The Anti-Defamation League urged the State Department to push for the removal of anti-Israel passages from Iraq's draft constitution. (JTA) "We hope the United States will encourage the drafters of the constitution to remove this objectionable, blatant anti-Israel discrimination in the draft text," ADL National Director Abraham Foxman wrote Wednesday to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "We are all hopeful that a democratic Iraq will be protected by a constitution that is free from bias and discrimination and will serve as a model for the entire region." One article of the constitution states that "Any individual with another nationality (except for Israel) may obtain Iraqi nationality," while another article states that "Any Iraqi may have more than one nationality as long as the nationality is not Israel." The constitution is slated for completion by Aug. 15. There are an estimated 250,000 Israeli Jews of Iraqi origin, comprising one of Israel's largest Jewish ethnic communities.
The Israel Diamond Institute has opened its first office in New York, according to Globes. The report also states that about one-half of all polished diamonds sold in the U.S. are Israeli stones.
American Jewish groups called on the Disciples of Christ denomination to reconsider recent anti-Israel declarations. (JTA) In a letter released Friday, representatives of the three major Jewish denominations and other large Jewish organizations expressed "grave concern" at the church's recent call for Israel to tear down its West Bank security barrier. "We wonder with amazement why your denomination proposes an action that would render innocent individuals even more vulnerable to terrorism," read the letter, which was addressed to newly elected church head Rev. Sharon Watkins. "We join our fellow American citizens in rejecting the resolution that calls for removal of the barrier protecting Israeli citizens, an action that would endanger all peace-loving people." But the letter commended the church for rejecting the use of economic sanctions, including divestment, against Israel. Signatories included the Anti-Defamation League, Orthodox Union, American Jewish Committee, Jewish Council for Public Affairs, American Jewish Congress, Union for Reform Judaism and United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism.
The United States is negotiating the purchase of settler greenhouses in the Gaza Strip for Palestinian use. (JTA) Yossi Tsarfati, lead negotiator for settler farmers due to leave Gaza next month when Israel pulls out of the coastal strip, told The Associated Press on Friday that a deal was close. He said the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers most U.S. assistance to the Palestinians, would pay $15 million for 1,000 acres of greenhouses. A USAID spokeswoman confirmed the negotiations to the AP, but would not provide details. The greenhouses have been a sticking point ahead of the withdrawal. The farmers believe Israel is under-compensating them and want to sell the greenhouses, but the Palestinians refuse to pay for properties they believe should never have been established.
Arutz Sheva reports that a world-wide Shema is being organized (9 p.m. at the Western Wall / 1 p.m. Central Time) for Wednesday.
Jewish groups welcomed the Senate majority leader's announcement that he supports a bill to expand embryonic stem-cell research. (JTA) The statement by Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) brightened prospects for the bill, which President Bush opposes. The legislation, backed by a wide swath of American Jewish organizations, including Hadassah and the Orthodox Union, passed the U.S. House of Representatives in May. A Senate vote is not expected until September, but President Bush has vowed to veto the bill.
Jacques Chirac proposed the creation of a France-Israel Foundation to "bring the two societies closer together." (JTA) The French president's proposal came toward the end of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s visit to France last week. According to Jerome Bonnafont, a spokesman for the Elysee Palace, Sharon accepted and the two leaders expressed their wish to progress quickly so the foundation can "deblock the links between French and Israeli society in all domains of cultural, economic, and academic life." To further revive the Franco-Israeli relationship, Sharon invited Chirac to visit his farm in southern Israel.
Louisville, Kentucky's Courier-Journal reports on the Jewish community's upcoming "Community-wide Rashi Project" there.
Israel's attorney-general said trying Ariel Sharon's son on corruption charges would be a lesson in political ethics. (JTA) Menachem Mazuz indicted Omri Sharon last week on charges including fraud, breach of trust and perjury for his role in funding his father's race for the Likud Party leadership in 1999. "I think that it is in the public's interest to send a clear message today, before elections are held, to all those who are meant to take part in the elections, the there is a price to violating funding laws and elections laws," Mazuz told Channel Two television Saturday, referring to a national poll scheduled for next year. "This indictment is grave and unprecedented," he added. "To the best of my knowledge, no indictment has ever been served regarding elections law, certainly not one charging serious felonies." Omri Sharon, a Likud lawmaker, forfeited his parliamentary immunity and a trial is expected in Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court. If convicted on all charges he faces a maximum prison sentence of seven years.
A U.S.-based Protestant denomination voted to oppose Israel's West Bank security barrier. (JTA) On Wednesday, the Disciples of Christ Church passed the measure with backing from about two-thirds of the 3,000 members. The resolution states that the security fence exacerbates hostility between the Israelis and Palestinians and calls on Israel to stop its construction, tear down what already has been built and pay reparations to Palestinian property owners. The resolution comes on the heels of other votes by Protestant denominations to criticize the barrier and consider divestment from Israel.
Ariel Sharon made a speech urging French and other diaspora Jews to make aliyah to Israel, stating that, "my government has a priority of bringing 1 million Jews to Israel," according to the Jerusalem Post.
An Israeli was named deputy chairman of the U.N. Disarmament Commission. (JTA) The Foreign Ministry's Meir Itzchaki will hold the post, the Jerusalem Post reported. The commission is a subcommittee of the U.N. General Assembly that serves as an advisory body to the assembly on nuclear and conventional arms.
Globes reports that Oracle will establish a center for Israeli start-up businesses with an emphasis on technological excellence.
The Vatican lashed out at Israel for demanding to know why the pope left attacks on Israelis out of a condemnation of terrorism. (JTA) "The Holy See cannot take lessons or instructions from any other authority on the tone and content of its own statements," the Vatican said Thursday. In an address last Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI deplored the "death, destruction and suffering in countries including Egypt, Turkey, Iraq and Britain," referring to a number of recent Islamist terrorist attacks. Israel's Foreign Ministry called in the Vatican envoy and asked why a July 12 attack that killed five Israelis in a Netanya shopping mall was not included.
Photo: Larry LuxnerBy Moira Schneider
CAPE TOWN (JTA) - Hylton Solomon, a Zimbabwean Jewish leader, says that he has never felt threatened by the turbulent goings-on in the country, though he did admit to feeling "a little bit uneasy" during the government's recent Operation Restore Order, which saw hundreds of thousands of street vendors and others being driven out of urban areas and rendered homeless in midwinter.
"It was like Kristallnacht. You can't describe it in any other way," says Solomon, the president of the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation.
Zimbabwe's mostly elderly Jewish community has dwindled through emigration to around 300 individuals from a high of 7,500 in the early 1970s. Despite its much diminished size and the rapidly deteriorating political and economic situation in the country, Jewish life, though curtailed, carries on.
Despite Solomon's wariness, he says he hasn't yet reached his "trigger point." "Maybe I'm an idiot for staying here. In Germany, all the pessimists survived and all the optimists died," he adds.
But his three children are all studying in South Africa.
"And I don't have to tell you what that costs. This is where I earn my bread," he says.
Solomon also refuses to criticize the country, taking a swipe at those who do. "This place has been good to us, and I get upset when people leave here and live in mansions in Clifton or Fresnaye and condemn this place. Whatever they've got there came from here," he says angrily, referring to affluent areas of neighboring South Africa.
"Maybe things did turn sour. But this country's been fantastic to Jews over the years. Apart from the fact that the shul burnt down and we're not quite sure what happened there," Solomon says, in reference to the fire that destroyed the Bulawayo synagogue on Yom Kippur Eve in 2003, "the cemetery's never been desecrated. There's never been any anti-Semitism and swastikas painted on walls."
Despite food shortages, he says they don't skimp on anything for the 35 residents of Savyon Lodge, the only Jewish home for the aged in the country, situated in Bulawayo. Because there are so few people who earn a salary sufficient to enable them to contribute to its upkeep, Solomon says the community tries to solicit donations, including from former Zimbabweans.
Daily synagogue services, as well as Jewish lessons, are held in the city, and the Jewish holidays are celebrated "even though we sometimes battle for a minyan," he says.
Shelley Lasker, a teacher at Bulawayo's Carmel School, a Jewish day school, agrees that the Jewish community does not "in any way" feel physically threatened but says that with the rapidly devaluing currency, economic security is a problem.
"When a country is in a state of economic collapse and people's pensions have been directly affected by the situation here, then, yes, they do feel insecure. People who thought that they'd provided well for their old age find that that is no longer the case."
Though a mere five of the school's 200 children are Jewish, they still celebrate Shabbat every Friday. "We light candles and have kitke when we can get it," she said, using the term used in southern Africa for challah.
One result of the emigration that has taken place from Zimbabwe over the years is that the Jewish community is older.
"One of the saddest things is that these old people are not part of a greater community anymore by virtue of the fact that there isn’t a greater community," says Lasker.
"They don't have access to children. They rarely see their families because their children and grandchildren have left the country. So it's very lonely for them. Of course Jewish life is affected. You try and have a Yom Ha'atzmaut celebration," she said, referring to the holiday that commemorates Israeli Independence Day, "and you-ve got to try and pole-vault them into the bus when they can barely walk, never mind do the hora."
Lasker describes the country's only rabbi, Rabbi Nathan Asmoucha of the Bulawayo Hebrew Congregation, as an "incredible man."
"He’s come to a tiny community of mainly old people - I think his most active role has been in holding funerals - yet he remains positive, loving and giving."
Solomon adds that the rabbi has made an appeal to the community to assist those displaced by Operation Restore Order, saying that they cannot as Jews just stand by. "So we are going to raise some money, buy some blankets and distribute them."
The two synagogues - Ashkenazi and Sephardi - in the capital city, Harare, have combined forces for Shabbat and holiday services in order to ensure a minyan. While the oil crisis affects synagogue attendance, Peter Sternberg, the president of the Zimbabwe Jewish Board of Deputies, says the main problem is that "there are fewer and fewer left to attend."
A shochet, or ritual slaughterer, comes to Zimbabwe from South Africa twice a year, but with so few animals available - a result of the disruption of farm production caused by government-sponsored farm invasions - that there is rationing of red meat.
Sternberg expresses gratitude for the tangible, as well as moral, support that Zimbabwe's Jews receive from the African Jewish Congress, an initiative of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, which sees to the needs of the small and far-flung Jewish communities of sub-Saharan Africa. He said that Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, the spiritual leader of the AJC, arranges for someone to officiate on the High Holy Days, in addition to providing special prayer books.
"They also send up the South African Jewish Report on Friday," Sternberg said, referring to the newspaper. "Without them, we would really be stuck," he says.
By Avi Steinberg
JERUSALEM (JTA) - Ami Ayalon is on a journey.
A former head of Israel's navy and its Shin Bet security service, Ayalon on Sunday addressed a convoy of a few hundred Israelis - kibbutz youth, former security officers, politicians and others - before leading them on a weeklong trip across Israel to spread their slogan, "Leaving Gaza - Returning to Zionism."
The convoy began in a mall parking lot near Tel Aviv, made its way north to Kiryat Shmona and was scheduled to end Friday at Jerusalem's crowded Mahane Yehuda outdoor market.
Along the way, the "Blue and White Voyage" will stop in cities and towns where Ayalon and associates will meet with passersby and try to drum up support for Israel's planned withdrawal next month from the Gaza Strip.
Ayalon said the journey is one of the most important missions he ever has undertaken.
"What's at stake today in Israel is the future of this country as a Jewish and democratic state - the future of Zionism itself," Ayalon told JTA. "The viability of Israel depends on a Jewish majority living in a land with clear and secure borders. The disengagement from Gaza is a vital step toward achieving this vision."
Withdrawal from Gaza ultimately will put Israel in a position of greater strength, he said.
"It's not just a question of stronger borders - although the borders will be stronger and more defensible. The issue is who are we as a nation and where are we headed. If we don't take concrete steps to preserve the Jewish and democratic nature of the state, then eventually we'll have nothing left to defend."
Ayalon was joined by the mayors of towns from Haifa to Yeroham, the leaders of various political organizations, as well as former Israeli Defense Forces generals.
"The security analysis says that we cannot afford, in the long run, to have our soldiers protecting a few thousand settlers in Gaza," said Gen. Danny Rothchild, president of the Council for Peace and Security, an organization of former security officers committed to influencing Israeli security policy. "The fact is that we can much better deal with the security issue when we are outside than when we are inside Gaza. The P.A. will be able to deal with their radicals without looking like collaborators," he said, referring to the Palestinian Authority. "And in the end, neutralizing Hamas is very much in their own interest."
A major motivation for the cross-country voyage, Ayalon told JTA, is to do what he says Israel's leaders have failed to do: explain and defend the rationale of disengagement from the Palestinians to Israeli citizens.
"The leadership in this country has not explained the 'why,' nor have they given a clear idea of what the ultimate vision is," Ayalon claimed. "Our government sent the settlers out there; the least they could do is explain to them and to the nation why it's crucial that we bring them back."
The Blue and White Voyage is not Ayalon's first foray into populist politics. Recently, Avalon - who also is trying to get involved in parliamentary politics through the Labor Party - took on a joint project with Sari Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University, the Arab university in Jerusalem, to collect signatures from Israelis and Palestinians supporting broad principles for a resolution of the conflict between the two sides.
For some, the Blue and White Voyage is an opportunity to counter the images of orange-clad protesters who oppose the withdrawal plan. Dressed in blue - the color adopted by the pro-withdrawal camp - Yoni Barnea, a high school senior from Haifa, said Avalon's venture was long overdue.
"Orange is a loud color, and the anti-disengagement people are a passionate and well-organized bunch," he said. "But I believe that they are a misguided minority. Most of us want this. We just haven't done a good job of making ourselves seen and heard. It's up to the youth."
In a short speech , Ayalon said it was appropriate to begin the voyage Sunday - the 17th of Tammuz - because it traditionally is a day of reflection and fasting, marking the day the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.
Shortly after beginning his trip, Ayalon walked into a McDonald's to spread his message.
"It's important to meet people where they are," he said.
Though many of the participants in the cross-country trip are secular, a contingent from the Movement for Realistic Religious Zionism joined the group.
A Jerusalem resident, Itai Gorov, wandered into the fray by accident. A religious Jew who hadn't heard of either the Movement for Realistic Religious Zionism or the Blue and White Voyage, Gorov was intrigued.
"A lot of people I know are against the disengagement on religious grounds," he said. "But I'm in favor of it on religious grounds. It's nice to know that I'm not alone."
The last stop for the convoy will be Jerusalem, where many residents oppose the withdrawal plan. Ayalon and company said they’re looking forward to taking their message directly into the heart of the opposition.
"Our mission here is discussions, not demonstrations. If, as a country, we can't have a real debate on the issues that affect our future, then we are already lost."
Ariel Sharon accused far-right Israeli opponents of spreading a false rumor that he had suffered a heart attack. (JTA) Prompted by an unsourced beeper report Sunday that the prime minister had collapsed in cardiac arrest during Sunday's Cabinet meeting, the Prime Minister's Office put out an urgent bulletin clarifying that all was well. Sharon himself urged fellow ministers to bear witness to the fact he was in perfect health. Later, in a speech, Sharon recounted the incident with a laugh but said: "This was also part of the incitement against me." He was referring to an increasingly robust right-wing campaign against the upcoming Israeli withdrawals from the Gaza Strip and northern West Bank, which has included efforts to call Sharon's policymaking abilities into question.
An Israeli army rabbi may face criminal charges for urging fellow soldiers not to take part in the upcoming Gaza withdrawal. (JTA) "We did not enlist for this, to deport Jews from their homes," Lieutenant Amital Barali of the Chaplaincy Corps said Sunday at a Gaza army checkpoint, in full view of television cameras. "It is an explicity illegal order." Military sources said Monday that the rabbi would undergo a disciplinary hearing, and may even face criminal charges such as a sedition. More than 40 Israeli soldiers, including officers, have been prosecuted for insubordination in connection with the upcoming withdrawals from Gaza and the northern West Bank.
Israeli forces captured a Palestinian would-be suicide bomber en route from the Gaza Strip to Tel Aviv. (JTA) The 18-year-old Al-Aksa Brigade terrorist apparently managed to climb over the security fence in the northern Gaza Strip last Friday, walking for several hours until he was intercepted near Kibbutz Nir Am. He was carrying an 11-pound bomb and told Israeli interrogators he planned to blow himself up in Tel Aviv. The Israeli media identified the terrorist as a relative of Salah Shehada, the Hamas chief assassinated by Israel in 2002. Police sources said that a Palestinian who is married to an Israeli Arab and lives in Jaffa was arrested on suspicion of serving as a guide to the would-be bomber.
Ariel Sharon extended Israeli condolences to Egypt after a major terrorist attack in Sinai. (JTA) The Prime Minister's Office said Sharon telephoned Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak after an Al-Qaida-style cell bombed the Sharm el-Sheik resort on Saturday, killing at least 88 people and wounding more than 200. "The prime minister said that it is forbidden to compromise with Islamic extremist terrorism and added that it must be fought in every way," Sharon's office said. "Egyptian President Mubarak thanked Prime Minister Sharon for his condolences and said that Israel and Egypt would cooperate in the war on terrorism." Unlike similar attacks on Sinai resorts frequented by Israelis last October, there was only one Israeli casualty in the Sharm bombing - an Arab woman lightly wounded by shrapnel.
Jacques Chirac told Ha'aretz this week in an exclusive interview that he feels "profound admiration" and "friendship" for the State of Israel and the Israeli people. (JTA) The French president recently invited Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to Paris to discuss the retreat from Gaza and the state of French-Israeli relations. The visit will take place on July 26 and 27. He said that France understands Israel's position on terrorism and that France is spearheading the fight against the global scourge. When asked about the high level of anti-Semitic incidents in France, Chirac answered: "France is not anti-Semitic, far from it, but it must fight the actions of violent extremists who are acting out of beastliness."
Palestinian terrorists killed an Israeli couple returning from a visit to the Gaza Strip. (JTA) Dov and Rachel Kol, of Jerusalem, were killed in their car by gunfire on Saturday night as they ended a weekend visit to the Gush Katif settlement bloc and headed to the Gaza-Israel boundary. Three other people in the car were wounded. Israeli troops killed two of the terrorists involved in the ambush. Islamic Jihad, the Al-Aksa Brigade and the Popular Resistance Committees claimed joint responsibility for the attack.
You are the high bidder: Ha'aretz reports that several items of significant Israeli historical importance, including the hanukkiah of David Ben-Gurion, has been placed for sale on eBay.
Congregation Beth Israel in Malden, MA is offering low-interest loans to Orthodox families willing to move to the area in order to boost its membership, which has dwindled from 300 to 100 members. WCVB TheBostonChannel reports here.
The Bush administration expressed its opposition to a number of pro-Israel provisions in a congressional finance bill. (JTA) A "statement of administration policy" issued Wednesday came too late to stop the U.S. House of Representatives' passage of a State Department authorization bill. Among the provisions the administration opposed were further restrictions on direct aid to the Palestinian Authority; allowing applicants born in Jerusalem to list "Jerusalem, Israel" as their birthplace on their passports; and the transfer of $240 million in assistance to Egypt from military to economic aid. "The permanent status of Jerusalem is a volatile issue with sensitivities throughout the region and needs to be resolved by the parties," the statement said. "The president has stated that such provisions impermissibly interfere with his constitutional authority to formulate the position of the United States, speak for the nation in international affairs, and determine the terms on which recognition is given to foreign states." The Senate has yet to consider a similar bill; the provisions are not expected to survive the House-Senate conference.
Israel authorized the transfer of 5,000 Palestinian police from the West Bank to the Gaza Strip to maintain security during next month's Gaza withdrawal. (JTA) Daniel Ayalon, Israel's ambassador to the United States, announced the agreement Wednesday at Hadassah's annual conference in Washington. Ayalon said the gesture showed Israel's goodwill in encouraging the Palestinian Authority to face down terrorists, and suggested that Israel might allow more policemen to be transferred. The United States has been pressing Israel and the Palestinians to coordinate ahead of Israel’s upcoming withdrawal in order to smooth the transition to Palestinian self-rule. "In order for them to become an effective partner, a trustworthy partner, they must take the necessary steps to do away with terrorism and incitement," Ayalon said.
Jewish groups joined groups in America, Britain and France urging their governments to sponsor a U.N. resolution to address the genocide in Sudan. (JTA) The Save Darfur Coalition in America, which includes Jewish groups from across the denominational spectrum, joined the Collectif Urgence Darfour in France and Protect Darfur in Great Britain in asking the countries to sponsor a Security Council resolution. "It is imperative that the U.N. Security Council give a mandate, through a new resolution, for the protection of Darfur's African population through peace enforcement in Darfur," the statement says. "The government of Sudan bears primary responsibility for their protection, but has failed to provide it. As a matter of urgency, this must now become an international responsibility."
This year marks the 100th anniversary of Einstein's 'miracle year', and Hebrew University, the custodian of Einstein's estate, may bring in upwards of $4 million in fees for the his image rights this year. Einstein's 'miracle year' refers to the period when he did some of his most important work, including the Special Theory of Relativity. Bloomberg reports here.
Only 18 percent of new immigrants between the ages of 18 and 35 are happy in Israel, a new study found. (JTA) Among veteran Israelis in the same age bracket, 43 percent are satisfied with their lives in Israel, according to a Hebrew University School of Social Work study, Yediot Achronot reported. The study, conducted for the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, is to be presented to the JDC and Israel's Absorption Ministry to address challenges facing young immigrants. Though 41 percent of new immigrants have graduated from institutions of higher education, compared to 27 percent of veteran Israelis, they are less happy professionally because they have difficulty finding work in their fields and are more likely than their veteran counterparts to work in blue-collar jobs, the study found. Additionally, some 25 percent of those who immigrated between 1996 and 2001 said they are not Jewish.
Members of the U.S. Congress negotiating the final version of an energy bill agreed to halve a proposal to expand daylight-savings time, addressing an issue that had concerned observant Jews. (JTA) Negotiators from the Senate and House of Representatives met Thursday to finalize the 2005 Energy Policy bill. Negotiators had considered expanding daylight savings time by two months, so that it would run from March to November instead of April to October. Orthodox and Conservative Jews argued against the change, saying it would make it difficult for Jews who attend morning services to reach work on time. Under the compromise, daylight-savings time would begin three weeks earlier in the spring and last a week longer in the fall.
Pope Benedict XVI confirmed that he will visit a synagogue in Cologne next month. (JTA) The visit to Germany will be Benedict's first return to his homeland since he was elected to the papacy in April. According to details of the trip announced Wednesday by the Vatican, Benedict will visit the Cologne synagogue for an hour at noon on Aug. 19. It will be the first official visit by a pope to a synagogue since John Paul II's historic visit to the main synagogue of Rome in 1986. Benedict's visit will be the latest in a series of steps he has taken since his election to demonstrate his commitment to furthering Jewish-Catholic relations.
The world's oldest married couple is Jewish. (JTA) Philadelphia residents Herbert and Magda Brown, 105 and 100, respectively, have been recognized as the "oldest living married couple, aggregate age" by The Guinness Book of World Records. Magda attributes her long time with Herbert to communication. "He is very easy-going, I am the strong one," she told Reuters in an interview. "We never argued, we just had discussions." The couple married in Magda's native Hungary in 1930 and then moved to Austria, Herbert's homeland, where he was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Dachau. Herbert was released in exchange for all of the family's possessions, and he, Magda and their only daughter fled to London, later making their way to the United States.
Anat Rosenberg, a victim of the July 7th London terrorist bombings, was buried today; relatives say she felt safer in England than in Israel, where she feared Palestinian attacks. Story from Reuters here.
Five days after Alabama governor Bob Riley announces he will lead a trade mission to Israel, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue announces today that he will lead a similar group from his state.
The AP reports that a new study finds Jewish catacombs may have existed for at least 100 years before Christian burials in the underground cemeteries of Rome.
The Conservative movement expressed concern about a proposed two-month extension of Daylight Savings Time. (JTA) In a letter on Wednesday to members of Congress, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism said that the extension proposed in the 2005 Energy Policy Act - which would establish March through November as daylight-savings months - may make it impossible for observant Jews to get to work by 9 a.m. if they want to recite morning prayers. "Part of our morning prayers cannot begin until after sunrise," explained the group's public policy director, Mark Waldman. "With this proposed change, sunrise at the end of November will be approximately 8:30 a.m. in many parts of the country - and even as late as 8:45 a.m." Waldman also said that the proposed extension might mean that children would walk to school in the dark, which caused a previous extension to be repealed after just a year.
Two synagogues were vandalized Tuesday in the Ukrainian city Dnepropetrovsk. (JTA) Anti-Semitic graffiti was painted on the walls of the Small and Central Synagogues and on a building next to one of the shuls. Vandals also painted the word "Zhidovskaya," based on an ethnic slur against Jews, over one of the signboards on Sholom Aleichem Street. Local police and security services are investigating the case. No arrests have been made.
A former Israeli basketball star urged athletes at the Maccabiah Games to make aliyah, as he did years earlier. (JTA) At halftime of the women's basketball final between Israel and the United States - which the U.S. team won in a rout - the former Maccabi Tel Aviv star, Tal Brody, presented a letter at the request of the Jewish Agency for Israel's chairman, Zeev Bielski, titled "We did it. How about you? Hope to meet you soon in Israel." Brody, who made aliyah after the 1965 Maccabiah Games, became a star in Israel's professional basketball league. Also pitching aliyah was David Blatt, who played on the U.S. basketball team at the 1981 Games and stayed to play in Israel for 11 years. Blatt today is coach of the Italian team Benetton Treviso.
Bulgaria's top civil appeals court rejected the Jewish community's claim to land on which a downtown Sofia hotel now stands. (JTA) The news agency Novinite reported the Supreme Cassation Court had ruled against Shalom, a Bulgarian Jewish communal organization, which had sought compensation or joint ownership of the Rila Hotel. The hotel, worth an estimated $34 million, was built on land where a Jewish school stood before World War II. A Bulgarian court ruled in 1992 that Shalom was the legal owner of nearly 50 percent of the property, and it ordered that portion of the hotel's property to be returned. Shalom never received the compensation, however, and in 2000 the hotel was privatized. The Supreme Casssation Court began considering the case in May. Leaders of Shalom said they would appeal.
Five Iraqi children with defective hearts received treatment in Israel. (JTA) The patients and their families came to the Jewish state in recent weeks with the sponsorship of the Save A Child's Heart foundation, and were treated at the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon. Two children remain hospitalized and the rest have returned to Iraq. Save A Child's Heart provides urgently needed pediatric heart surgery and follow-up care for children from Third World and developing countries.
Courtesy HadassahBy Matthew E. Berger
WASHINGTON, July 19 (JTA) — Plans for Hadassah activists to meet in Washington this week had been made years in advance, but the timing could not have been more perfect.
More than 1,500 women from Hadassah, the leading advocate in the Jewish community for embryonic stem-cell research, took to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, just days before the U.S. Senate was expected to debate a bill to fund that very research.
The advocates, well versed on the issue and well disciplined to stick to the group's core policy concerns, pressed several senators, including those who have not yet determined how they will vote on the controversial bill.
The legislation, which would extend funding for research on human stem cells from embryos that otherwise would be discarded, passed the House of Representatives in May. President Bush has vowed to veto it.
"We were fortunate the stem-cell vote came up, but we can't say we arranged it that way," said June Walker, Hadassah's national president. "It was just serendipity."
Hadassah members spread out through the halls of Congress to lobby their individual representatives and senators on several issues.
For the contingent from Georgia, one of the most important meetings was with aides to Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), who is believed to be undecided on the stem-cell legislation.
Stem cells are extracted from embryos and can be manipulated to create various human-blood and tissue cells. Stem cell lines are cell groups extracted from embryos and are capable of reproducing themselves.
The Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act passed the House, 238-194, but the Act would need two-thirds support to override a presidential veto. While the bill was expected to pass the Senate this week, supporters hope it will garner the 67 votes needed to block the president's veto there.
Bush allowed research using existing stem-cell lines from 2001, but no further lines are available for use under current administration policy. The bill would change that.
The legislation is supported throughout the Jewish community: Both the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism and the Orthodox Union have lobbied for it.
In their meeting with the senator’s aides, the Hadassah women from Georgia noted that embryonic stem-cell research could help treat or cure illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. They compared the ethical concerns being raised about the procedure to opposition to the Polio vaccine when it was first unveiled.
"Many people here have relatives who have diseases that could be impacted by stem-cell research," Rachel Schonberger, 63, a physician from Atlanta, told Isakson's staffers. "It is not a political issue, it is a health issue."
The group also talked at length about the work being done on stem-cell research at Hadassah's two hospitals in Israel.
Isakson's legislative correspondent, Bradford Swann, told the 20 delegates that the senator was concerned the Senate would be passing legislation that the president would veto, and Isakson would like to see compromise legislation that would have broader support.
The women also talked about support for another piece of legislation, which would prevent discrimination based on genetic makeup, as well as two foreign-policy priorities regarding foreign aid and pressure on Iran.
But the bulk of the conversation focused on the stem-cell issue.
Afterward, Schonberger said it was very important to speak to the offices of undecided senators.
"If you're on the fence, that means you need more information," she said. "As an education organization, we can help a senator make an educated, fact-based decision."
Esther Panitch, 33, an Atlanta lawyer, said lobbying was important.
"You really feel like you are part of the democratic process," she said. "You feel like you're being heard as a citizen, which is your highest calling."
The Hadassah members from Minnesota met Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) in the vast atrium of one of the Senate office buildings. The delegates looked discouraged when the senator said he was undecided about the bill but expressed concern that embryos could be created for sale and research.
Meredith Anderson, a state government employee from Falcon Heights, Minn., said she was pretty sure how Coleman was going to vote from the comments he made.
"It was unproductive," Anderson said. "I disagree with him on so many issues."
Another delegate refused to join the group picture with him.
Walker said that while the timing of the group's advocacy trip to Washington was coincidental, she believed the lobbying - and other efforts throughout the year - has an impact.
"You can't have 1,500 women walking through here with red signs and red buttons, all saying the same thing, without having a profound effect," she said.
By Tracy Sullivan, Connecticut Jewish Ledger
GUILFORD, Conn., (JTA) - A couple of days before the Major League Baseball All-Star break, baseball player Adam Greenberg received the news he had been waiting for his entire life.
On July 7, Greenberg was called up to play for the Chicago Cubs.
"It's unbelievable. It was a dream come true," the 24-year-old outfielder told the Connecticut Jewish Ledger on Monday from his home in Guilford, Conn. "It's a culmination of everything you’ve worked for your whole life."
Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, his parents were also playing the waiting game.
"You have all the time in the world to speculate so you play a game of what if, what if, and what if," Wendy Greenberg said. "He was prepared for anything. He kept his focus and our focus on good news."
After watching the Cubs game on TV, Greenberg and Murton received a call from their manager, Bobby Dickerson, who told them over speaker phone that they weren't going to Carolina or to the Cubs' Triple-A team in Iowa.
"Pack your bags," Greenberg recalled Dickerson saying. "You're going to Florida to meet the big league team."
Greenberg called his parents, and they immediately made flight arrangements from LaGuardia Airport in New York to Florida on Friday to watch their son make his Major League debut. Although his older sister Keri couldn’t make it on such short notice, Greenberg's younger brothers Max and Sam and younger sister Loren joined his parents on the flight. Greenberg met up with his family at the airport in Florida.
Greenberg, a graduate of Guilford High School and the University of North Carolina, did have experience playing with the Chicago Cubs during spring training earlier this year.
"When I got there, it was almost like an extension of spring training with a few months in between," he said.
Greenberg's major league debut at-bat on Saturday made headlines when the first big league pitch he saw struck him in the back of the head during a game between the Cubs and the Florida Marlins in Miami.
It was the ninth inning, and Greenberg was told to get loose because he would be pinch hitting for the pitcher. During the at-bat, Florida's pitcher Valerio De Los Santos unintentionally hit him with a fastball.
"I went down fast. I was really scared. It was the first time I was ever scared on the baseball field," said Greenberg.
He was helped off the field by the team trainer, and led to the training room, where doctors from both the Cubs and Marlins checked him out. Meanwhile, his parents were watching from their seats in Dolphins Stadium.
"He has an incredibly high tolerance for pain, and he'll just rub anything off. When he got hit in the head, it was gut wrenching," said Wendy Greenberg, who had promised her children that she would never run out on the field. "I waited patiently until they contacted me and told me he was OK," adding that the staff were extremely understanding.
Wendy Greenberg, who is also a nurse, stayed with her son that night, waking him up every couple of hours to check on him. The next morning, he was taken to the hospital for a CAT scan. He had suffered a mild concussion.
"I never did lose consciousness. I have signs of a concussion," Greenberg said. "Bottom line is it's a nasty blow to the head, and I have some headaches."
Greenberg said, "I'm just kind of going slow with everything and resting up as much as I can."
The season resumes on Thursday, when the Chicago Cubs play the Pittsburgh Pirates at Wrigley Field in Chicago. His family - parents Wendy and Mark, siblings Keri and her husband Mike Ball, Max, Loren and Sam, as well as his 80-year-old maternal grandfather - will also be in the Windy City to watch him play.
Governor Bob Riley announced today that he will lead a delegation to Israel in September to promote trade ties between Alabama and Israel. The list of destinations include Tel Aviv, an industrial park in Birmingham's sister city of Rosh Ha'ayin and a business incubator site in Galilee.
The mission is organized by the Alabama Development Office, the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce, the Birmingham Jewish Federation and Tech Birmingham. There were three recruitment meetings held the end of May in Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile.
"This is a great opportunity to create new jobs for Alabamians," Governor Riley said. "We’ll promote Alabama and look for companies interested in opening new operations in our state and new trade opportunities for Alabama companies. Our message is that Alabama is open for business and can offer much to Israeli industries and high-tech companies."
Jim Tolbert, who is chairman of the mission for the Birmingham Jewish Federation, said, "Israel is particularly strong in these industry sectors and there are good opportunities to grow business partnerships, but our efforts won't focus exclusively in these areas. We'll also approach Israeli businesses that are on the leading edge in the life sciences, such as pharmaceuticals and medical device manufacturers."
Defense and security-related industries will also be a focus of the trip.
Israel is one of the world's leading centers for high tech. Rosh Ha'Ayin and the central section of Israel is a major location for start-up industries. The Israeli GDP grew by 4.2 percent in 2004, double that of Europe. While the Israeli economy hit a rough patch in after 2001 with the global high-tech slump and pressures of the Palestinian uprising, it has started surging forward again.
Alabama has historic ties with Israel. Birmingham has had a relationship with Rosh Ha'Ayin since 1981, and in September the Birmingham Sister Cities Commission plans to sign a formal agreement with Rosh Ha'Ayin and al-Karak, Jordan.
In 1943, Alabama became the first state in the nation to pass a resolution supporting the right of Jewish people to an independent homeland, and in recent years has passed several resolutions of support for Israel in the war against terrorism.
In 1997, Governor Fob James signed a cooperative trade agreement with Israel, and the following year Alabama's exports of manufactured goods to Israel rose 306 percent. Last year, Alabama exported $26.7 million worth of goods to Israel, an increase of almost 48 percent over the previous year.
In addition, Alabama companies benefit from U.S. military contracts with Israel. Companies in Alabama received $1.35 million in contracts in 2003, according to information from the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise.
"Governor Riley’s strong sales skills and extensive business background have proven effective in previous visits overseas," said Neal Wade, Director of the Alabama Development Office, referencing earlier trips made by the Governor to Germany and France that helped Alabama successfully recruit Kronospan and EADS. "We believe this mission will again deliver positive results for Alabama."
David Karp
New immigrants to Israel are greeted by Zeev Bielski, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, as they arrive at Ben Gurion Airport on July 13.
By Chanan Tigay
ASHKELON, Israel, July 14 (JTA) - It was 8:45 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, when Henry Fuerte, a systems analyst at a large U.S. insurance broker, stepped into an elevator on the 78th floor of the World Trade Center’s north tower.
The Brooklyn native was late for work and had caught the express to 78, where a local elevator would shuttle him and other stragglers to the 95th-floor offices of Marsh Inc.
He never got there.
Just as Fuerte entered the elevator, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the building, between the 93rd and 98th floors, tearing a gaping hole in the giant skyscraper - killing everyone onboard, along with 355 of Fuerte's colleagues at Marsh, among the thousands who died that day.
Seventeen floors beneath them, Fuerte recalls, the force of the impact blew up the elevator he was standing in. Shrapnel lacerated his eye and he injured his back and knees - but he survived. That, says Fuerte, a 33-year-old in a yarmulke, was thanks not to luck but to God.
Three years, 10 months and a day later - on July 12, 2005 - Fuerte joined some 500 other Jews from the United States and Canada who immigrated to Israel in the biggest single-day aliyah from North America in the history of the Jewish state.
Sept. 11 "was an impetus to me for aliyah, because I didn't want to die in New York," said Fuerte, sitting toward the front of an El Al 747 packed with about 300 new olim, or immigrants, on their way to the Jewish state. "Terrorism is all over the world. That being the case, I'd rather be in a place I can call home."
The notion of Israel as home was echoed frequently aboard the flight. Despite the material comforts of America and the potential dangers in the Middle East, many said that they never felt more at home than when in Israel. The flight was sponsored by Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that helps North American Jews make aliyah, and the Jewish Agency for Israel.
The Jewish Agency has been the primary facilitator of aliyah for many years. In 2002, Nefesh B'Nefesh was founded specifically to encourage immigration from North America.
Both organizations say they expect 3,200 immigrants to arrive in Israel from North America this year, the first time since 1983 that the figure has topped 3,000.
The groups' initial goal has been to identify people whom Nefesh B'Nefesh's Charlie Levine calls the "low-hanging fruit" - Jews who want make aliyah but for some reason thus far have found the move untenable.
By year's end the group will have brought more than 6,700 North American immigrants.
The aim is to smooth the process so that aliyah becomes a more realistic option. In this vein, Nefesh B'Nefesh provides immigrants with financial assistance, employment resources, social services and guidance through the governmental absorption process.
Several representatives of Israel's Interior Ministry aboard the aliyah flight went from seat to seat finalizing immigration papers. The process, which could have taken months in Israel, was done by the time the plane landed.
When Rabbi Joshua Fass, who co-founded Nefesh B'Nefesh along with Tony Gelbart, picked up the plane's loudspeaker, he told those onboard, "Welcome home."
Indeed, generations of Jews have looked upon Israel as a spiritual - and sometimes physical - homeland. Many of those on the flight had been planning to make aliyah for years. Their arrival in Israel was the culmination of years of saving, working and dreaming.
But what now? What do olim do once they finally arrive in Israel?
As Rabbi Mark Smilowitz, 35, who was immigrating with his wife, Michelle, 29, and their three young children, asked: "What am I going to do tomorrow morning?"
Answers varied among those in the latest wave of North American aliyah. Smilowitz, a former yeshiva teacher from Seattle, was heading to the home of relatives in Beit Shemesh.
There he and his family will wait six weeks for their personal belongings to arrive from the United States. Once their packages arrive, they'll move into a house they bought two years ago.
"When you're coming from America, you want to bring that comfort with you," Michelle Smilowitz said, holding her three-month-old baby in her arms. "Making aliyah is hard enough. You need to do everything you can to make it easier."
But as for tomorrow and the next day and next week?
"Getting a driver's license is a big priority," she said. "You have to get around."
In addition, she said, they'll enroll their 5-year-old son in a Hebrew-language program for youngsters. But as far as the first year in the country is concerned, the Smilowitzes said they'll take the time to slowly get acclimated.
Dan Brotman, an 18-year-old from Boston, had another plan: to join the Israel Defense Forces and possibly a combat unit, as part of the Tzofim Garin Tzabar program, in which young people from North America move to kibbutzim and serve in the military.
"It's a bit nerve-racking," he said, sitting with two young female friends who were also preparing to enlist. "I won't be able to go back to the U.S. for a visit for a year and a half because of the army. But I think we’re going to be fine. We’re going to integrate."
After the flight landed, a Canadian, Ryan Paddock, 19, was the first of the new immigrants to be presented with an aliyah certificate in a large ceremony in a hangar just off the Ben-Gurion Airport tarmac.
"Seeing all of you here today is like a dream for me," said the former Winnipeg resident, who also plans to join the army soon.
At the ceremony, the olim, along with family and friends, heard from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon - with whom Fuerte shook hands - Foreign Minster Silvan Shalom, Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres and the new Jewish Agency chairman, Zeev Bielski.
Each immigrant was then given an aliyah certificate, an envelope of cash, and a taxi voucher to get to his or her new home.
For Aharon Horowitz, that new home would be in the Bakka neighborhood of Jerusalem. In late March, Horowitz stood before the Columbia University gates and addressed media and students on the morning that a faculty committee investigating charges that university professors bullied pro-Israel students issued its findings.
The report was a whitewash, Horowitz and his friends insisted, and many students had not been given a legitimate hearing. The next day, a large photo of Horowitz appeared on JTA's Web site and in The New York Times.
Horowitz - who studied political science and Arabic - moved to Israel with his wife. The couple rented their Jerusalem apartment based on a series of blurry, wide-angle photos taken by a friend and were planning to head straight there from the airport.
As for what he planned to do the day after arriving, Horowitz didn't have much choice: He had arranged a job at the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based think tank, working on a new project to launch student journals on Jewish thought on five American college campuses, and the center wanted him to start right away.
As for Fuerte, he caught a shared taxi to Jerusalem and unloaded four or five heavy suitcases at Ulpan Etzion, where he planned to spend the next five months living and studying Hebrew, along with immigrants from 27 countries.
Once his time at the Ulpan Absorption Center is up, Fuerte hopes to find a job in the high-tech industry. In the meantime, there are more pressing needs: A shower, a quick nap, and then he's off to an Israeli television studio to tell his story yet again - from Sept. 11 through his aliyah - on a current-affairs program.
Fuerte has been in the country about three and a half hours, and already he has met the prime minister and scored a prime-time slot on TV. It's not a bad start to his new life as an Israeli.
Two flights landed today in Israel with the largest-ever arrival of olim - over 500 Jews from the U.S. and Canada. Story from Arutz Sheva here.
A second Jewish victim of the London terror bombings was named. (JTA) Miriam Hyman, 31, is believed to have died in the bus bombing in Tavistock Square. Minutes before the explosion, the freelance photo editor had phoned her father, John, from Kings Cross Station to assure him that she was all right. Susan Levy, 53, a mother of two, was the first fatality named by police Monday. She had been traveling to work from her home in Hertfordshire when a bomb exploded on the packed subway train near Kings Cross Station. Hopes are now fading for Israeli Anat Rosenberg, 39, who was thought to be traveling on the same bus as Hyman. At least 52 people are known to have died in the synchronized attacks, which police believe were carried out by four British-born Muslim suicide bombers.
An Israeli official said the country would increase intelligence cooperation with Britain in the wake of the July 7 terrorist attacks in London. (JTA) On Wednesday, Reuters quoted an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as saying the ties would be heightened. The aide added that similar action has been taken with other countries hit by Islamic terrorism.
Syria said it wanted to partner with Lebanon for any peace talks with Israel. (JTA) "The Syrian and Lebanese tracks have not separated and the reason is very clear," Syria's deputy foreign minister, Waleed Al-Mualem, told Syria's Al Thawra and Kuwait's al-Anbaa newspapers in a joint interview Wednesday. "When we negotiate with the Israeli enemy together we can achieve better results." Syria ended its occupation of Lebanon under international pressure earlier this year, stirring speculation that Beirut might break with its longstanding policy and seek a separate peace deal with Israel. But Mualem said that Lebanon would risk being ostracized in the Arab world if it did so. Israel has conditioned peace talks on a crackdown by Syria and Lebanon on terrorists based in their territory.
The Times-Union from Albany, NY has a feature today about kosher microbrew He'brew, the 'Chosen Beer'. Story here.
The Gaza Strip has been ordered closed to Israeli non-residents almost a month earlier than expected, reports the Jerusalem Post.
The ADL released findings from a poll regarding American attitudes about Israel and the Middle East, with one query result showing that 71% of participants believe Israel's disengagement from Gaza is a "bold step for peace". Survey results here.
A fourth person died from wounds suffered in Tuesday's Palestinian suicide attack in Netanya. (JTA) Three of the victims - a 31-year-old woman and two teenaged girls - died outright in the attack outside a shopping mall in the coastal city. A fourth woman, aged 50, succumbed Wednesday to wounds sustained in the bombing. At least 30 people were hurt. The White House condemned the bombing and demanded that the Palestinian Authority fulfill its pledges to dismantle terrorist organizations. P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the bombing, which was carried out by Islamic Jihad, as "idiotic" and said those behind it would be punished.
A reporter for Canada's Globe and Mail writes about what Canada could learn from Israel in regards to developing more technology-based industry. Story here.
By Dan Baron
JERUSALEM, July 12 (JTA) - Hoping to derail the recent Israeli-Palestinian rapprochement, Islamist terrorists have struck again at the Jewish state.
An Islamic Jihad suicide bomber struck Tuesday outside a mall in the coastal city of Netanya, killing three people, wounding more than 24 and plunging Israelis back into scenes of carnage they hoped they had left behind as the intifada seemed to peter out in recent years.
With competition at the 17th Maccabiah Games taking place at the Wingate Institute just north of the city, frantic Foreign Ministry officials scoured the crowd for any sign that Jewish athletes from abroad had been hurt.
It could have been worse: An hour earlier, another terrorist tried to detonate a car bomb in the West Bank settlement of Shavei Shomron, but the explosives misfired and only the driver was hurt. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Israel and the Palestinian Authority, scrambling to sustain their tenuous five-month-old cease-fire ahead of Israel's planned withdrawal next month from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank, were equally strenuous in their condemnations of the attacks.
"These were two terrorist attacks - in my estimation coordinated by the rejectionist front, the groups that are opposed to any accord, to any quiet," Deputy Defense Minister Ya'acov Edri told Israel's Channel Two television.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas spoke out harshly against Islamic Jihad, which has regularly defied the internal "calm" that Abbas coaxed from Palestinian terrorist groups after he declared a truce with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February.
"We condemn this act of terror," Abbas told reporters in Ramallah. "No rational Palestinian would do this ahead of Israel's withdrawal... Those behind this act were behaving like idiots."
Abbas vowed a crackdown on those responsible. But he also called for a new meeting with Palestinian terrorist chiefs aimed at bolstering the cease-fire.
Israel long has denounced Abbas' preference for talk over the crackdown that Palestinians pledged under the "road map" peace plan, viewing Abbas' unwillingness to move against the groups as a recipe for future violence.
The White House condemned the attack and called on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle terrorist organizations.
Israelis reacted to the bombing with a mixture of surprise and resignation. Even after a relatively long lull, attacks hardly send ripples of fear and shock as they once did.
"The situation here went downhill a long time ago," said Michael Naiman, 25, a security guard at a Tel Aviv supermarket who immigrated to Israel from Belarus. "There is no longer fear here because people have become apathetic out of sheer exhaustion."
"People are not scared," said Chava Lehman, a social worker from Netanya who often shops at the mall where the bombing took place. "By tomorrow it will feel like a normal city again. I think people try to surround themselves with a protective shield. There have been many attacks in Netanya, and people continue to move ahead with their lives."
The 17th Maccabiah Games went ahead as scheduled.
The attack gave "a disturbing glimpse into how Israelis must live their lives and proves the importance of displays of solidarity like the Maccabiah Games," said Ron Carner, the vice president of Maccabi USA and the Maccabi World Union. "Our hearts and sympathies are with the victims and their families, but in the Jewish spirit of determination, we must go on with our events and our program."
Yehuda Carmel, an engineer from Netanya, said he wasn't surprised by the attack.
"Anyone realistic knew it was bound to happen again," he said. "But I think people are upset; they had begun to return to normal life here. The cafes were full again, and fears were beginning to vanish."
Roni, a waiter at an espresso bar in Tel Aviv, was bracing for the worst, citing the upcoming Gaza withdrawal - which he opposes - as a sign of bad times ahead.
"I'm scared that chaos will return and we will go backward again," he said.
But there was no sign that Tuesday's attacks had thrown the pullout off track.
"We will carry out the disengagement. Its schedule will not be changed one iota," Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said.
But Olmert hinted that Abbas' actions would determine whether Israeli-Palestinian contacts, which were revived after the death of Abbas' predecessor, Yasser Arafat, could lead to a permanent peace accord.
"If the Palestinian Authority does not fight terror, we will fight terror," Olmert said. "It will be a shame if we find we have no real peace partner for the long-term."
A delegation of the Anti-Defamation League met in Ramallah with Abbas just prior to the Netanya attack.
"He raised the issue of security, says he needs to go further. He said it has only been six months and asked for patience," said Abraham Foxman, ADL's national director. "He said he's not satisfied with what he has accomplished in six months."
But the goodwill generated by the meeting dissipated when the group learned of the Netanya blast, Foxman said. He was especially disappointed by Abbas' insistence on trying to engage terrorists in dialogue.
"When we walk out, it almost becomes meaningless, because his words with Hamas and Islamic Jihad obviously don't do anything," Foxman said.
JTA correspondent Dina Kraft in Tel Aviv and Washington Bureau Chief Ron Kampeas contributed to this story.
There have been no reports of any significant damage to Jewish institutions in our coverage area from Hurricane Dennis.
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At least three people were killed and 90 others wounded in a suicide attack today in Netanya. Story from the Jerusalem Post here.
The Jerusalem Post reports that a would-be suicide bombing in the West Bank settlement of Shavei Shomron was averted today when the attack went off prematurely, injuring only the driver, who was treated by Magen David Adom medics.
By Daniella Peled
LONDON, July 11 (JTA) - Rabbi Barry Marcus spent many years living in Israel, but he never came as close to a terrorist atrocity as he did in London.
Marcus, the rabbi of the Central Synagogue on Great Portland Street, was cycling across Tavistock Square on the morning of July 7 when he heard and felt "an incredible blast." Just yards away, a bomb on the No. 30 bus had exploded.
"I saw the roof of the bus go up in a plume of white smoke and all the windows of the building nearby go through,” said the South African-born Marcus, who holds the Israel portfolio in Orthodox Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks' Cabinet. "I knew in my gut it was a bomb."
The tranquil central London square - a place devoted to peace, with a Holocaust memorial standing near a statue of Mahatma Gandhi and a cherry tree from Hiroshima - had turned into a vision of hell strewn with broken glass and severed body parts.
Blood was splashed high up against the wall of the nearby headquarters of the British Medical Association.
"There was an incredible amount of glass and massive lumps of human flesh all over the place," Marcus recalled. "People were almost glued to the back part of the bus, the seats in front blown into their chest cavities. There was absolute mayhem. In my mind I saw all the images of Israeli buses blown up and thought, 'It is now here. The barbarians are now at our gates.' "
With most of the United Kingdom's 290,000 Jews living in London, it was with a sense of inevitability that the community awaited details of possible Jewish casualties, as missing commuters were listed and fatality totals were announced.
At least 49 people are known to have died. With more than 20 still missing and more than 60 still being treated at hospitals, the number of deaths is expected to rise.
The first Jewish death officially confirmed was Susan Levy, 53, a mother of two from Hertfordshire, who was killed on her way to work in the subway-train explosion near King's Cross.
"We are all distraught at her needless loss, and our thoughts and prayers are also with the many other families affected by this horrendous tragedy," said her husband, Harry, a taxi driver, who described Levy as a "much-loved wife and mother."
Other Jewish families face an agonizing wait. Miriam Hyman, 32, a freelance picture editor, called her father, John, from King's Cross Station at 9:45 a.m. Thursday to say she was all right.
That was the last anyone has heard from her.
After a fruitless search of London's hospitals, "we are just waiting," Hyman's mother, Mavis, told JTA.
Hyman, from Hampstead Garden Suburb in north London, was traveling to work at Canary Wharf. It was typical of her character, her mother said, that the attacks didn't deter her.
"She phoned work to say she was going to be late," Hyman’s mother said. "She was still obviously determined to get in. I think she didn't understand the seriousness of what was going on."
The family of Anat Rosenberg, a 39-year-old Israeli, arrived in the U.K. on Monday morning as hope faded of finding her alive.
The children's charity worker had been a passenger on the doomed No. 30 bus. Rosenberg's British partner, John Falding, said he had been on the phone with her, talking about the travel chaos, when he heard "horrendous screams."
Ironically, Rosenberg had moved to England nearly two decades ago, partly due to her fear of terrorist attacks in Israel.
As the full horror of the London bombings began to sink in and with the perpetrators still at large, the U.K. Jewish community remains all too aware that the danger is far from over. The experience of the recent terror attacks in Madrid - where a second wave of planned attacks was to include a Jewish social club - and Istanbul and Casablanca, where Jewish sites were targeted in the first wave of strikes, makes that clear.
But synagogues were filled to capacity across London on Shabbat, just one day after the bombings, as Jews of all levels of observance flocked to shul to gain comfort.
"People do certainly come out in the face of tragedy to search for meaning," said Rabbi Yitzak Schochet of the Mill Hill United Synagogue, who pointed out that the experience of terror is nothing new for many Jews.
"A lot of us have visited Israel countless times and lived in this sort of traumatic situation, even if only for a couple of weeks," he said. "It's not that we have been desensitized, but we can be defiant in the face of it."
That defiance was embodied by Rabbi Michael Harris of the Hampstead Synagogue, in north London, who had his own engagement party planned for the evening of July 7. After discussing it with his fiancee, the couple decided to go ahead.
"It was very poignant and moving," he said, "to be affirming Jewish life as a response to terror and to not let the terrorists stop us."
The following night, his synagogue was packed with people wanting to pray together. Like the "stiff upper lip"approach so characteristic of British society, Harris said, "my sense is that the community is determined to carry on."
Hurricane Dennis is poised to make landfall between Pensacola and Mobile approximately 3 p.m. local time. The track is expected to take the center of the storm over Mobile, then along the Alabama-Mississippi border toward Hattiesburg and Meridian, where it will still have hurricane strength. It will then track northward to Tennessee. Areas to the north and east of the eye will receiive the brunt of the storm, including western Alabama to Selma, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham.
Some congregations along the coast had regular Shabbat services this weekend, such as Beth Israel in Biloxi. Temple Beth Shalom in Fort Walton Beach had a Bar Mitzvah scheduled for the weekend, and guests were reportedly seeking alternate means of leaving town as flights were cancelled.
The area is still recovering from Hurricane Ivan, which struck at Rosh Hashanah last year. Pensacola's two congregations sustained minimal damage, though an erroneous report went out that Temple Beth El had been destroyed. The report came because of a pile of rubble from a collapsed warehouse that fell into a parking lot which had been the site of the first Beth El. A historic marker is placed there, and a visiting reporter assumed the rubble had been the Beth El building.
One member of the Pensacola Jewish community died during Ivan, and numerous others had significant property damage.
Mobile's Springhill Avenue Temple recently began post-Ivan repair work on its roof. Across town, Ahavas Chesed had a large tree on its property toppled by Ivan, missing the building.
We will provide updates as we hear from contacts in those communities, and welcome input from readers in the affected areas.
Israeli officials reject British PM Tony Blair's comments regarding causes of last week's terrorist attacks in London, according to the Jerusalem Post. More from Arutz Sheva here.
Two Jews are feared to be among the victims of the London bombings. (JTA) Israeli expatriate Anat Rosenberg, 39, was aboard a bus that was blown up by suspected Islamist terrorists in the British capital Thursday. Her boyfriend, John Falding, told Israeli media that Rosenberg was speaking to him by cellphone when the blast occurred. "I heard shouting, and then the call was cut off," he said. Also among some two-dozen people unaccounted for after the attacks is Miriam Hyman, 33, a London resident. Hyman's father John told Yediot Aharonot that she called him as her train in the Underground was evacuated after the initial blasts occurred, but has not been in contact since. The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said that around 50 Israelis vacationing in London have not been in touch with their families since Thursday, but that there is no immediate concern that they were among casualties of the worst peacetime attack on Britain.
The BBC reports that "Alles auf Zucker" (Go for Zucker), a comedy about a German Jewish family, won three awards - including best picture - at the German Film Awards on Friday.
According to Ha'aretz, the Conservative movement's Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem will be allowed to award master's degrees now that the institute has been given recognition from Israel's Council for Higher Education.
A Jewish cemetery in Slovakia has been damaged by vandals, according to the AP.
Israel's president called for the country to seek a peace accord with the Palestinians after it withdraws from the Gaza Strip. (JTA) "If and when the plan is implemented, a diplomatic framework must be put together," Moshe Katsav told Maariv on Sunday. "It is my belief that it would be right to begin talking about a final accord between us and the Palestinians. Over the last 12 years, we have made three historic concessions - Oslo, the road map, and the disengagement plan - and got nothing in exchange. What have they given us in return? This method of bit-by-bit, the salami method, is nice and convenient for them. It should be stopped, and final status talks started." Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has presented the withdrawals from Gaza and the northern West Bank, slated to begin in August, as an opportunity to jump-start peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority. But he has ruled out any progress until it cracks down on terrorism as required by the U.S.-led "road map".
Israeli backpackers, sponsored by the Jerusalem AIDS project, will be traveling through Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa this summer to educate people about HIV/AIDS, reports the Jerusalem Post.
A Canadian court found a former aboriginal leader guilty Friday of willfully promoting hatred against an identifiable group for strongly antisemitic comments. (JTA) Sentencing for David Ahenakew was expected later on Friday. Speaking at a 2002 native conference and afterward to a reporter, Ahenakew unleashed a diatribe against the Jewish people, calling them a "disease" and asserting that Hitler was justified when he "fried six million of those guys." The unrepentant 71-year-old reportedly wore his controversial Order of Canada pin on his lapel in court and shook his head a few times as the guilty verdict was read aloud in the packed courtroom. Earlier this week, the Order of Canada’s advisory council began proceedings to strip Ahenakew of the honor. The Canadian Jewish Congress welcomed the verdict. "Ahenakew's actions may have temporarily captured the attention of Canadians, but they do not define the relationship between the Jewish and aboriginal communities," said Ed Morgan, the Congress' national president. "Our communities have a long history of interconnection and compassion for each other's issues, and that will not change because of an individual." More from the Globe and Mail here.
An Israeli Ministry of Education book designed for use in a first aid course for Arab and Druze youth was printed "dedicated to the families of the holy martyrs of Al-Aksa, the pure souls of our loved ones" according to Arutz Sheva. The ministry blames the error on an external printing company.
The 17th Maccabiah Games in Israel are underway, and records have already been broken. Coverage here from Yedioth Ahronoth.
Arutz Sheva reports that a kosher store in Moscow was attacked by neo-Nazis.
Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics shows a 70% increase over last year in the sales of privately-owned apartments in Jerusalem, according to Globes.
A collision between a train and a truck in southern Israel injured 34 people. (JTA) The collision occurred Friday near the town of Kiryat Gat. Medical officials said the truck, hauling cars, was attempting to cross the tracks. A similar collision last month, also in southern Israel, killed seven people and injured 200.
Seven university and college presidents will visit Israel next week. (JTA) The group will meet with Israeli and Palestinian officials, as well as with academic counterparts in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, during an eight-day "Israel Institute" trip organized by the United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. "At this critical time for the future of Israel and efforts to advance prospects for peace, we are especially excited to bring key higher-education leaders to meet with Israeli decision makers, university presidents and ordinary citizens," said JCPA Chairwoman Marie Abrams, who will lead the trip. The groups are planning to bring Protestant and Hispanic leaders to Israel on similar trips later this year.
Universal Pictures sent out this press release (can be read in full here):
Three-time Academy Award®-winning director-producer Steven Spielberg has commenced production on an as-yet untitled historical thriller set in the aftermath of the 1972 massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Universal Pictures will release the film in the United States and Canada on December 23, 2005; DreamWorks Pictures will handle international marketing and distribution.
PM Sharon offers condolences to victims of yesterday's attacks in London, asks that his cabinet not make statements equating terrorist actions there with those that have occurred in Israel, reports Ha'aretz.
Editor's note: especially interesting is the last paragraph of the Ha'aretz piece:
Hamas also condemned the bombings. "Targeting civilians' lives and their means of transportation is denounced and rejected," Moussa Abu Marzouk, deputy chief of the group's political bureau said yesterday in Damascus.Hamas and other Arab terrorist organizations repeatedly have claimed that there is no such thing as an civilian Israeli (one link can be found here), because all Israelis serve in the country's military at some point.
Reuters reports on the reactions of 20 young Israeli terror victims that happened to be in the UK for vacation (sponsored by the charity OneFamily) when yesterday's attacks in London occurred. The OneFamily Fund provides monetary, legal, and therapeutic assistance to victims of terror in Israel.
President Bush allowed the PLO office in Washington to stay open for another six months. (JTA) The Palestine Liberation Organization office functions as the diplomatic mission for the Palestinians. Congress has passed a law ordering its closure, but on Monday Bush waived the provision - though he noted that the PLO has not met the law's requirement to end terrorism. Previous presidents also have allowed the office to stay open.
Three terrorists shot at IDF soldiers that were to protect some 450 Jews visiting Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem (Nablus), reports Arutz Sheva.
A U.N. official compared Israelis in the Gaza Strip to concentration camp guards. (JTA) Speaking before a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Geneva on Tuesday, Jean Ziegler also called on protesters to press European nations to boycott Israeli goods, U.N. Watch said, citing Swiss news reports. U.N. Watch called on the United Nations to condemn the remarks by Ziegler, a U.N. expert on food issues who often has taken pro-Palestinian stances.
Arutz Sheva reports on the instance of soldiers who refuse to carry out operations in the disengagement; Corp. Avi Bieber, originally from New Jersey, has had his jail sentence reduced in half from the original length of 56 days.
A Canadian Native leader may lose the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor. (JTA) On Friday, the Order of Canada's Advisory Council is slated to review the award given to David Ahenakew, who in December 2002 referred to Jews as a "disease" and stated that Hitler was justified when "he fried 6 million of those guys." The Canadian Jewish Congress' national president, Ed Morgan, deemed the move an "an appropriate step." The council has sent a letter to Ahenakew, who has shown no remorse for his actions, giving him time to make a submission to them before they make their final recommendation.
Nefesh B'Nefesh, an organization that helps North Americans make aliyah, has awarded their logo design award for students in the sixth - eighth grade to Chaviva Sands, who just completed 6th grade at New Orleans Jewish Day School. Her design will be painted on an El Al plane that will fly to Israel on August 16 of this year with 400 olim (immigrants).
An art auction featuring several watercolors and sketches by Hitler has raised the ire of Montreal's Jewish community. (JTA) The July 19 auction will feature four sketches and two greeting cards that Iegor de Saint Hippolyte, spokesman for the hotel where the event will be held, said were sketches Hitler had done with Albert Speer, the Nazis' minister of architecture. "I think it's terribly unfortunate that items by the greatest mass murderer the world has ever known are offered for sale, that somebody is going to profit and that somebody is actually going to enjoy owning these things," said Max Bernard, vice president of the Canadian Jewish Congress. The sketches are done in charcoal, pencil and watercolor, while the cards feature messages and are signed by Hitler. The owner of the material wishes to stay anonymous, Saint Hippolyte said. "It's offensive on any level that this material is being displayed at all and would be purchased by anyone," said Ann Ungar, the Montreal Holocaust Center's executive director. "What makes this even more reprehensible is the fact that, given the high number of Holocaust survivors in our city, this will take place in their own backyard. It's obscene."
A New York museum is coming under fire for a panel asserting that President Roosevelt couldn't have saved more Jews during the Holocaust. (JTA) Twenty-three historians have signed a petition to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Museum urging its curator, Herman Eberhardt, to correct a panel that states, "even Roosevelt's bitterest critics concede that nothing he could have done - including bombing the rails leading to Auschwitz in 1944 - would have saved significant numbers from annihilation, let alone dissuaded the Nazis from doing what they were so intent on doing." Critics say Roosevelt was pressed to take action to save European Jews from genocide, but did not act forcefully. The petition was organized by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Eberhardt replied to the institute that the museum will consider the matter and reply as soon as possible.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is channeling $40,000 to Ethiopian Jews to help them buy food. (JTA) In an e-mail Tuesday to North American Jewish federations, JDC's executive vice president, Steve Schwager, said the one-time allotment follows word that "food insecurity" has become a pressing concern for the 4,000 Falash Mura - Ethiopians whose Jewish ancestors converted to Christianity but who have since returned to Judaism - currently living in the Ethiopian capital. "I thought it was important to tell these people that the Jews of the world care for them and that this money will hold them until Israel can move in and the Jewish Agency can take over their compound," Schwager told JTA. The food issue has emerged since the North American Conference on Ethiopian Jewry shut down its Addis Ababa operations in January, the letter said. The Jewish Agency for Israel is expected to take over the compound in the near future as Israel ups Falash Mura aliyah. Some of the Falash Mura have lost their NACOEJ-sponsored salaries for their embroidery work and have been forced to find sporadic work as day laborers or are receiving money from relatives in Israel. Last week, the Ethiopian government approached the JDC to request that the group provide temporary assistance to those in need.
Krakow honored Steven Spielberg for his efforts to preserve the Polish city's former Jewish ghetto. (JTA) On Tuesday, Spielberg was named a Patron of Culture for his efforts, which include a $40,000 grant to preserve a pharmacy whose owner risked his life to help Jews during World War II. "We are trying now to revitalize old Jewish districts in Krakow where people lived before the war," Filip Szatanik told The Associated Press. "This support from Mr. Spielberg will help us to do this better." Spielberg filmed some of "Schindler's List" in the former ghetto.
According to Ha'aretz, the Israel Psychotrauma Center of Herzog Hospital in Jerusalem has volunteered its services to victims of today's attacks in London.
Although it was incorrectly reported earlier today that Israel had been given some warning of impending terrorist attacks in London, officials say that no such warning was received, reports the AP.
After the initial blasts had occurred, Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in London for a conference, was instructed to stay at his hotel for safety reasons, according to the AP.
Earlier today the Israeli embassy in London had been put in state of emergency, according to the AP.
The Community Security Trust in London has instructed extra vigilance for London's Jewish community in the wake of today's attacks. More here from the Jerusalem Post.
A story in the Jerusalem Post, updated at 9:11am central time, states that thus far there are no known Jewish casualties.
For continued news on today's events:
www.bbc.co.uk
www.cnn.com
www.foxnews.com
The Montgomery-based Atheist Law Center, which has been very active in battling former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore in recent years, held an event featuring a leading Holocaust denier on July 6.
David Irving, who was described by the center as "an expert on World War Two, the Nazi era and erosion of rights of a free press and free speech" spoke at the event, which was held in a private room in the restaurant at the Holiday Inn in Prattville, just north of Montgomery. About a dozen people were in attendance.
Before the talk began, DSJV editor Larry Brook was asked to leave by Larry Darby, the center's president, as Irving requested that no media be present. After re-entering the room without camera or notebook and seeking admittance as a private citizen, the request was once again made. Irving then followed Brook into the lobby, and said "do not come back into that room again. I have the right to refuse admission to anyone, and I do not want to see anyone from your organization."
British-born Irving has written several books minimizing the Holocaust and castigating the Allies for their World War II actions. He has been active with the Institute for Historical Review, which is the leading organization in Holocaust denial in the United States.
In 1996, he sued Deborah Lipstadt for characterizing him in her book, "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory" as a Holocaust denier who tended to "misstate, misquote, falsify statistics and falsely attribute conclusions to reliable sources."
He sued in British court in 1996 after the British version came out, three years after the book was first released in the United States. British libel law calls for the defendant to prove a statement's veracity, unlike American libel law.
In 2000, the British court found against Irving, with the judge – who Irving previously addressed as "Mein Fuhrer" - stating it was "incontrovertible" that Irving was a Holocaust denier, and an anti-Semite as well.
Irving's topic for the July 6 address - as well as others in Florida later this week - was "The Lipstadt Trial Five Years On: Its Methods and Achievements." The release from the center says Lipstadt "fought back with money poured in by the usual enemies of Free Speech."
Darby urged people "to come hear of Irving's experiences in challenging popular history of the NAZI (sic) era and the Western world's taboos regarding what has grown into the holocaust industry."
He also accused the U.S. media of being "self-censoring, by and large unwilling to report criticism of Judaism (the root of all theism), organized Jewry, Israel or U.S. foreign policy regarding the Jewish state."
Darby continued, "When individuals do find the courage to challenge politically correct notions involving Judaism, they are often met with knee-jerk responses of name-calling, such as "anti-Jew" or "anti-Semitic" or, in the case of Irving, "holocaust denier." Such vicious personal attacks have an effect of quashing free expression of opinion and free inquiry into a religion or faith-based practices, even when such practices have a bearing on U.S. national security."
Ford Vox of Birmingham, director of the Universist Movement, stated that his organization "will hereby cease current and future association with Larry Darby and the Atheist Law Center. Unlike the U.S. Constitution, we don't treat all ideas equally."
Vox said "Darby's incessant haranguing of Israel and Jews in his newsletters, now combined with support for Irving of all people, will further marginalize his organization, and rightly so. Let's hope the stink doesn't rub off on the rest of us."
In response, Darby said in his daily newsletter that "rather than throw stones at David Irving, a man who has written 30 or so books on various subjects, I want to hear him for myself. A man that so many otherwise rational people hate so much makes me curious."
The focus of the evening, Darby asserted, was to discuss the dangers of hate crimes laws to a free society where freedom of expression is valued.
As Alabama director of American Atheists, Darby maintained a very public presence in demonstrations against Moore during the Ten Commandments monument battle. He also attempted to get an additional monument, honoring science and reason, placed by the Ten Commandments monument. Moore turned down the request.
In addition to battling Moore, Darby has written numerous letters to the editor in papers across Alabama on topics relating to Israel. A September 2004 letter to the Crimson White was entitled "Israeli interests dictate U.S. policy" in which he praised Ralph Nader for having "the guts to speak out against the undue influence the pro-Israel lobby has over both Congress and the White House."
He added that "The revelation that Mossad has spies at the Pentagon passing secrets to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee should be no more surprising than knowledge that the Jewish Mafia influences Democratic Party politics in New Jersey." That letter appeared in several other papers.
Last month, he wrote the Anniston Star urging an inquiry into the attack on the U.S.S. Liberty during the Six Day War in 1967. Numerous panels have shown the Israeli attack was a case of mistaken identity against a U.S. surveillance ship that had wandered into the war zone, but anti-Israel groups and white supremacist groups use the attack as a way of questioning the U.S.-Israeli alliance.
The Atheist Law Center is described as a "non-member, not-for-profit corporation advocating globally the enlightened concept of absolute separation between religion and governments.... The Center is the only legal advocacy firm in the United States dedicated to attaining complete government neutrality in matters of religion, which includes ending government acts of "ceremonial deism" and other accommodations of religion encroachments against all citizens."
A decade ago, Irving spoke at the University of Alabama at Huntsville after Robert Countess, a local Holocaust denier, rented a room. That event was open to the media.