From Ian:
DePaul: Fundraiser for Terrorist Welcome, Ben Shapiro Not Welcome
The Young Americans for Freedom chapter at DePaul University invited Christina Hoff Sommers and Ben Shapiro to speak on campus. At some point, the administration decided not to allow Ben Shapiro on campus over supposed security concerns, even threatening him with arrest if he set foot on campus.
In an ultimate twist of irony, the subject of Shapiro’s speech was free speech on campus.
The YAF blog has the details:
DePaul Obstructs YAF Lecture, Shapiro, Sommers
Despite having no apparent problem hosting prominent leftists in the past, DePaul University is working to obstruct DePaul Young Americans for Freedom’s scheduled lecture with Christina Hoff Sommers, after the chapter announced Ben Shapiro was slated to make a guest appearance.
To great media criticism DePaul banned YAF from hosting Ben Shapiro in August. In response DePaul YAF, Young America’s Foundation, and Shapiro decided the campus needed his message and planned to host him alongside Sommers in order to make a powerful statement about the importance of ideological diversity.
As of Tuesday morning, DePaul administrators were actively working to prevent students from hearing Shapiro’s message on campus that evening.
The Stranglers Slam Roger Waters And BDS As “Ignorant”
Legendary Punk rock pioneers The Stranglers are here in Israel to perform tonight. And at their press conference yesterday, they let know where they stand on BDS and Roger Waters.
This is in addition to this interview, where they used even saltier language.
You first played in Israel in 2008 on a double bill with Blondie. What were your impressions then, and have you been pressured at all by any pro-Palestinian activists to reconsider coming?
First of all, we had a great time back then.
Tel Aviv is such a rocking city and the Israeli people are so open and fun to be with. I don’t think the outside world realizes how cool it really is there.
But as you know, people are generally ignorant of the situation in Israel and they just read the headlines. They don’t realize that Israel is a democracy in a sea of f***ed up countries. A true democracy with the Left and Right able to express themselves.
The Stranglers Slam Roger Waters And BDS As "Ignorant"
Elliott Abrams: Israel’s Population Bomb is Disappearing
The explanation is a sharp drop in Arab Israeli birth rates while Jewish birth rates have been rising: “In 2000, the fertility among the country’s Arab population stood at 4.3 children per woman, while the fertility rate of Jewish women was 2.6. Since then the gap has narrowed as the Arab rate dropped off and the Jewish fertility rates steadily increased.”
This high fertility rate is not simply an artifact of Israel’s growing ultra-Orthodox or Haredi population; the non-Haredi fertility rate is 2.6. (This is, by the way, a far higher fertility rate than that of American Jews, which is 1.9; the replacement rate is 2.3.) The overall Israeli Jewish fertility rate of 3.13 also suggests that the population balance between Israel and the West Bank will not change: “Palestinian fertility on the West Bank has already fallen to the Israeli fertility rate of three children per woman, if we believe the Palestine Ministry of Health numbers rather than the highly suspect Central Bureau of Statistics data. In 1963, Israeli Arab women had eight or nine children; today they have three, about the same as Israeli Jews.”
What are the political implications? Whatever they are, the debate must begin with facts rather than assumptions–including facts about population growth.
Britain’s Parliament Debates the Balfour Declaration, Revealing Divides Over Israel in Contemporary Politics
The British Government will neither celebrate the Balfour Declaration nor apologize for it. So responded the UK’s Minister for the Middle East, Tobias Ellwood, at the close of a special debate on the Balfour Declaration at the British Parliament this morning, criticizing the Balfour Declaration for failing to include a parallel commitment to Palestinian Arab statehood in 1917. “It is fifty years since the Occupation began,” noted the British minister with frustration, arguing that “it is for historians to assess the Declaration” and for “ministers to deal with the today.” “The Occupation of the Palestinian Territories,” he stressed, “is unacceptable and unsustainable.”
The debate was heavily dominated by concern for the “unfinished business” of the two-state solution and punctuated by repeated criticism of Israel’s settlement policies, but nevertheless included numerous supportive interjections by MPs friendly to Israel.
Labour MP Ivan Lewis stressed the importance of the debate in the context of resurgent anti-Semitism—within his own party and across Europe—which “more often than not is linked to hostility to the State of Israel.” He further blasted the “delegitimization of Israel through the rewriting of history, which seeks to deny the legal and moral basis” of Jewish self-determination. His colleague Luciana Berger spoke up for the Labour Party’s historical support for the creation of a Jewish state. A Northern Irish MP recalled following the Six Day War on the radio, admiring Israel as the underdog. And Conservative MP Jonathan Djanogly paid tribute to Theodor Herzl for persuading the international community to put an end to “Jewish homelessness.”
Numerous pro-Israel MPs made friendly interruptions to Conservative MP Caroline Ansell’s opening speech. The key to sustainable peace is that all parties should recognize Israel, said one. There would have been a two-state solution seventy years ago if “the armies of five Arab states had not invaded Israel in 1948,” added another. One MP criticized the destruction of the greenhouses in the Gaza Strip after the 2005 Disengagement. Another stressed the difficulty of conducting negotiations when “one side” refuses to come to the table, and yet another expressed disappointment at how the Palestinians have been “let down by their own leadership.”
David Singer: Palestine – Brexit 1922 Key To Trump Resolving Arab-Jewish Conflict
President-elect Donald Trump has lost no time in stressing his desire to end the Arab-Jewish conflict which has seen many proposals in the last 100 years fall by the wayside as a result of unrelenting Arab rejection to any Jewish State in former Palestine.
The first such proposal came in 1922 when Great Britain went back on its promise made to the Jewish people in 1920 at both the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres - by restricting the reconstitution of the Jewish National Home in only 22 per cent of the territory of Palestine covered by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine ("Brexit 1922").
The Jews reluctantly accepted this proposal but the Arabs were not prepared to accept self-determination in only 78 per cent of Palestine – today called Jordan. They wanted the remaining 22 per cent – today called Israel, Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) Jerusalem and Gaza – and have maintained this position until today.
Proposals to end the conflict recommended by:
* the 1937 Peel Commission,
* the 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution,
* the 1993 Oslo Accords,
* the 2002 Bush Roadmap and
* Israeli offers in 2000/1 and 2008
have been consigned to the dustbin of history.
Horrible Behaviour From The US Embassy In Tel Aviv
I can’t even begin to tell you how much this upsets me, and I’m sure it is hundreds of times worse for Kay and Kristine Luken’s parents. Someday soon, perhaps, the US government will start treating US (and other) victims of terrorism in Israel with the respect they deserve.
It is with true grief and rage that I have decided to share this publicly on FaceBook.
The elderly parents of my murdered American, Christian friend (Kristine Luken Z”L) have just emailed me to say, that today, (on their 40th wedding anniversary), they received “a call” from the U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv, Israel to state, “the Israeli mortuary still had parts of Kristine’s body in storage and wanted permission to ship them to us or bury them in Israel.”
Kristine’s parents had signed a form expressing their wishes way back in 2012. Do your math. That is FOUR YEARS AGO! Yet they never responded to this until today.
What a terrible shock for these two, dear grieving elderly parents. And to think that the embassy did not have the common decency to even set up a meeting: a casual call was good enough for these numbskulls.
Liberals restore $25 million in funding to controversial Palestinian aid agency
The federal Liberals are providing $25 million to a UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees that was cut off by the previous Conservative government for alleged ties to Hamas.
International Development Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau made the announcement at a news conference and also during question period in the House of Commons — news that was greeted by cries of "shame" from the opposition benches.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, also known as UNRWA, lost federal funding in 2010 amid allegations it was tied too closely to Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Canada and others.
Bibeau says $20 million will go support education, health and social services for millions of vulnerable Palestinian refugees, as well as urgent humanitarian assistance.
Democracy Alliance Hosts Anti-Israel Advocate Who Glorified Child Terrorists
The Democracy Alliance, a shadowy organization of wealthy progressive donors, hosted this week at its secret meeting a prominent anti-Israel advocate who has come under fire for glorifying child terrorists and criticizing Zionism, according to a list of speakers at the group’s Washington, D.C., gathering.
Linda Sarsour, a Palestinian-American activist who has long been critical of Israel, spoke Monday at the Democracy Alliance’s three-day gathering, according to program information first published by Politico’s Kenneth Vogel.
Sarsour, who was dubbed by the Obama administration as a “champion of change,” has often come under fire for her views on Israel and defense of terrorism.
Sarsour claimed in 2012 that the New York Police Department manufactured evidence against American-Muslims to create terrorism charges, according to comments at the time.
“The cases that they have supposedly foiled, we believe many of those cases are entrapment cases,” Sarsour said. “We believe that the NYPD informants actually manufacture these cases so they can justify the funding that comes to the NYPD.”
Danny Danon to UN forum: 'See you in court, BDS'
Hundreds of people gathered at United Nations headquarters on Wednesday night to attend a forum held by the Israeli Mission to the UN to discuss the legal fight against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Ambassador Danny Danon hosted the event in his capacity as the chairman of the UN Sixth Committee, the primary forum for the consideration of legal questions in the General Assembly.
“We are here to send a simple message to the BDS movement: To the bullies who harass students on campus, to those who use the language of civil rights to mask their hate, to the activists who are conducting this illegal and unjust campaign of hate; your time is over, your movement based on lies and intimidation is coming to an end,” he told the crowd. “We will use every tool and every legal measure to stop the hate.”
Putting a stop to the anti-Israel movement, Danon said, should be at the top of the UN agenda. “We will focus on lawfare, the use of legal procedures, to fight bias and discrimination and to stand up to boycotts. We are here to learn from the experts to think of new ways to collaborate so we can tell BDS activists: See you in court! “But lawfare isn’t just about using the law as a shield; it’s also about engagement,” Danon added. “We engage institutions and trust them to do the right thing. We trust them to follow the law and to follow the principles of justice. And that’s why we will win, because the truth is on our side, history is on our side and justice is on our side.”
German organizers of Kristallnacht memorial sought to ban Israeli flag
Organizers from the “Walk of Remembrance” to commemorate the persecution of Jews in the northern German city of Oldenburg attempted on Thursday to ban the Israeli flag from the ceremony.
“I wanted to participate in the march with my Israeli flag as a sign of solidarity with Israel – the state of survivors of the Holocaust. No sooner that I rolled out the flag, a teacher came to me and demanded that I roll back the flag,” Rolf Woltersdorf, a member of the German- Israel Friendship Society (DIG) in Oldenburg, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
The Holocaust remembrance event is a yearly memorial march in remembrance of the deportation of Oldenburg Jews to concentration camps and the destruction of the synagogue in 1938. Pupils from local schools contribute to the content of the event.
Woltersdorf said one organizer “wanted to remove me with physical violence” because of his Israeli flag. He added that some of the marchers supported his solidarity with Israel.
Woltersdorf said as he continued to march, an active member of the DIG urged him to remove the flag.
Cordula Behrens, an educator with the society, draped herself in an Israeli flag. A teacher confronted Behrens and said the flag has nothing to do with the memory of dead Jews. (h/t Gastwirt)
‘Overwhelming Support’ for Jewish Liquor Store Owner Threatened by Pro-BDS Customer
The Jewish owner of a liquor store located in the heart of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor campus has received “overwhelming support” after he was verbally accosted and threatened with a boycott by an anti-Israel customer earlier this year, The Algemeiner has learned.
Robert Kastel said that customers have been driving from nearly 100 miles away just to shop at his store, Champion’s Liquor, after a video circulated on social media showing a woman telling him that because he supports Israel, “I won’t be shopping here anymore…[and] I’ll make sure that everyone I know doesn’t shop here anymore.”
“We have a great community — at the university, all over America, in Canada, even Israel — who are doing the opposite of what that lady said she’ll do,” Kastel told The Algemeiner. “People have been calling from all over, asking if I ship liquor, because they only want to buy from me, and mailing us cookies and cake. Our Facebook page has been flooded with messages of support.”
Kastel said he didn’t know he was being filmed by the young woman, who came into the store in March 2016 to tell him that a sign above his store door reading, “With Israel We Stand,” means to her that, “You stand with genocide, with mass killings of women and children, with war crimes.” When Kastel told her, “We are in a country…where we have freedom of speech,” she responded that his exercising of that right is “unprofessional.”
Top Parisian chef hits back at BDS activists over trip to Israel
A top Parisian chef targeted by promoters of a boycott against Israel for his plans to visit the Jewish state hit back against his critics, whom he accused of dishonesty and discrimination.
Stéphane Jégo has leveled the accusations in correspondence on social media with activists for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel who in recent weeks have picketed outside his Parisian bistro and criticized him online for his attendance this month at an international culinary festival taking place in Tel Aviv.
Naming two of his accusers on Twitter, Jego wrote that they are “an affliction [hitting] people who are, at best, misinformed, mix everything up or at worst biased and dishonest.”
Jego, the head chef at L’Ami Jean in Paris, is one 13 chefs from renowned dining establishments around the world who are scheduled to participate in the Round Tables festival, which is sponsored by American Express.
Jego also retweeted a remark about BDS being illegal in France, where dozens of the movement’s activists have been convicted of incitement to discrimination due to their actions against Israel.
Toronto university rejects BDS proposal
The General Council of the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) on Tuesday voted down a proposal to transform its “BDS Ad Hoc Committee” into a permanent fixture of the organization.
The vote was defeated by a decisive margin of 34-17, with 11 abstentions.
This marks the third time that an attempt to pass a resolution in favor of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement had failed to pass at the University of Toronto.
The GSU first endorsed BDS in 2012. The university’s Mississauga campus later also voted overwhelmingly in favor of endorsing a call for a BDS campaign against Israel.
Over the last several years, 11 resolutions in favor of boycotting Israel were approved in academic institutions across Canada. Such motions were passed by Toronto's Ryerson University, York University and Windsor University, among others.
On the other hand, similar proposals were rejected at Montreal‘s McGill University and at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Following BDS Fail, Activists at U of Michigan Continue to Reject ‘Normalization’ With Jewish State, Pro-Israel Peers
Students at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, who supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) resolution that was defeated by a landslide on Tuesday, are refusing overtures by the pro-Israel community to promote dialogue and unity on campus, The Algemeiner has learned.
Talia Katz, a member of two campus groups at Michigan — Israel Leadership Education Advocacy and Dialogue (ILEAD) and The Israel Network — told The Algemeiner that Students Allied for Freedom and Equality (SAFE), which drove the BDS campaign, “adhere to a strict ‘non-normalization policy,'” and will not even shake hands with pro-Israel students.
“Central Student Government (CSG) has called on us to initiate cooperation and reach out to the other side,” she said. “But how can we follow up on a promise of dialogue and bettering the campus climate if they refuse to speak with us directly, and even call our attempts at communication disingenuous?”
Hasbara Fellowships Campus Fellow Sarit Mafouda, on the other hand, told The Algemeiner that following this period of “high tension” at the school, she hopes both sides “will take this chance and help narrow the divide between students.”
German Jewish NGOs urge bank to close BDS account
Germany’s largest local Jewish community in Berlin called for the Bank für Sozialwirtschaft (Bank for Social Economy) on Monday to shut down an account held by the bank with a hardcore anti-Zionist organization targeting Israel with a boycott.
Dr. Gideon Joffe, chairman of Berlin’s 11,000-plus member Jewish community, expects to soon “have a discussion with the management of the Bank for Social Economy to sensitize the management for the topic, with the goal to close accounts from Jewish and non-Jewish supporters of BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions],” Ilan Kiesling, a spokesman for the community, told The Jerusalem Post.
The Berlin Jewish community has an account with the Cologne-based Bank for Social Economy. In May, Joffe provided the Bundestag with a white paper on the “antisemitic BDS movement” and has published extensive education material in its magazine and on its website for members.
The pro-BDS group holding an account with the Bank for Social Economy is named “Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East” and is the German branch of European Jews for a Just Peace.
Will Brexit open door to new BDS campaigns?
One of the unintended consequences of Brexit, the UK’s exit from the European Union, is that it exposes Israel to new pressures as Britain drops out of European engagement and decision-making.
After Germany, the UK has been one of the strongest supporters of Israel in all the interlocking institutions of the EU.
Although criticisms – many justified – have been raised against EU funding for some Palestinian outfits, especially those doing so-called educational or cultural work, it has suited both Washington and Jerusalem to let the EU pay the lion’s share of international financial support for the Palestinian Authority to try and keep at bay Hamas and Hezbollah.
But if the UK – the second biggest net contributor to the EU budget after Germany – pulls out of the EU, the finance chiefs in Brussels will be looking at where to cut outgoings, and support for nonviolent development in the Middle East can easily fall victim.
Turkey continues roundup of academics, still no progressive academic boycott calls
I guess this is now a continuing series.
Turkey’s Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is gutting any remnants of opposition by attacking numerous aspects of civil society, including particularly academia.
Yet *shockingly* none of the progressive professors who demand a boycott of Israeli universities and academia are organizing a boycott of Turkish Universities.
We have covered this hypocrisy many times:
Will anti-Israel academic boycotters now also boycott Turkish universities?
Internet hunt: Find anti-Israel academic boycotters also boycotting Turkey
Turkey Purge Continues: 15,200 Teachers Fired, Deans Asked to Leave
According to Turkish journalist Mahir Zeynalov, the crackdown on academics continues:
United against BDS
7 things you should know about the Guardian’s coverage of Israel
This blog has been monitoring the Guardian daily since 2009.
Though several years ago we expanded our coverage (and changed our name) to include all UK-based news outlets, the Guardian is still our primary focus due to their unique role – given their influence and reach – as a purveyor of anti-Israel bias in the UK.
At times we take our collective memory of Guardian coverage of Israel for granted, so we’ve decided to provide a short list highlighting some of the more egregious examples of bias over the years – information helpful in contextualizing our ongoing analysis of the British newspaper.
1. Until threatened with legal action a few years ago, The Guardian used to tell readers, in their official Style Guide no less, that Tel Aviv ‘is’ Israel’s capital.
style-guide
2. In 2011, The Guardian readers’ editor defended their decision to publish a letter, by philosophy professor Ted Honderich, explicitly supporting (for the sake of “humanity”) the Palestinians’ “moral right” to launch terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.
teddy
3. Guardian associate editor Seumas Milne (who recently took a leave of absence to serve as Jeremy Corbyn’s communications chief) published two op-eds explicitly endorsing Hamas’s right to fire rockets at Israel, while arguing that Israel has no right to defend itself. (Before joining the Guardian, Milne previously worked for a pro-Stalin communist publication called Straight Left.)
4. In 2013, Guardian’s Steve Bell published a cartoon indistinguishable from the kind of explicitly antisemitic cartoons on ‘Jewish control’ found routinely in the Arab media.
5. A Guardian columnist likened Israel to an autistic child.
6. Guardian journalist Deborah Orr published an op-ed employing a version of the “chosen people” canard against Jews, and bizarrely argued that Israel’s 2011 prisoner swap, in which Gilad Shalit was released by Hamas for the release of 1027 Palestinian terrorists, was evidence of Israeli racism. (Orr was forced to apologise – see here.)
7. The Guardian’s new editor-in-chief, Katherine Viner, was the co-creator of an anti-Israel propaganda play called ‘My Name is Rachel Corrie’, a piece of theatrical agitprop about the International Solidarity Movement activist killed in 2003 while attempting to stop an IDF anti-terror operation in Gaza.
There are of course countless other incidents we could have highlighted. Feel free to add your own picks for worst Guardian moments in the comment section.
Actor Who Plays Holocaust Denier in New Film Admits Initial Hesitance to Portray Man ‘Loathed by a Lot of People’
The British actor who plays notorious Holocaust denier David Irving in the recently released film “Denial” was hesitant about taking on the role of an individual “loathed by a lot of people,” he told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.
Timothy Spall explained he was offered the part right after he finished a film in which he stars as another detested historical figure, the late Northern Ireland politician Ian Paisley, infamous for his anti-Catholic rhetoric. Spall told the Times that he was wary of immediately taking on a second villain, and that he was “opposed to just showing up to play the ‘baddie.'”
The Cannes winner also described how he prepared for his part in “Denial,” a movie based on Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt’s autobiography, History on Trial: My Day in Court with a Holocaust Denier, which chronicles her high-profile fight and victory in British court after Irving charged her with libel. Spall said he relied on Irving’s speeches and any recorded extemporaneous remarks to get into character, unable to receive advice from the Holocaust denier himself, as Irving was not involved in the film’s production.
Spall said he researches extensively before playing any real-life person, even examining pictures for extended periods of time, as he tries to “make this sort of leap of imagination and see if I can understand them in a feeling in myself.”
French embassy worker accused of anti-Semitism reinstated
France’s embassy in Tunisia has reinstated an employee who was suspended briefly over anti-Semitic messages that appeared on his Facebook account which he claimed was hacked, JTA reported Wednesday.
Selim Dakhlaoui, a consulting agent for the embassy, was “reintegrated and resumed his responsibilities within the embassy,” a French Foreign Ministry spokesperson told JTA, pending an investigation by Tunisian police of Dakhlaoui‘s complaint that unidentified individuals had written the comments under his name after taking control of his Facebook account without permission.
Dakhlaoui was suspended for three days back in August following the surfacing online of messages made over the past year under his name, including one saying “Hitler didn’t finish the job” in a discussion about Israel’s alleged involvement in Islamist terrorism.
The ministry spokesperson stressed to JTA that the statements were “unacceptable” and run contrary to “France’s values.”
Dakhlaoui's account also featured a comment from October 2015 that read “Soon it will be the end of Israel,” followed by an icon of a missile. A week later the account displayed the message “Go to hell, Israel.”
9 Israeli startups funded by superstars
Celebrity endorsements are a big boon for brands. Just ask SodaStream, the Israeli company touted by Hollywood beauty Scarlett Johansson and “Game of Thrones” star Thor Bjornsson. Ask HOT, the Israeli telecom for which Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo filmed a funny TV commercial.
But other stars support Israeli startups with their dollars rather than their faces, or sometimes with both.
Today’s celebs no longer look down on techies, explains Gil Eyal, founder of Tel Aviv- and New York-based influencer marketing platform HyPR Brands.
“It’s kind of cool to be a nerd now, and Israeli founders are a unique type of nerd because they have chutzpah; they’ll walk up to Leonardo DiCaprio and ask, ‘Do you want to invest in my startup?’ Celebrities in general are the same way, used to getting what they want,” Eyal tells ISRAEL21c.
Multilingual diabetes management device hits market
Every 19 seconds, someone is diagnosed with diabetes. And every 19 seconds, someone buys a smartphone.
Israel’s DarioHealth puts two and two together in a lifestyle product for people with diabetes.
The digital glucose monitor combined with a free smartphone app lets users set up a personalized diabetes profile; record real-time blood glucose measurements, physical activity and carb and insulin intake; get alerts to abnormal results; and compare and share the data.
The pocket-sized gadget, designed by Tiko Product Design Studio in Tel Aviv, holds components including test strips, lancing device and glucose meter that plugs into the headphone jack (or Lightning port on the iPhone 7).
When you open the Dario app, it prompts you to insert a test strip into the meter. The reading appears immediately, with no delays as might happen with a Bluetooth- or 3G-enabled glucose monitor.
Stunning ‘Passage to Israel’ photo exhibit tours world
A new group exhibition, “Passage to Israel,” opens at Anderson Contemporary Gallery in New York City on November 17 and will continue on to Los Angeles, Palm Beach, Washington DC, Chicago, Toronto, London, Berlin and Jerusalem.
Showcasing the unique beauty of the land of Israel through the work of 20 renowned photographers, “Passage to Israel” reveals cobblestoned streets and wineries, sculpture gardens and Bauhaus architecture, innovative interiors and verdant olive plantations along with the panoply of cultures that make up the people of Israel.
The opening in Manhattan, emceed by bestselling author Bruce Feiler, will be headlined by world-renowned performing artist Matisyahu. Some of the photographers are planning to be there.
Running in New York through January 6, the show is curated by Karen Lehrman Bloch and Ronni Anderson. A companion book from Skyhorse Publishing includes more than 200 pictures of Israeli landscapes, seascapes, architecture, interiors and holy sites by 34 photographers.
Israeli Invention Automates At-Home Marijuana Growing
With seven more U.S. states voting to legalize forms of medical or recreational marijuana use on November 8, the upcoming rollout of Leaf’s “plug-n-plant” system for growing the crop at home couldn’t have been better timed.
“It’s an exciting time to launch,” CEO Jonathan Ofir tells ISRAEL21c. “We’re seeing a very interesting trend even among traditionally conservative states, and it could be the beginning of the end of the federal ban on cannabis. From an industry perspective, this makes our product even more appealing to entrepreneurs and investors.”
Leaf looks like a small refrigerator (2 feet by 4 feet), but it’s actually a sophisticated automatic cannabis-cultivation system.
“On average you will yield 4 ounces of high-quality, pesticide-free medicine every three months,” says Ofir. “Our beta testers have grown almost double that in certain cases.”
You don’t need pots, soil, or even a green thumb. Water, light, acidity, temperature, humidity, and nutrients all are monitored by sensors and controlled by a smartphone app. The system dries the leaves at the end of the grow cycle so they’re fully ready for consumption.
An embedded HD camera provides a live stream of images during the process for users to share via the app, which also offers explanatory video clips.
Israeli Tech Billionaire Creates $100 Million Fund to Invest in Healthcare Startups
An Israeli tech billionaire who founded one of the country’s most successful startups is creating a fund to invest in Israeli healthcare startups.
Marius Nacht, the co-founder of computer security firm Check Point Software, is raising $100 million for the fund. Nacht has previously invested millions of his own funds into dozens of healthcare and life sciences companies.
Israeli startups have a reputation of being successful and then being bought out by foreign companies. Nacht hopes to change that dynamic by making late-stage investments in startups.
“I’m wishing for the creation of another Teva or another Check Point in healthcare,” Nacht told Reuters, referring to the generic medicine giant Teva Pharmaceuticals. “We are not here to sell out, we are really here to try … and create a big company, create a financial ecosystem for healthcare companies in Israel.”
Nacht explained that he is prioritizing investing in healthcare startups because they are a higher-risk, higher-reward investment on account of the time required to bring a product to market.
Coca Cola Selfie Bottles – Invented By You-Know-Who!
Fancy taking a selfie of yourself while drinking Coca Cola?
Me neither….but for those who want to, it’s now possible, thanks to Zionist gray matter.
Advertising agency Gefen Team of Tel-Aviv, Israel recently created a Coca-Cola bottle that makes it possible for people to capture themselves in the act of drinking.
The ‘Coca-Cola Selfie Bottle’ is a custom-designed camera that perfectly fits over a half-liter Coke bottle and includes proprietary technology to pick up on when there is a 70-degree tilt, or when someone is likely taking a swig of soda.
The Selfie Bottle was created for the Coca-Cola Summer Love, which is the biggest brand outdoor event in Israel. All of the pictures taken with the Selfie Bottle get shared to Coca-Cola’s Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook, making it possible for people to capture a myriad of special moments without having to stop, snap a photo and share on social media.
Drone-based system capable of remotely finding bombs unveiled in Tel Aviv
An Israeli-designed, drone-based sensor capable of remotely detecting explosives, hazardous material and drugs was unveiled at a trade show in Tel Aviv this week at the Homeland Security Expo.
Laser Detect System (LDS) Ltd., the company behind the SpectroDrone system which specialized in laser detection technology, claims that the device can identify “explosives and other hazardous materials, in gas, liquid, powder or bulk form, at a distance of several meters from the threat.”
The sensor is mounted on an Airbotics Optimus drone capable of flying a distance of up to three kilometers, allowing for safe detection without endangering lives, according to the developer. The system can also be mounted on robots or vehicles.
The SpectroDrone system uses a laser source which emits several wavelengths, a laser range finder and a high-resolution camera. This is combined with an algorithm which the company claims allows for detection sensitivity while reducing both false negatives and false positives.
13 Amazing Technological Advances That Are Changing Your World
As the future barrels toward us, new issues arise every day. These exciting inventions are working to combat the world’s problems — proof that #Israelisonit.
1. Desalination: making salt water drinkable
2. Illusive Networks: a system to beat cybercrime
3. IceCure: freezing breast tumors to death
4. Fast ACL: a new knee implant that gets you up in no time.
5. Waze: an app that helps people help each other find their way
6. Gagomers: a system that increases the accuracy of chemotherapy
7. Antibacterial nanoparticles: keeping hospitals safer with fabric
8. PillCam: a way to finally see the small intestine
9. Mobileye: a car camera that sees what you don’t
10. ReWalk: a metal exoskeleton to help the disabled walk
11. WeCU: able to read the mind of potential terrorists
12. Like-a-Fish: lets divers breathe underwater without a tank
13. Implantable Miniature Telescope: helping people with macular degeneration see better
World’s oldest Ten Commandments sold for $850,000
The world’s earliest-known complete stone inscription of the Ten Commandments, described as a “national treasure” of Israel, sold at auction in Beverly Hills for $850,000.
Heritage Auctions said the two-foot square marble slab sold Wednesday night at a public auction of ancient Biblical archaeology artifacts.
The tablet weighs about 115 pounds and is inscribed in an early Hebrew script called Samaritan.
It likely adorned the entrance of a synagogue that was destroyed by the Romans between CE 400 and 600, or by the Crusaders in the 11th century, said David Michaels, Heritage Auctions director of ancient coins and antiquities.
The auction house said the Israeli Antiquities Authorities approved export of the piece to the United States in 2005. The only condition was that it must be displayed in a public museum.
“The sale of this tablet does not mean it will be hidden away from the public,” Michaels said. “The new owner is under obligation to display the tablet for the benefit of the public.”
Schindler’s Czech Factory, Used to Save More Than 1,000 Jews During WWII, to Become a Museum
After years of disuse and political controversy, a textile factory in the Czech Republic once used by Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist known for rescuing more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis during World War II, will finally be given new life as a Holocaust memorial and museum.
“Our aim is to restore the building to its original condition, including the watchtower,” Jaroslav Novak, head of the Shoah and Oskar Schindler Foundation, which previously bought the building, told Agence France-Presse.
Schindler is credited with saving at least 1,200 Jews from Hitler’s concentration camps by convincing the Nazis to allow them to work at his textiles, enamelware, and munitions factories in Poland and Czechoslovakia as skilled workers. He died in 1974.
His story was famously portrayed in the 1994 Steven Spielberg film, Schindler’s List, as well as Tom Keneally’s Booker Prize-winning 1982 novel Schindler’s Ark.
However, while Schindler’s factory near Krakow, Poland, would go on to become a monument, his other facility in the small town of Brněnec, a village about 130 miles southeast of Prague, would face a protracted legal battle over ownership that resulted in the building falling into disrepair.
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