From Ian:
From a walled compound in Sana'a, one of Yemen's last Jews confides his fears
In June 2012, Yahya Zandani’s father, Aharon, was stabbed to death at the main market in Sana’a. His body was brought to Israel for burial. Nevertheless, Yahya returned to Yemen, where his wife’s father and three brothers still live.
Today, the family are among Yemen’s last 60 Jews — 40 of whom are huddled in a gated government compound in the heart of what is now the rebel-controlled capital, Sana’a.
Speaking by phone to The Times of Israel on Tuesday, Zandani, 31, said that despite their avowedly anti-Semitic credo, the Houthi rebels who captured Sana’a last September and have moved south to the port city of Aden, are not threatening the Jews, at least not yet. But he confided deep fears of what may lie in store.
Zandani was speaking from a compound known as the touristic city — where deposed president Ali Abdullah Saleh relocated the community in 2008 after it was driven out of the northern province of Saada by the Houthis. Arab diplomats from Iraq and Egypt have also moved into the compound in recent days, after their embassies were bombed out.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: America’s Academies for Jihad
A radical imam threatened me with death—and was later hired to preach in U.S. prisons. I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been.
Less than a year after I moved to the United States in 2006, I was asked to speak at the University of Pittsburgh. Among those who objected to my appearance was a local imam, Fouad El Bayly, of the Johnstown Islamic Center. Mr. Bayly was born in Egypt but has lived in the U.S. since 1976. In his own words, I had “been identified as one who has defamed the faith.” As he explained at the time: “If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death.”
After a local newspaper reported Mr. Bayly’s comments, he was forced to resign from the Islamic Center. That was the last I would hear of him—or so I thought.
Imagine my surprise when I learned recently that the man who threatened me with death for apostasy is being paid by the U.S. Justice Department to teach Islam in American jails.
‘Islam Is a Very Dark Theory’: How the Son of a Founding Member of Hamas Rejected Extremism and Converted to Christianity
Mosab Hassan Yousef, the bestselling author of “Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices,” appeared on The Glenn Beck Program Monday to discuss how he rejected radical Islam and converted to Christianity.
“I was brought up in a state of delusion, believing the Islamic theory that once we control the globe and build an Islamic State we can bring humanity, justice and happiness and solve the human condition,” Yousef said. “Islam is a very dark theory and we need to face this reality.”
The son of one of the founding members of Hamas, Yousef worked as a spy for the Israeli intelligence service after beginning to question the ideology he had been raised with. On Monday, he reiterated his belief that “Islam is the religion of war.”
“Islam is at war with everything that is not Muslim,” he said. “Islam has been in a war against the west and its foundations for the last 1,400 years. This is a fact. The Islamic phenomena that we see in ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Boko Haram, Al Qaeda, Taliban — this is not just a new phenomenon. It has been out there for the last 1,400 years. And I think this is the time for humanity to have the courage to say no to the Islamic theory.”
What Does Current Morass Say About Middle East Studies?
It’s worth considering why Obama is such an outlier. While, on paper, Obama might be expected to be the most international president—with Kenyan family and a boyhood in Indonesia—when it comes to the Middle East, he had little practical background. His introduction to the region appears to have occurred in American universities, if not directly in Middle East Studies courses, than through his friendship and close association with Middle East Studies luminaries like Rashid Khalidi and perhaps Edward Said as well.
Martin Kramer, currently president of Shalem College in Jerusalem, penned in 2001 one of the best researched, careful, and damning assessments of Middle Eastern Studies, in which he traced the inverse relationship between its polemics and relevance. Much of this can be traced back to Edward Said. Said, is of course, famous for penning Orientalism, perhaps the most influential book in Middle East Studies in the last half century. Few people who cite Orientalism, however, have ever read it. If they had, they would readily see the emperor had no clothes, for Said’s essay is so full of errors of both fact and logic as to suggest scholarly incompetence if not academic fraud. Quite simply, the reason why Said is so popular on campus today is because his argument became a blessing to prioritize polemic and politics above fact and scholarly rigor. For Said, up was down, wrong was right, and power was original sin.
Rashid Khalidi, a close friend of Obama from their mutual University of Chicago days, now holds a chair named in Said’s honor at Columbia University. He has consistently argued that politicians and diplomats do not listen to those like himself who claim expertise in the Middle East. This was a complaint which permeated his 2004 book Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America’s Perilous Path in the Middle East, which I reviewed here. The irony here, of course, is that Khalidi, who was previously the PLO spokesman in Beirut, had never been to Iraq but nevertheless castigated policymakers for ignoring his advice on the subject.
Comedy Central defends new ‘Daily Show’ host Trevor Noah
A day after Trevor Noah was declared the new host of “The Daily Show,” his graphic tweets targeting women and Jews are causing a social media backlash and Comedy Central is defending its newest late-night star.
By Tuesday, Trevor Noah was a trending topic on Twitter as he drew fire for jokes described as tasteless, hateful — and unfunny. Roseanne Barr was among those calling out the 31-year-old South African comic, who has an international following and two million Twitter followers.
“U should cease sexist & anti semitic ‘humor’ about jewish women & Israel,” she tweeted late Monday.
In a statement, Comedy Central defended Noah as a “provocative” comedian who “spares no one, himself included.”
“To judge him or his comedy based on a handful of jokes is unfair,” said the network, adding that he has “a bright future at Comedy Central.”
In a statement, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman said that he hopes that “The Daily Show” remains “funny and irreverent without trafficking in bigoted jokes at the expense of Jews.”
“B’nai B’rith is concerned about the long history of anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and misogynistic tweets by the new choice to host the popular comedy program, The Daily Show,” the organization said in a statement issued Tuesday. “We recognize that the platform The Daily Show provides its host is different from the stand-up comedy circuit, and we are hopeful that Noah will use this new and larger role responsibly on complex, sensitive issues.
France Arrests 3 Men in Connection with Hyper Cacher Attack
Three men have been arrested as part of an investigation into the Paris attacks in January in which 17 people were killed, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
The men are linked to Amedy Coulibaly, one of the three Islamist terrorists who perpetrated the attacks, an official in the prosecutor's office said.
Coulibaly killed a police officer in the Paris suburb of Montrouge and four people in the Hyper Cacher Jewish supermarket, which re-opened two weeks ago having been fully renovated and with a new staff.
Since the attacks at the start of the year, seven men aged 22 to 33 have been detained and placed under formal investigation as part of a legal process opened by prosecutors on January 20, noted Reuters.
Investigators have to date made more progress on the Coulibaly angle than that of the two other perpetrators - the Kouachi brothers, who carried out the attack at the offices of French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
New appeal revives case against Argentinian president
Argentine prosecutors launched a new appeal Tuesday of a court’s decision to dismiss their case against President Cristina Kirchner for allegedly protecting Iranian officials accused of orchestrating a deadly 1994 bombing.
Prosecutors are seeking to relaunch the case that was being brought by their late colleague Alberto Nisman, who died mysteriously on January 18 after accusing Kirchner of shielding high-ranking Iranians suspected of ordering the attack on a Buenos Aires Jewish center.
Prosecutor German Moldes filed an appeal to bring the case before the next highest appeals court, which would be the third court to consider the case.
The accusations first came before Judge Daniel Rafecas, who found in a scathing ruling on February 26 that no crime was committed, saying the prosecution’s own evidence “roundly refutes” its case.
The decision was upheld by the Federal Chamber last week in a 2-1 ruling.
Moldes called that decision “notably hasty” in his appeal.
No Insurance Available for Jewish Kindergartens in Belgium!
A Belgian insurance company has refused to insure a Jewish kindergarten in Brussels.
The company claimed the risk of a terror attack on the European Jewish Association-run institution was too high.
EJA General Director Rabbi Menachem Margolin called on all European governments and heads of European Union institutions to provide security to all Jewish institutions that would satisfy insurance companies, and establish an alternative insurance mechanism that would secure any institution that might fall victim to anti-Semitic attacks.
“It is truly a scandal,” Rabbi Margolin said. “First and foremost, not enough is being done in order to secure Jewish institutions throughout Europe, despite our repeated requests and warnings, and then insurance companies are using the security situation as an excuse in order not to insure kindergartens.
“This is the bizarre and cynical reality facing Jewish communities across Europe,” he said.
Andy Slaughter courts the hate vote
Andy Slaughter is one of Labour’s worst helpers of extremists.
So this news from the Palestinian Forum in Britain (PFB) is no surprise:
The Palestinian Forum in Britain invite to attend the social monthly meeting scheduled for Saturday evening, the 4th of April 2015.
The social gathering will host Labour MP and candidate for the Party Andy Slaughter who will speak about his political platform and the role of Palestinian and Arab communities in the British elections.
PFB invite you to attend this important gathering to support those who always condone the Palestinian rights.
Your attendance is in support of the Palestinian rights and and those who work for Palestinian rights.
The Palestinian Forum in Britain
The PFB is part of the Hamas UK network.
One way you can see this is by looking at the speakers it invites to its events.They include no fewer than four foreigners who I understand have been excluded from the UK: Wagdi Ghoneim, Ahmad Nofal, Raed Salah, and Muhammad Musa al-Shareef. This may be an exclusion record for a single Islamist outfit.
Mud Wrestling With Hamas: 8 Rules for Online Combatants
I spent the better part of a day recently exchanging online missives with Chicago-based pro-Hamas hate-site host and internet troll Ali Abunimah, co-founder of the notorious Jew-hating electronic intifada. What started out as an offhand spontaneous comment on a Twitter feed about the recent J Street conference soon devolved into a digital war unconstrained by Marquess de Queensberry rules, let alone the Geneva Conventions.
During the course of several hours, I was blocked – then (after I posted a screen shot illustrating my excommunication) unblocked – from Abunimah’s hate-site, became the subject of an in-depth Google background search, had my salary (obtained from a rightwing union-busting website) posted online, became the target of a public campaign to get me fired from a job I never had and a place where I’m not employed (an ironic tactic given Abunimah’s self-styled pro-labor free-speech defense of racist blogger and no-longer professor Steven Salaita), and for good measure was smeared as a bigot and “Muslim hater.”
As serious influence goes, Abunimah is pretty small potatoes. What elevates him a step or two above the archetypal basement troglodyte is the fact that his hate-sites attract somewhere north of 59,000 Twitter followers, including a small amen chorus of ditto-heads whose job is to repost blindly on social media whatever hatches from the mother ship. Being on the receiving end of what looks like an explosion of coarse and hateful invective – even if it only involves 25 people you don’t know – can be very intimidating, which is precisely the point. The aim is to discredit and shame you into silence.
Horowitz Proclaims Why SJP Should Be Targeted
In a blistering letter to The Daily Californian, the student-run newspaper serving UC Berkeley, David Horowitz, the founder of the David Horowitz Freedom Center and the author of “Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey,” writes his reasons for targeting the anti-Israel group Students for Justice in Palestine. After noting that “we are witnessing a resurgence of global Jew hatred not seen since the 1930s when Hitler was laying plans for the “Final Solution,” Horowitz points out that the college campuses of America are growing more and more anti-Semitic as student groups articulate venomous messages, including events calling for the destruction of Israel, including chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Horowitz explains that the groups exhibiting such behavior fall under the definition of anti-Semitism used by the U.S. government, which is stated thus: “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
He writes bluntly, “They deny the Jewish people — and only the Jewish people — their right to self-determination, they demand that Israel be judged by standards not applied to any other nation, they deploy classic anti-Semitic imagery, they propagate the idea that Israel exists on land stolen from the Arabs, and they demonize Israel as an apartheid state.”
SJP: Promoting Hate Under the Guise of Social Justice
Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) sells itself as a group of grassroots activists for human rights and justice, but what they do in reality is promote an anti-peace, anti-justice, anti-human rights agenda on campus. They host extremist, hateful speakers and programs, and reject efforts to build mutual respect and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.
Northeastern Hillel condemns on-campus swastikas as 'cowardly acts'
The Northeastern University Hillel, an organization for Jewish students, has denounced the drawings of swastikas in a dorm common room this weekend and tied recent anti-Semitic incidents to the Israel boycott movement on campus.
"We will not be bullied by these cowardly acts," wrote the Hillel's executive director Arinne Braverman in an email.
The swastikas were found around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday by a residential assistant in a common area of the university's International Village dorm, wrote University president Joseph Aoun in an email to the campus community.
According to Braverman, it was not the only possibly anti-Semitic incident to affect students this weekend. A mezuzah, a religious door hanging, was vandalized at an off-campus apartment building popular with Northeastern students, she wrote.
Honest Reporting: BBC Interview Treats Hamas Leader With Kid Gloves
Is this the BBC’s idea of an April Fool’s Day joke? Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen interviews Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal and gives the terror chief a free platform to make some laughable statements that go virtually unchallenged.
A couple of nuggets:
Netanyahu is the most extreme leader. And the one who likes to shed blood the most. That is why we are expecting difficult times. It is the responsibility of the international community to put a stop to his stubbornness, and Israeli extremism. …
Israel with its extremist leadership has killed the peace process, the two-state solution and every opportunity for a political solution for the Palestinian cause. …
The Palestinian people are in a movement for national liberation. It is a just cause and it is certainly not terrorism. Quite the opposite; the Palestinians have been the victims of Israeli terrorism for decades. I condemn any side that is practicing extremism and killing based on identity or affiliation. …
We are an active resistance with a just cause battling the occupier. We have a moderate ideology and an open mind. Others practice violence under the name of jihad, which we condemn.
Meshaal even has the gall to compare his “resistance” to that of Nelson Mandela, George Washington and Charles de Gaulle fighting Nazi occupation in World War Two.
A question for Jeremy Bowen and his morally-challenged BBC handlers
Just three jaw-dropping - and unchallenged - quotes from the text version of "Hamas leader Meshaal warns of Israeli 'extremism' after elections":
- In an interview with BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen in Qatar, Mr Meshaal said attacks on Israel would continue "as long as there is occupation, aggression, war and killing". But he stressed that Hamas was "careful to respect international humanitarian law and to target only military targets".
- "...Israel killed the peace process," he added, blaming Mr Netanyahu's outgoing government, along with "extremist forces" in Israel, for the collapse of the US-brokered direct negotiations last year.
- Hamas... was "an active resistance with a just cause, battling the occupier." "Others practice violence under the name of jihad, which we condemn. And this is not Islam. Islam encourages its followers to fight those who occupy their land and their sacred places. But Islam does not allow killing innocent people, civilians, or killing based on identity, belief and different views, political or religious."
PLO Fabricator Gets Washington Post Soapbox
In George Orwell’s enduringly instructive dystopian novel, 1984, the Ministry of Truth—“war is peace,” “freedom is slavery,” “ignorance is strength”—functioned as the department of lies. The fictional ministry has an actual branch in the U.S. capital. It goes by the name of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Washington, D.C. delegation.
Attempting to refute the irrefutable, delegation head Maen Rashid Areikat took to The Washington Post letters to the editor section (“Palestinians seek peace and justice,” March 26, 2015) to falsify facts in columnist Charles Krauthammer’s indictment of Palestinian rejectionism (“No peace in our time,” March 20).
Krauthammer noted that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat rejected U.S.-Israeli offers of a West Bank and Gaza Strip state in exchange for peace in 2000 and 2001 and Mahmoud Abbas did so in 2008. Areikat claimed “there were no written offers,” as if spoken proposals would not have been worth pursuing.
In fact, what came to be known as “the Clinton parameters” regarding the deals Arafat spurned at Camp David in 2000 and Taba in 2001 are well known. Likewise, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert conveyed the outlines of a “two-state solution,” a map included, to Abbas in 2008—to which the latter replied, in effect, “I’ll get back to you” but as Olmert wrote in a Post Op-Ed six years ago never did (“Stop Focusing on the Settlements to Achieve Peace in the Middle East,” July 17, 2009).
Revisiting BBC reporting on July 2014 Shuja’iya market incident
On the same day, Martin Patience produced a filmed report on the same incident for BBC television news which still appears on the corporation’s website under the title “Gaza conflict: ‘Israeli market strike kills 15′“. Like the written report, Patience’s account tells of civilians attacked by “an Israeli airstrike” and he informs viewers that:
That incident is one of several which appear in the latest report from the Military Attorney General. Investigation into the incident shows that the BBC’s rapid and unquestioning repetition of Hamas officials’ tales of an out-of-the-blue Israeli airstrike on civilians during a cease-fire breached editorial guidelines on both accuracy and impartiality.
In light of the fact that last year the BBC announced that “However long ago our online content was first published, if it’s still available, editorial complaints may legitimately be made regarding it”, the BBC clearly needs to either remove those two reports from its website or to amend them with prominent clarification of the actual circumstances of the incident.
After two years, US restores military aid to Egypt
President Barack Obama on Tuesday released military aid to Egypt that was suspended after the 2013 overthrow of the government, in an effort to boost Cairo’s ability to combat the extremist threat in the region.
The White House said Obama notified Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi in a phone call Tuesday that the US would be sending 12 F-16 fighter jets, 20 missiles and up to 125 tank kits, while continuing to request $1.3 billion in military assistance for Egypt. The White House said Egypt will remain the second-largest recipient of US foreign military financing worldwide.
The funds were suspended 21 months ago when el-Sissi, then military chief, overthrew Egypt’s first democratically elected leader, Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. But Washington could not provide almost half of the annual aid package — along with assistance held up from previous years — until it certified advances by el-Sissi’s government on democracy, human rights and rule of law or issued a declaration that such aid is in the interests of US national security.
Personnel Receive Message Advising Them to Guard Identities, Homes Against Islamic State
U.S. Army personnel received a message Friday warning them that the Islamic State terrorist organization is using social media to obtain the personal information, including names and addresses, of members of the armed services, and offering them advice for protecting their identities, homes, and persons against possible attack.
The message, reported Saturday in the Washington Times, came after the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, released the names of 100 members of the armed forces whom it claimed to be targeting for assassination.
According to the Washington Times’ report, the threatened assassinations were a response to airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.
The message told military personnel to “assume everyone will be able to see what you are posting or Tweeting, even if the site limits your posts to your friends and family,” and advised them not to “arrange meetings with people you meet online.”
US denies its drone killed 2 Iranian advisers in Iraq
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards says a US drone strike has killed two of its advisers in Iraq, though the US said Monday it has only struck militants in its campaign against the Islamic State group.
The claim came as negotiators on Monday attempted to reach a deal on Iran’s contested nuclear program, which hard-liners in the Islamic Republic have opposed as giving away too much to the West.
The Guards said on its sepahnews.ir website the strike happened March 23, just after the US-led coalition began airstrikes to support Iraqi forces trying to retake the Islamic State-held city of Tikrit. It identified the dead as Ali Yazdani and Hadi Jafari, saying they were buried Sunday. It called them advisers, without elaborating on whether Iran contacted Iraqi or US forces after the strike.
Spree of paintball attacks against Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn eyed as hate crimes
Three paintball attacks targeting Hasidic Jews — a man and a trio of teens — in a span of a week in the same Brooklyn neighborhood are believed to be related and may have been fueled by hate, police said Monday.
On Friday night, two boys, ages 16 and 13, were walking with their grandfather, Abraham Franczoz, 65, from their synagogue when an unknown shooter opened fire with the recreational gun on Morton St. near Juliana Place in Williamsburg. The older teen was hit in the arm and the younger boy in the ankle, according to police.
“I don’t feel safe at all right now,” Franczoz said, adding the family didn’t report the crime until after the Sabbath.
“I feel that the neighborhood is not being protected,” he said. “If it happened once, I would understand, twice is too much.”
On March 22, a 37-year-old man was shot in the face by a paintball as he walked to a synagogue on Kent Ave. at Hewes St. around 7:30 p.m, police said. (h/t Bob Knot)
'Israelites Left Egypt, but Egypt Didn't Leave Them'
The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) held a press conference in Jerusalem ahead of Pesach (Passover), the holiday celebrating how Jews were redeemed from slavery in Egypt, and revealed new archaeological finds demonstrating that an Egyptian administrative center existed in the region 3,400 years ago.
"The Israelites left Egypt; however, it seems that even years after their return Egypt did not leave the Israelites and their descendants," said archaeologist Amir Ganor of the IAA regarding the new finds.
The discovery was made by the IAA's Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery, which located an underground cave with signs of plundering in the Tel Halif region.
Thieves had started looting 3,000-year-old pottery vessels from the site, but the IAA was able to prevent further damage to the cave and excavate the valuable archaeological artifacts still in the cave.
Most of the artifacts found in the cave dated to the Late Bronze Age (circa 1500 BCE) and the Iron Age (1000 BCE). More than 300 pottery vessels of different types were found in the cave, many of them having survived intact.
Aside from pottery the find included dozens of pieces of jewelry made of bronze, shells and faience, unique vessels fashioned from yellowish alabaster, seals, seal impressions and cosmetic vessels.
Art Garfunkel in TLV, sans Simon
Art Garfunkel will perform in Israel on June 10, at Tel Aviv’s Bloomfield Stadium.
Tickets go on sale Thursday morning at 9 a.m., and will range in price from NIS 299 to NIS 1,100.
The golden-toned vocalist has had some voice issues in recent years, and had to cancel a short reunion tour with his former partner, Paul Simon, in 2010 and several other performance dates. He resumed touring again last year, and told Rolling Stone in 2014 that his voice is “96%” where it was pre-surgery.
In the Rolling Stone interview, he spoke about being in his 70s, and the aches and pains that come with age. But, said Garfunkel, “I’m a rock & roll kid. I’m particularly young now that I have the thrill of a returned voice. I’m so grateful.”
Europe’s biggest bank now Israeli tech customer
Santander, through its Santander Innoventures Fund, said that it was investing $5 million in Israeli fintech start-up MyCheck. The investment kicks-off MyCheck’s Series B funding round, and gives Santander, Europe’s largest banking group, its first stake in Israel’s financial technology ecosystem.
MyCheck, founded in Israel in 2011, is an app that allows users to pay bills at restaurants, bars, hotels, and other places of entertainment using their smartphones – a long-sought after financial technology goal, turning the smartphone into a kind of credit card. The MyCheck app can be downloaded for free from the App Store or Google Play for individual use, but the company’s bread and butter is in white-label versions for stores, restaurants, and other venues. Such apps, MyCheck claims, increase customer loyalty (the app also lets venues manage their customer loyalty programs), and in fact, MyCheck said, it has seen a 320% growth in transaction volumes over the last six months, much of it from the private-label activity.
The funds from Santander will be used to accelerate MyCheck’s international expansion, especially across the U.S and Western Europe, bolster sales and marketing, and enhance business intelligence capabilities. Santander in return gets equity in the company.
Roll-up TV screens on the way, Tel Aviv U researchers say
Today, you can watch TV on a tablet or a smartphone, using networked apps offered by cable TV companies. But the viewing experience leaves a lot to be desired, with images shrunk down to fit the few inches of the device’s screen.
How about watching TV on the go on a full-sized screen that rolls up for storage and transportation? Tel Aviv University researchers are working on just that, using peptides and DNA to create a material that emits a full range of colors in one pliable pixel layer, allowing it to be attached to a microprocessor or video chip to display images just like rigid LCD and LED screens do.
Patents have already been filed, and several consumer product manufacturers are seriously eyeing the tech, the university said.
“Our material is light, organic, and environmentally friendly,” said Prof. Ehud Gazit, who along with doctoral student Or Berger of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology at TAU’s George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences published a paper in the publication Nature Nanotechnology on the technology. “It is flexible, and a single layer emits the same range of light that requires several layers today. By using only one layer, you can minimize production costs dramatically, which will lead to lower prices for consumers as well.”
Israeli tech to keep an eye on ‘electricity gluttons’
In the past, the only way to get “power gluttons” to save electricity was to harangue them via public service announcements or appeals by mail, but in the Big Data era, companies have a lot of new resources to ensure that customers use only their fair share.
To develop some of that technology, German energy giant RWE AG, one of the five largest energy and gas companies in Europe, is opening an innovation center in Israel in order to develop tech for a smart grid – a metering system that will keep track of how consumers use electricity.
The launch of the Israel Innovation Center, the company said, was “spurred by the desire to be connected and present in the vibrant Israeli hi-tech eco-system, enabling it to identify and connect with innovative technologies which can enrich RWE’s business offerings, and contribute to its customers.”
YouTube — the 11th plague of Passover?
A Jewish holiday just wouldn’t be a Jewish holiday without a new video from the Maccabeats, who started the Jewish holiday video trend five years ago.
This time, they’re singing “Dayenu” in a variety of genres, including doowop, heavy metal, funk, barbershop quartet, and dubstep. Our favorite part is when they dance around in lederhosen in the polka portion of the performance. Who wouldn’t love that?
The Maccabeats were founded at Yeshiva University, but there are other college a cappella groups getting into the Festival of Freedom spirit this year.
Here are The Jabberwocks of Brown University in a video produced by Brown RISD Hillel. If Justin Timberlake were to do a Jewish holiday video, it would sound like this:
Noha Hashad's exodus from Egypt
They say every generation one must see themselves as if they themselves made the exodus from Egypt. Egyptian nuclear physicist Noha Hashad not only escaped Egypt, but sought Jerusalem. The 51-year-old native Egyptian Muslim was an accomplished academic who lectured at many universities when she began identifying with Israel.
Noha was arrested by security forces belonging to Hosni Mubarak's regime. Her crime? Looking for proof of the Jews' rights to the land of Israel in the Quran. She was jailed for 12 years. Noha was interrogated and tortured under suspicion of spying for Israel. Her interrogations left her handicapped. She managed to escape Egypt during the Arab Spring protests and the fall of the Mubarak regime in 2011, fleeing to Jordan and then coming to Israel as a refugee.
This is the first time Noha Hashad's story is coming to light.
"Israel is like a jewel, a diamond, I am very fortunate to be here," she said, sitting near the beach in Haifa. Noha founded a center for peace in the Middle East, with respected scholars of Middle East studies, and is working on the English translation of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' first book, "The Beginning and End of Zionism."
Mother of slain Toulouse soldier leading trip to Israel
Latifa Ibn Ziaten’s life changed forever on March 11, 2012, when her son was murdered.
Master Sergeant Imad Ibn Ziaten, an off-duty paratrooper, was 30 years old when Mohammed Merah, a French national of Algerian origin, shot him dead in Toulouse – the first in a series of attacks Merah carried out that month. On March 15, Merah killed two other soldiers in the small southern town of Montauban. Four days later, he came back to Toulouse, shooting dead three Jewish children and their teacher on the doorstep of the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school before police tracked him down and killed him following a long siege.
Returning to France after burying her son in the family’s Morocco hometown, Latifa Ibn Ziaten vowed to dedicate her life to peace between religions and peoples, especially among youngsters. She founded an organization for that purpose, named after her son: the Imad Ibn Ziaten Association for Youth and Peace.
On April 22, she and a group of young students from the Parisian region will be going to Israel – not simply as tourists, but as part of the organization’s “Voyage for Living Together” project.
To prepare for the trip, she and the 15 youngsters took part in an interactive workshop Tuesday, organized by the Israeli Embassy in Paris.
Ibn Ziaten and her associates have taken it upon themselves to work with children and adolescents in all sectors of society, including in prisons.
Ministry of Defense: Successful test of “Magic Wand” system
The Ministry of Defense explained that the Magic Wand system will be able to deal more effectively with threats from the enemy in the near future. In the test, the system was tested with a number of scenarios that simulate objectives with which the system can cope during a time of conflict.
The success of the test is a significant milestone in the operational capability of Israel to defend itself against anticipated threats in the region. The experiment was led by Rafael in an experimental field in the center of the country. “Today we completed the third series of tests of the system which is the peak of global technology,” said Yair Ramati, head of the Administration for the Development of Weapons and Technological Infrastructure. “The excellent outcomes of the test allow us to realize all of our goals. The system will know how to deal with the Lebanese threat.”
In the last experiment before the target missile launch, MMR radar revealed and transferred the data to the center for management of shooting, which calculated the protection against it. The “Magic Wand” interception was successfully launched and carried out all phases of the flight and intercepted the target as planned. (h/t Yenta Press)