian and Israeli media. Jews emerging from a synagogue say they were handed leaflets that ordered the city's Jews to provide a list of property they own and pay a registration fee "or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated," reported Ynet News, Israel's largest news website, and Ukraine's Donbass news agency. Secretary of State John Kerry said the language of the leaflets "is beyond unacceptable" and condemned whomever is responsible...* Could this be a false flag operation, or propaganda? The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur breaks it down.
Read more here from Oren Dorell at USA Today
28 Jan 2014
Paris Demonstrators Chant 'Jew, France is Not Yours'
A chilling new video clip recorded yesterday captures the reality of rising anti-Semitism in France. In it, a group of anti-government demonstrators march through Paris, singing the French national anthem and chanting “Juif, la France n’est pas a toi” (“Jew, France is not yours”)–all on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day:
Perhaps the most disturbing quality of the video is its vantage point–peering out a window onto the streets of Paris. The implication of the image is as disturbing as it is mundane. Today, in the capital of a European Union member state, one can look out the window and see demonstrators march proudly down the street while shouting anti-Semitic slogans. (A minority of viewers, in an attempt to dispute the chant’s prejudice, have claimed that the protesters are not denouncing “Juif,” but rather “CRIF,” which is the acronym for the Representative Council of the French Jewish Institutions, as though this ameliorates the problem.)
2 Dec 2013
Israel to demolish Bedouin village for national-religious Jewish town
The Israeli government voted on Sunday to raze a Bedouin-Palestinian village of 500 citizens to clear space for a Jewish town, prompting yet more protests against Israel’s unabated policy of settlement construction.
The government ministers moved to evict residents from the Bedouin village Umm al-Hiran in accordance with the terms of the so-called “Prawer plan," which calls for the resettlement of large numbers of Bedouin villages.
The Bedouins have been offered alternative sites to which to relocate, but they plan to hold protests against what they claim is “discriminatory treatment by the state,” as quoted by Haaretz, the Israeli daily.
Liberal Israeli publications have harshly denounced the treatment of the Bedouins, who are being displaced by the very military that some of them proudly served.
“These are Israeli citizens – citizens in a ‘democratic’ state, some of whom have even served the country militarily – who are now having their homes destroyed,” David Harris-Gershon wrote in his blog for the Tikkun Daily.
The Israeli government’s reasoning for demolishing Umm al-Hiran is that the villagers never received ‘official’ zoning rights to settle the land. However, critics say Israel refused to give a stamp of approval to the village, despite ordering villagers to settle the site in 1956.
Other commentators point to the ‘symbolic location’ of the Bedouin village, situated as it is in the Negev Desert, described by Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as “Zionism’s final frontier.”
6 Aug 2013
Russians who want to immigrate to Israel could need DNA test
A number of people from the former Soviet Union wishing to immigrate to Israel could be subjected to DNA testing to prove their Jewishness, the Prime Minister’s Office said Sunday. The policy was reported in Maariv on Monday, one day after the Israeli paper revealed that a19-year-old woman from the former Soviet Union was required to take the test to qualify for a Birthright Israel trip.
The Prime Minister’s Office confirmed that many Jews from the FSU who were born out-of-wedlock can be required to bring DNA confirmation of Jewish heritage in order to be allowed to immigrate as a Jew. A source in the PMO told Maariv that the consul’s procedure, approved by the legal department of the Interior Ministry, states that a Russian-speaking child born out-of-wedlock is eligible to receive an Israeli immigration visa if the birth was registered before the child turned 3. Otherwise a DNA test to prove Jewish parentage is necessary. A Foreign Ministry spokesman said that the decision to require DNA testing for Russian Jews is based on the recommendations of Nativ, an educational program under the auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office to help Jews from the FSU immigrate to Israel.
21 Jul 2013
Helen Thomas is Dead
Helen Thomas (August 4, 1920 – July 20, 2013) was an American author and news service reporter, member of the White House press corps and opinion columnist. She worked for the United Press and post-1958 successor United Press International (UPI) for 57 years, first as a correspondent, and later as White House bureau manager. She was a columnist for Hearst Newspapers from 2000 to 2010, writing on national affairs and the White House. She covered the administrations of eleven U.S. presidents—from the final years of the Eisenhower administration to the second year of the Obama administration.
Thomas was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents' Association, and the first female member of the Gridiron Club. She wrote six books. Thomas retired from Hearst Newspapers on June 7, 2010, following controversial comments she made about Israel, Israeli Jews and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
7 Apr 2013
Two more babies stricken with herpes after ritual oral blood sucking circumcision in New York City
Two more infants have been infected with a deadly herpes virus in the last three months after undergoing a controversial religious oral circumcision in New York City.
The latest cases bring the count to 13 infants since 2000, two of which suffered brain damage and two died from the virus which can rapidly spread throughout its body.
The ultra-Orthodox Jewish practice of metzitzah b'peh requires a practitioner to orally suck the baby's penis to 'cleanse' the open wound following its circumcision, making them susceptible to the virus.
17 Mar 2013
9 Mar 2013
Haredi: The Ultra orthodox society in Israel
Forget Hamas and Iran. This may be Israel’s most pressing problem. As tensions grow between secular Jews and the ultra-Orthodox, many Israeli feel it is the most troubling conflict the country faces.
The country’s 1 million ultra-Orthodox, also known as Haredim, account for about 19 per cent of the country’s Jewish population of 5.4 million. Many Haredim, a Hebrew word meaning those who tremble before God, marry in their teens. Academics say they typically have eight children, compared with two for secular couples.
In 1960, 15 per cent of Israeli primary students attended schools in the Arab or Haredim systems, rather than non-religious state-run schools. Now it’s about 50 per cent, and is on pace to reach 78 per cent by 2040, according to the Taub Centre, an Israeli think-tank. By 2050, 25 per cent of Israel’s population will be Haredim, the International Monetary Fund estimates.