Archive for The Diaspora

Israel’s National Library Receives Rare Ethiopian Torah

 

Used by the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Ethiopia’s Tigray province around 400 years ago, the Orit, translated from Hebrew to Ge’ez, contains the 5 books of Moses, the books of Joshua, Judges & Ruth.

By Yori Yalon

 

A rare copy of the “Orit,” the Ethiopian Jewish Torah, was delivered last week to the National Library of Israel in a festive ceremony full of singing and dancing.

A rare copy of the “Orit,” the Ethiopian Jewish Torah – Photo Courtesy of the National Library of Israel

The scroll, translated from Hebrew to Ge’ez, was written around 400 years ago and used by the spiritual leader of the Jewish community in Ethiopia’s Tigray province, Isaac Yaso. Continue Reading »

Palestinians attend Memorial, for political agenda, not support after attack

 

Three examples of the anti-Israel obsession captured at memorial for Brussels victims, including French TV’s live broadcast of woman wearing hijab seen tearing up Israeli flag placed there in solidarity, then hiding it.

By Itamar Eichner

 

A pro-Palestinian activist on Wednesday removed and tore up an Israeli flag placed at Place de la Bourse Square in Brussels in solidarity with the victims of the terror attack in the Belgian capital while French TV channel RTL was broadcasting live from the square. 

The French network was broadcasting one of the spontaneous memorial services at the scene of the attack when a woman wearing a hijab was seen on camera removing the flag from among the flags of other countries, crumpling it, and tearing it up. Continue Reading »

VIDEO: UK’s PM Cameron tells Labour Party to ‘sort out’ its anti-Semitism

 

WATCH: British Prime Minister Cameron fiercely condemned the growth of anti-Semitism in UK’s Labour party, and turned to face Jeremy Corbyn demanding he take responsibility for his party, that “he should sort it out.”

By Ari Bashar

 

UK Prime Minister David Cameron issued sharp criticism of the Labour party Wednesday, given the large number of members recently exposed making anti-Semitic comments and the party’s unwillingness to take action against them.

In parliament, Mike Freer of the Conservative party asked Cameron if he agrees that all organizations “public and private” should root out anti-Semitism, in a timely statement given the Labour party’s recent association with anti-Semitism. Continue Reading »

Brussels Police Cancel Purim

 

Following the Islamic terrorist attacks  Belgian police requested that the Jewish community cancel their Purim celebrations due to the police’s fear of additional terrorists in the area, and their inability to protect the Jewish community.

By Kobi Nachshoni

 

Following the attacks at the airport and subway station in Brussels Tuesday morning, the Jewish community has cancelled its Purim celebrations at the behest of the police.

Brussels metro bombing

Over a thousand members of the Jewish community were supposed to attend the megillah reading (reading of the Book of Esther – ed.) at the Great Synagogue of Europe followed by a performance by the Gat Brothers who arrived from Israel for the occasion. Continue Reading »

Protesters descend on AIPAC conference to call on US to end aid to Israel

 

Ahead of contested Trump appearance at AIPAC conference, 300 pro-Palestinian activists gathered brandishing placards & flags, protesting the conference & calling on Washington to end all aid to Israel.

By i24news

 

Anti-Israel protesters descended on Washington on Sunday, as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) policy conference was set to kick off.

A group of around 300 pro-Palestinian activists gathered brandishing flags and placards, protesting the conference and calling on the US to end aid to Israel.

Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump denies that his outspoken remarks have created a climate of violence. Photo: Rhona Wise/AFP

The AIPAC policy conference, the largest pro-Israel talk shop in America, is set to open later on Sunday, and will address a range of issues including US-Israel relations, the Iranian nuclear deal, the Syrian civil war and peace talks, the threat of the Islamic State, and the latest developments athroughout the Middle East. Continue Reading »

Manhattan Rabbi reports NYPD disregarded multiple Mezuzah thefts

 

Rabbi Hertz claims that New York police officers were disrespectful & disregarded his complaint of the stolen mezuzah from his Manhattan home, as hardly being property theft.

By Ben Shaul, Shoshana Miskin

 

Jewish organizations in New York have expressed dissatisfaction that the Manhattan Police did not adequately address the complainant that a mezuzah, a scroll inscribed with religious texts mounted on the doorpost, was stolen from a rabbi’s home.

According to Rabbi Tzvi Herschel Hertz, who resides in Manhattan’s Inwood neighborhood, his home is not the first in the area to have their mezuzah torn off its doorpost. Continue Reading »

British Report: EU using taxpayers’ money on illegal Palestinian construction, ‘meddling’ in Area C

 

view videoBritish daily reports the EU has used taxpayer’s aid money to ‘meddle’ in a foreign territorial dispute by building over 1,000 illegal structures for Arab squatters in areas of Judea & Samaria, that under the 1993 Oslo Accords, fall under full Israeli jurisdiction.

By Eli Leon, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff

 

The European Union has funded the construction of over 1,000 buildings across Area C in Judea and Samaria, giving ownership of them to the Palestinians, the British Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

The EU is reportedly using aid money to “‘meddle’ in a foreign territorial dispute” [Illustrative] – Screenshot

Under the 1993 Oslo Accords, Area C, which makes up some 60% of Judea and Samaria, is under full Israeli control. Continue Reading »

Britain’s Secretary of State for Justice Calls BDS Actions, ‘Methods of Apartheid’

 

“BDS succeeds because people don’t understand that the organization doesn’t exist to help the Palestinians, nor does it protest against specific Israeli policy, rather it is in complete opposition to the existence of the State of Israel.”

By i24news

 

Britain’s Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove on Tuesday slammed the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, calling the group ‘prejudiced’ against Israel and accusing it of encouraging apartheid through its methods.

BDS supporters, London 2009 – Claudia Gabriela Marques Vieira/ Wikipedia

“Israel is dealing with a prejudiced, systematic attack against its existence. The BDS movement, which claims that it is working against apartheid, in retrospect is using methods of apartheid in that it calls for the shunning of Jewish academics, the boycott of Jewish goods, the de-legitimization of Jewish commerce. Continue Reading »

MIT Economics Review Show Renaissance Regions That Didn’t Exile Jews Fair Better Today Financially

A newly published study in MIT’s The Review of Economics & Statistics reveal that Jews, who became Europe’s moneylenders in the 16th century, established the first banks, financed int’l trade, and established letters of credit, all leading to better economies today.

By Ynet

 

Over half a millennium may have passed, but regions that did not expel Jews during the Renaissance era have measurably better economies than those that did.

Jews became moneylenders in the 16th century

Throughout Europe, regions expelled Jewish communities from medieval times and into the Renaissance. In a new study published in MIT’s The Review of Economics and Statistics, Professor Luigi Pascali found that cities that permitted Jewish communities to thrive have GDPs of up to 10 percent higher than those that expelled them. Continue Reading »

Dustin Hoffman cries when leaning family were Jewish refugees of Soviet brutality

 

Dustin Hoffman tears saying, ‘I am a Jew…They all survived for me to be here,’ speaking about his family’s secret: the painful struggle, escaping the gulag of the Soviet Union.

By Ari Soffer

 

Oscar-winning actor Dustin Hoffman’s father never spoke about his family’s painful past as Jewish refugees from Soviet brutality.

But in a recent episode of PBS’s Finding Your Roots, the 78-year-old star finally uncovered the truth.

Hoffman broke down in tears as show host Henry Louis Gates Jr. showed him medical records belonging to his great-grandmother Libba, who against all odds managed to enter the US despite having lost an arm and part of her eyesight during a harsh, five-year stint in a Russian communist concentration camp, or gulag. Continue Reading »

#BDSfail: Austrian student association rejects BDS, rebukes American & British universities

 

Rejection of BDS by the University of Vienna student group is believed to the first major European student organization opposing all the anti-Semitic & anti-Israel academic initiatives in Europe & the US.

 

Berlin – Student association at the University of Vienna issued a statement on Wednesday, declaring their opposition to every form of anti-Semitism, including the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement targeting Israel.

Members of the young Jewish community attend a commemoration ceremony for Holocaust victims in front of the synagogue in Vienna [File] – Photo: REUTERS


“As student representatives it is important for us to criticize the academic boycott against Israel, which entirely excludes Israeli academics,” the student council of the University of Vienna said. Continue Reading »

Columbia University bans ‘pro-Israel’ display during nationwide BDS week

Some hint of racial bias at Columbia University student government for banning the pro-Israel display, as chair of the student gov’t and keffiyeh sporting vice-chair, are both members of Students for Justice in Palestine.

By David Rosenberg

 

It’s “Israel Apartheid Week” at college campuses around the world as BDS activists organize displays, activities, and teach-ins to delegitimize Israel. At Columbia University, Apartheid Week organizers even managed to have the opposition banned.

BDS displays – Photo: Lance Laytner

The opposition in this case are pro-Israel students looking to give their peers on campus the other side of the story.

On Tuesday the Columbia student government ordered a display erected by Artists 4 Israel to be removed, claiming it was “offensive” to some students. Continue Reading »

Did Palestinian Embassy in Bulgaria throw wanted PFLP terrorist out the window?

 

Omar Nayef Zayed, convicted in Israel of murdering student Eliyahu Amadi in 1986, escape prison & fled to Bulgaria, was found gravely wounded in the garden of the Palestinian embassy in Sofia, before dying of his wounds.

By Elior Levy, Itamar Eichner

 

Wanted terrorist Omar Nayef Zayed was found dead at the Palestinian embassy in Bulgaria, local media reported on Friday morning.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) member Zayed, 51, was convicted along with two others of the murder of yeshiva student Eliyahu Amadi at Jerusalem’s Old City in 1986, when he was 22 years old.  Continue Reading »

Five Chinese Jews make Aliyah after millennia in exile 

 

view videoFive women from Kaifeng, China, who reconnected with their ancient Jewish roots, have their ‘prayers answered’ by returning home, with the help of Jerusalem-based Shavei Israel.

By Arutz Sheva Staff

 

In the first Aliyah from the ancient Chinese Jewish community of Kaifeng in the last seven years, five women from the community are scheduled to arrive in Israel next Monday, returning to the Jewish homeland after thousands of years of exile.

The women, Gao Yichen (“Weiwei”), Yue Ting, Li Jing, Li Yuan, and Li Chengjin (“Lulu”), have been intensively studying Hebrew and Judaism for the last several years in Kaifeng to reconnect to their Jewish roots, and are now being brought back home by the Jerusalem-based nonprofit Shavei Israel. Continue Reading »

#BDSfail: British authorities remove anti-Israel ads from London Underground trains

 

Around 500 anti-Israel posters nefariously placed on London’s Tube as part of BDS’s ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ sparks outrage.
• PM Netanyahu rejects Knesset member Lapid’s claim of credit for the removal of the posters.

By Shlomo Cesana, Israel Hayom Staff & Reuters

 

Around 500 anti-Israel posters are being removed from London Underground trains after sparking outrage that echoed all the way from the British capital to Jerusalem.

Anti-Israel posters on a London Underground train

The posters were put up by pro-Palestinian activists as part of the annual “Israel Apartheid Week,” which began in the United Kingdom on Sunday.

A spokeswoman for Transport for London, the authority responsible for the underground “Tube” network, said the ads had been posted without authorization and constituted “an act of vandalism which we take extremely seriously.” Continue Reading »