[Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News] 11/27 Links Pt2: Chloe Valdary: Who Are the Real Racists in Israel?; Al-Dura Long Range Ballistic Myth

From Ian:

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Chloe Valdary: Who Are the Real Racists in Israel?

Unfortunately, in Stewart and Erbs’s world, inversion is in vogue. Protection from racists becomes racism and a person’s right to defend himself is eroded, turning victims into victimizers.
To make matters worse, Stewart and Erb represent an organization that has no qualms about preventing Jewish communities from being established in the West Bank. According to J Street’s website, the very presence of Jewish communities, “undermines the prospects for peace by making Palestinians doubt Israeli motives and commitment.” Erb specifically writes in The Jewish Week that Jewish communities, “fuel inter-group tensions.” To wit, according to Erb, the presence of Jews in certain areas is itself a provocation; it is Jews who are responsible for the incitement against them.
That Stewart and Erb arrogate to themselves the authority to give commentary on the issue of “segregation” when they actively advocate for the establishment of a state which, according to them, must segregate Jews before it comes into fruition, illustrates the absurdity of their own hypocrisy.
And this is what their appraisal of Israeli policy ultimately boils down to: an excess of hyper-idealistic solipsism whereby members of a mutual admiration society think that referencing the name of a prominent civil rights leader means they are just like them. Yet, Dr. King understood fundamentally that a persecuted people will grow tired; they will grow tired of being pelted with stones; they will grow tired of having their children run over with cars; they will grow tired of having their soldiers stabbed to death while they sleep. “So in the midst of their tiredness, these people … rise up and protest against injustice.”
Security officials says that this policy seeks to address that injustice. Perhaps it isn’t the right one; perhaps it is. But one thing is certain: Stewart and Erb’s faux righteous indignation are categorically not.

Book Review for Al-Dura: Long Range Ballistic Myth

This event, which came to be known as the al-Dura affair, is the starting point for Nidra Poller’s 288 page intellectual journey, Al-Dura: Long Range Ballistic Myth.
Poller, an American writer based in Paris, traces the repeated attempts by the state-owned French television station to intimidate via legal measures anyone who publicly questioned the authenticity of the event. The French courtroom thus becomes the stage where an obvious fabrication, masquerading as earnest journalism, is transformed into an indisputable fact.
Although the repeated stifling of objectively sound criticism helped to reveal the true nature of French journalism, especially in its biased depiction of Israel, the damage caused by the original incident in Netzarim was already done and the results were deadly.

A Decade Later, "The New Anti-Semitism" Comes of Age

When I began reading Professor Phyllis Chesler's updated book "The New Anti-Semitism", I seemed to hear a collective sigh saying "this hasn't come a minute too soon." And thanks to the excellent research and prophetic analysis of the acclaimed author, lecturer and activist, the reader is afforded the necessary context and perspective with which to understand the invidious phenomenon of contemporary Jew hatred.
Originally written over a decade ago, Chesler's premise was and still is that classical anti-Semitism as espoused by such nihilists and evil madmen as Hitler and the scores that preceded him has now been deemed to be "politically correct" by the trendy denizens of Western academia and the "intellectual" crowd.
Chesler was among the first to have seen and denounced the suicidal alliance between Western intelligentsia and fundamental Islam. The anti-Semite needed a new and more acceptable veneer and the tiny place on the globe known as Israel could serve as the perfect cover. So Zionism does not equal racism, but anti-Zionism does. In fact, it is part of what makes the new anti-Semitism "new."

IsraellyCool: Video: Vile Anti-Israel Palestinian Propaganda Movie Co-Opts Anne Frank

We are already used to the Israel haters co-opting Anne Frank for their propaganda, but seeing this still shocked me.
To make matters worse, when I initially saw the footage, I thought the part with Branko Lustig had been inserted from another documentary without his permission. Seems I was wrong.
I am truly saddened some of those who say ‘Never Again’ are helping the cause of those who want ‘Again.’

Cornell Students Respond to Anti-Israel Bigotry on Campus

Baer, a CAMERA on Campus fellow, and Shaked write in the Cornell Sun:
The day immediately following the synagogue massacre, Students for Justice in Palestine held a sympathy demonstration for Palestinians who have to be checked at these security checkpoints. Instead of condemning the killings of innocent civilians, they brought in an activist from outside the Cornell community to increase tensions and called for the boycott, divestment and sanctioning of Israel, specifically the severance of Cornell’s ties with the Technion, an Israeli university. SJP’s signs, banners, chants and curses mislead and inflame the opinion of the Cornell community with false and out-of-context information.
In response to this twisted, one-sided presentation of Israel and Israeli policy, a small group of pro-Israel students responded peacefully bearing signs that stated, “Israel is invested in peace.” SJP members and non-Cornell affiliated adult protesters then subjected some of these students to excessive harassment. The peaceful signs pro-Israel students held up were ripped out of their hands, torn and smeared with ketchup by protesters. Protesters affiliated with SJP stood within inches of students’ faces, yelling curses and obscenities, such as “Zionist scum.”
But one of the most threatening and terrifying quotes chanted repeatedly by the SJP protesters was, “We will respond to aggression with aggression.” Wednesday’s rally was not an isolated incident. Three weeks ago, SJP members followed students around Central Campus until the police thankfully stepped in to ensure these students’ safety. At the protest on Wednesday, police were on Ho Plaza to prevent the threats of violence and the harassment from escalating into physical attacks. SJP brings the Palestinian aggression against Israel to campus repeatedly and we, as Cornellians, won’t stand for it.

“I will f**king slap you” – More Cornell anti-Israel intimidation

We previously posted video of anti-Israel protesters getting in the face (literally) of pro-Israel students at Cornell who were holding counter-protest signs, Cornell Pro-Israel students taunted: “F**k You Zionist scums”.
The incident depicted in the prior video actually was the second incident of the day, I have learned.
Prior to that confrontation, Ilan Kaplan, a Cornell student on leave but who is still active in the Cornell Jewish community, alleges he was accosted as he held a sign, had his sign torn out of his hands, had water thrown on him, and was threatened. Here is my interview with Kaplan:

WaPo Presses Propaganda Button on Temple Mount

What Booth fails to report – the real reason why Jordan is making negative noises about its ties with Israel – is that Palestinians constitute about half of Jordan’s population. From King Abdullah II on down, it’s good Jordanian domestic politics to slam Israel – without necessarily taking any serious actions.
Witness the ending of Booth’s piece, where he quotes Jordan’s information minister as saying, “His majesty has said we will use everything in our power. We’ve told the world we are not going to take it.”
But in the same breath, the information minister declares that the Jordanian government is “continuing to negotiate the Israeli natural gas deal.” When it comes to a multi-billion-dollar affair that’s beneficial to Jordan, Amman is not about to abandon its own national interests.
Booth’s tendentious article is an affront to Post readers – feeding them not facts, but anti-Israel poison pills.

NYT Editorial Actually Condemns the World, not Israel

Similarly, the relevant League of Nations resolution included the following significant clause: “Whereas recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." No such recognition of Arab rights in Palestine was granted.
In 1945, the United Nations took over from the failed League of Nations - and assumed the latter's obligations. Article 80 of the UN Charter states: "Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed, in or of itself, to alter in any manner the rights whatsoever of any states or any peoples or the terms of existing international instruments to which Members of the United Nations may respectively be parties."
Clearly, then, Israel was created with international legitimacy that specifically gives national rights there only to Jews.
The word "heartbreaking" should better be reserved for the way The New York Times frequently, with regard to Israel, erases the boundaries between news and editorials.

New opportunities for Israel in Europe

Imagine that one morning, a Likud MK stands up and declares he is fed up with the Likud, that it no longer represents the values it was founded on, and that he is switching to the Bayit Yehudi Party. Well, that is exactly what happened last September in England, when not one but two members of the Conservative Party announced their defection to UKIP.
This phenomenon represents some major changes in the political map of Europe, as huge numbers of voters are tired of the European Union economic and political policies. All over Europe, euroskeptic parties are on the rise, presenting their new vision for Europe.
For us Israelis it is even more interesting, as these parties are not shy about declaring their devotion to the State of Israel, based on what they call “Judeo-Christian” values.
Events of recent months in England serve as a great example of this phenomenon.

British town council votes to ban all Israeli goods, in defiance of Labor policy

Leicester is the UK’s 10th largest city, situated in the middle of the England, and has a population of 330,000, of whom approximately 93,000 are first or second generation immigrants from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh. Some 61,000, about 19% of the city’s population, are Muslims, making it the 11th largest concentration of Muslims in the UK.
Its dwindling Jewish community was – at the last census taken in 2012 – just 295 strong, representing 0.1% of the population.
The resolution calling for a ban on Israeli goods was proposed by Councilor Mohammed Dawood and was passed by the city council on November 13.
The motion’s preamble said that Leicester was “renowned for its tolerance, diversity, unity and its strong stance against all forms of discrimination,” which it stated “enables different communities to live together.”
Justifying the motion, Dawood added that was important that “when there is oppression and injustices, that Leicester City Council takes up a position to support communities experiencing such inequalities and in this instance it is the plight of the Palestinian people.”
The Jerusalem Post also understands that another Midlands town council, that of Dudley, near Birmingham, has a similarly worded resolution coming before it next week, and that, emboldened by the recent parliamentary nonbinding vote favoring recognition of a Palestinian state, other local authority councils may well follow suit.
Luke Akehurst, the director of “We believe in Israel,” the UK’s major support organization for Israel and a former Labor councilor and member of Labor’s National Executive, told the Post that he was surprised and disappointed to see a local authority making “such an contentious and unhelpful intervention in a complex international conflict.”
He added that he had hoped that Leicester City Council would have had more regard for local community cohesion and would have realized that gestures such as the resolution were “divisive.”

Ed Miliband defends Labour support for Palestine recognition

Labour leader Ed Miliband has defended his party’s support for the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Mr Miliband told pro-Palestinian activists that he was proud to support a backbench motion in the Commons last month which urged the government to acknowledge statehood immediately.
Speaking at a gala dinner for the Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East group, he said recognition was “right, just, fair and in line with the values” of his party.
Mr Miliband said he “mourned” the deaths of more than 2,000 people in Gaza and Israel during Hamas’ conflict with Israel in July and August.
He condemned the murders in a Har Nof synagogue in Jerusalem last week as "outrageous", and again expressed his opposition to boycotts of Israel.
More than 100 supporters of the Sussex Friends of Israel group protested outside the dinner. Demonstrators also attended from Manchester and Glasgow. The rally was organised alongside the Pro-Israel Response Group.

Student gov't rep compares pro-Israel group to KKK

The University of Minnesota’s graduate student representative to the Board of Regents compared Students Supporting Israel (SSI) to the Ku Klux Klan in a series of emails obtained by Campus Reform.
Damien Carriere labeled SSI a “hate group” in emails sent to U of M’s student government executive board in a campaign to remove the founder of the pro-Israel group from the Student Services Committee, a committee which is responsible for the distribution of millions of dollars in funds to various student groups.
“[Ilan Sinelnikov’] is a member of a hate group (SSI) and I think he comes in with a fishy agenda,” Carriere wrote in one email circulated between the undergraduate and graduate student governments.
The emails to the executive board of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly (GAPSA) continued, and as some members of the board began questioning his classification of SSI as a hate group, Carriere wrote that the Student Services Committee "would fund a KKK group if they justify their request well. So let us consider that they do pass the student group test.”
Carriere explains in the emails that SSI is a hate group because the students belong “to a certain ideology which is present among some citizens of that state that has been refusing rights to minorities outside of the recognized borders of that country.”

Anti-Israel activists shuting down free speech on campus

On 11/20/14 at approximately 5:30 p.m. an unknown race male entered the Stockton campus of San Joaquin Delta College and defaced approximately 12 posters advertising an upcoming event. The posters were placed by the Christians United for Israel Club.
The male who did the defacing was wearing a grey beanie, dark sweatshirt, grey pants, black backpack and black shoes.
If you recognize this person, please contact the District Police Department at (209)954-5000. Reference CR# 14-0443 and ask for Officer Kim.
Vandalism. Shutting down free speech on campus. Where have we seen this before?

Welcome to Pallywood; Tortured Palestinian prisoner edition

Welcome to Pallywood, the term used for invented atrocities, mis-captioned photos and staged events that have been especially created to demonize Israel, the only democracy in the middle east.
This might be the worst of the worst. We're talking turkey, right here.
This photo is making the rounds on social media, via Facebook and Twitter. It purports to be Tzahal prison guards torturing a poor innocent Palestinian.
The prisoner doesn't look like he's being tortured, but that's the least of the issues here. Tzahal does not administer the Israeli prison system.
What really says "low production value" to me is the paper armband. Scrawled on with sharpie.

Senator Bullock slams boycotters, media bias and double standards

Last Tuesday, two Palestinian terrorists entered a Jerusalem synagogue armed with a pistol and meat cleavers, killing four Jewish worshippers and critically injuring several others.
The victims were Moshe Twersky, Arieh Kupinsky, Kalman Levine and Avraham Goldberg.
All of them committed no greater sin than going to pray at their house of worship and of course, being Jewish.
My thoughts are with the families of the victims - and in particular, their twenty-four fatherless children – but they are also with all citizens of Israel and with the entire Jewish community.
We’ve seen repeated attacks on Israel from all sides. We’ve seen the continued and unrelenting campaign of terror and of rocket attacks by groups like Hamas.
Beyond Israel itself, there is a rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe and across the world. There is an increasing belligerence by groups and individuals promoting ideas such as ‘Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions’. Media bias, whether by omission or commission, influences the reporting of events in the Middle East including the military action in Gaza.
And there are the double standards of many in our community who claim to be interested only in “human rights” but whose real agenda is to attack Israel.
Too many public voices, even here in Australia, rush to condemn Israel – but are nowhere to be heard when attacks like these are committed.
The climate this creates is unbalanced and fertile ground for anti-Semitism.

The Extremist, Radical New Israel Fund

While the news broke that Birthright will no longer work with the radical, extremist organization New Israel Fund (NIF), one may look behind the headlines and wonder why. Simply, NIF stands against the State of Israel & the Israel Defense Forces every step of the way. Their grantee, Adalah, which has been given $1,673,634 by NIF in the last 5 years, recently launched a “Discriminatory Laws in Israel” database on its website. This campaign is part and parcel of describing Israel as a racist nation and simply meant to demonize the State of Israel.
NIF’s international council includes Amos Oz, an extremist with views well outside the consensus of Israeli politics, who sent an imprisoned terrorist a personalized signed copy of his book and was barred from appearing at Assaf Harofeh Hospital to give the keynote speech at an awards ceremony. He has called for boycotts of certain areas of Israel and shamefully said that the capital of Israel, Jerusalem, “is moving in the direction of Qum, in Iran,” referring to his nation’s religious nature. Another international council member, Avram Burg, is a disgraced former politician who has had numerous financial scandals and was forced to the sidelines as part of the Israeli democratic process. He has suggested amending Israel’s Law of Return and once said, “to define the State of Israel as a Jewish state is the key to its end. A Jewish state is explosive. It’s dynamite.”
These extremists are rightfully rejected among the Israeli public – so they travel the world raising money from people opposed to the Jewish State. They fool well-meaning American donors into giving them funds in a quest for “human rights.”

Birthright Israel Terminates Partnership With Controversial New Israel Fund

The NIF has often courted controversy because of its funding of radical groups in Israel, some of whom are connected to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that targets Israeli academics and businesses.
According to the Israeli watchdog NGO Monitor, “The New Israel Fund (NIF) is the largest and most powerful non-governmental source of support for Israeli civil society organizations, providing funding and organizational/political assistance. In 2012 (the latest available information), NIF authorized $17.6 million in grants for Israeli NGOs (non-governmental organizations).”
“Allegations by NIF-funded groups are frequently used to advance anti-Israel BDS (boycotts, divestment, and sanctions) activism – the claims of these groups are used to justify demonization,” NGO Monitor says. “For instance, the UC Berkeley divestment campaign (April 2013) referenced B’Tselem, Adalah, and PHR-I as documenting ‘ongoing human rights violations systematically committed by the Israeli government.’ We also note that previous NIF funding for radical anti-Israel groups (ICAHD, Coalition of Women for Peace, Mada al-Carmel, Al-Qaws, etc.), which has ended, continued for years and caused significant damage, including, for example, the decision by Dutch pension funds to divest from Israeli banks in January 2014.”

‘Things Remembered’ Sells Globes That Wipe Israel From Map

If you shop at Things Remembered, the store that specializes in personalized gifts, beware.
The retail giant, which has approximately 650 stores nationwide, sells globes that deny or downplay Israel’s existence in favor of a non-existent state, “Palestine.”
CAMERA first learned about this on Monday November 24, when a supporter reported what she found in the chain’s store on Staten Island. She reports that out of the seven globes for sale, four included a reference to Palestine where Israel should have been. The other three globes included a reference to Israel.
Just to confirm that this was not a fluke, a CAMERA employee visited Things Remembered at the Arsenal Mall in Watertown and found a similar problem with the globes on display at that store as well. Two globes included references to “Palestine.”

An ISIS Flag, Israeli Flags, And The Murder of Jews

On the Berkeley campus just yesterday, a tuition hike occupy protest put up signs calling for "justice in Palestine" and Palestinian flags. The protestors related the alleged plight of Palestinians at the hands of Israel to the tuition increase by the UC Board of Regents. One sign read "From Ferguson to Gaza, Let the Fires Burn."
In response to Palestinian flags being put up by students all over (inside and outside) Wheeler Hall (one of the main buildings on campus), someone put an Israeli flag up next to the Palestinian flag draped on the exterior of the building. That flag only lasted around 10 minutes before disappearing. The students that hung the flag do not know what happened to it.

Daily Beast Points Fingers at Israel

Turns out, the article was based on a tour by Breaking the Silence, a political organization that presents itself as a human rights group. If that’s the case, the writer should have pointed this out at the start of the piece, not the very end.
But what does one make of the claim that “Goldstein happened yesterday” for the Palestinians when in actual fact, the Synagogue Massacre in Har Nof really happened to Israelis three days earlier? It is impossible to read it as anything other than a justification, after the fact, for the Palestinian violence.
A few days later, the Daily Beast published another piece justifying Palestinian violence. In this case, it was the attempted assassination of Yehuda Glick, an advocate for the right of Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount.
The piece takes a sympathetic look at the plight of the assassin’s family, whose home was to be demolished on order of the Israeli government. But the article goes much farther than expressing empathy for the demolition order. It allows the family to presents the terrorist, Muataz Hijazi, as essentially a victim of Israel.

Boston Globe's Farah Stockman: Israel to Blame for Slaughter of Jews

Ignore, for now, that Stockman brazenly inverts reality, pretending the "separation" preceded violence when in fact it clearly followed it, both in the short term in Issawiya and in the longer history of Israeli-Palestinian relations since 1967. Instead, consider how she explains away the murders.
It is the Jews of Israel, Stockman tells us, who are responsible for a pogrom against the Jews in Israel. Of course, this is no less vile than the proposition — however many times the proponent repeats that it is an explanation and not an excuse — that the NAACP should be blamed for the lynching of blacks, or feminists for the rape of women.
The sliver lining, for those inclined toward optimism, is that the conversation might be leaving Stockman behind. Observers have begun noticing and critiquing what Alan Johnson describes as the "exculpatory impulse" toward one side of the conflict. Johnson refers to a world view in which "Palestinians (and Arabs in general) do not have agency and choice, and so cannot be held accountable and responsible. Israelis do and can; always, and exclusively." It is, he continues, a racist and orientalist way of looking at the conflict:

Distorting the News of Jerusalem Terror

In its gallery of photos of the synagogue massacre, the Associated Press does not include a single picture of the devastation itself, though many such photographs were available from Israeli news outlets and across social media. By contrast, BBC and AP did not shy away from graphic imagery during the Gaza war. Indeed, they seemed to seek out casualties, endlessly replaying scenes from Gaza.
These story-lines are built from distortions. No matter how much support terrorists receive from Palestinian leaders, other countries, and from the specific groups that sponsor the killing, the perpetrators appear as isolated individuals up against the powerful State of Israel.
And bizarrely, the murder of Jews praying in a synagogue or Israelis waiting at a bus stop is equalized with the resulting deaths of terrorists themselves. The CNN headline, “4 Israelis, 2 Palestinians dead…” alludes to this pattern.

News Coverage of the Jerusalem Synagogue Murders Facilitate Anti-Semitism

When the major news reporters viewed around the world cannot report the truth of what occurred accurately and fairly, why would one be surprised that anti-Semites who “report” gross lies and distortions on social media are able to do so with impunity and credibility?
How did these two instances happen? Bad judgment? Bad reporting? I think not. I think these are two examples among many of the pervasive anti-Israeli perspective in the media that caused the involved writers and reporters to assume that the Jews were the perpetrators and the Palestinians the victims. It is a narrative that the media finds appealing. However, in finding every opportunity to cast Jews as the perpetrators of harm to Palestinians, they ignore the facts, ignore the contribution of Jewish values to the betterment of the world and instead dehumanize Jews in a way that that underlies the growing trend toward the acceptance of anti-Semitism as justified in too many areas of the world. The harmful results of such reporting are far more significant to the Jewish world than a media correction and apology can possibly repair.
It is time for the media in all its forms to recognize the impact of its words and images upon the growth of anti-Semitism and to change this course before it is too late.

Michael Bell Fans the Flames of Hatred

In the backdrop of one of the worst terror attacks in Israel in recent years that saw four Israeli Rabbis brutally murdered in cold blood while praying at their synagogue, an act incited by Palestinian leaders and carried out by Palestinian terrorists, Michael Bell irresponsibly fanned the flames of hatred by raising the spectre of a “bus driver’s possible lynching” in Israel.
In a November 19 Globe and Mail column, Bell failed to indicate that an autopsy has confirmed that the driver, 32-year-old Youssef al-Ramouni, committed suicide by hanging himself in his bus. There is no evidence to suggest that a “lynching” even occurred, a matter Israeli police have confirmed saying no foul play took place. Furthermore, the Palestinian forensic examiner who took part in the autopsy agreed that Arab bus driver hung himself.
At a time of increasing tensions and renewed fears of continued onslaughts of Palestinian terror, Mr. Bell should not add gasoline to this fire.

Batten down the Hatches! Beinart Tells Us The Orthodox are Taking Over The American Jewish Establishment!

I mean really, Peter, how do you know there’s been a shift at all? Maybe this was always the policy of the American Jewish establishment?
And why is this imagined shift in American Jewish politics taking place? Peter can tell us why: the younger generation of secular Jews are ashamed of Israel’s policies and so ignore Israel. Filling the void are young Orthodox hordes (and Sheldon Adelson!) who cite God for every right-wing policy choice.
Could it be because secular Jews have largely failed at inculcating their children with a sense of Jewish pride and continuity, and so their youth is largely indifferent to Israel, as they are with all other things Jewish?
And where does Peter get the notion that young Orthodox Jews are filling the ranks of the American Jewish establishment, and citing the Bible as their final authority? Peter, do you just make this stuff up as you go along?

India marks six years since Mumbai attacks

India on Wednesday marked six years since militants stormed Mumbai in three days of horror that left 166 people dead, as survivors said they would never be “beaten back by terror.”
At the Chabad House Jewish center, a high-profile target where six people were killed, an official said its reopening in August showed its community would “never be beaten back by terror.”
“Followers of the movement passing through here have been lighting a single candle for the past week in remembrance of the people slain in this disaster,” Naftali Charter, head of security at the center, told AFP.
A memorial for all of the victims of the Mumbai attacks is being built on the center’s roof and will be “finished shortly,” Charter said.

Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum Launches Virtual Tour of Death Camp

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum this week launched a virtual tour on its website, where visitors can wander around the former death camp and view high-quality, panoramic images of the booths and camp exhibits, Israel’s NRG News said Wednesday.
The virtual tour project was under development in recent years, and was completed in time for the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the death camp complex by the Red Army, which will be commemorated this coming January.
Auschwitz served the Nazis as an extermination camp, from June 1940 to January 1945, and held some 150,000 inmates at any given time.

Simon Wiesenthal Lives Again on the New York Stage (REVIEW)

Simon Wiesenthal’s entire life was driven by one word: passion. A passion to cling to life and hope during the Holocaust, a passion to bring thousands of Nazi criminals to justice after the war, and a passion to create a world where goodness is rewarded and evil is punished.
Therefore, it is quite fitting that Tom Dugan’s performance in the one-man show “Wiesenthal” is driven entirely by passion. Dugan – who also wrote the play and is not Jewish – clearly loves Wiesenthal, and is determined to bring this hero’s story to the stage.
And for all his modesty (and his flaws), Wiesenthal truly was a hero. The horrors he endured to survive the Holocaust qualify him for that title alone. But it is what he did after the Holocaust that distinguished him not only from other survivors, but from most of the world. Wiesenthal refused to let sleeping dogs lie and allow Nazi war criminals to go unpunished (whereas America, Israel, and much of the Jewish community seemed to accept this as an unfortunate reality).

Yotpo partners with GoDaddy

Tel-Aviv based Yotpo, a reviews and marketing solution for eCommerce stores, recently partnered with GoDaddy, the giant internet domain registrar and web hosting company, to make it easy for small businesses to build their online stores.
Clients using GoDaddy Online Store will now get the product with Yotpo built-in, allowing store owners to start generating reviews from the moment they make their first sale.
“We’re thrilled about partnering with GoDaddy, a one-stop-shop for small business owners looking to build an online store. Bringing together a great, affordable eCommerce platform and tons of product reviews allows customers using GoDaddy online stores to get a head start by effortlessly integrating the most important tools they need for getting sales: a professional store and lots of product reviews,” said Tomer Tagrin, Yotpo’s CEO.
Yotpo helps small businesses gain credibility and trust through reviews. Each month, more than 75 million shoppers use Yotpo on 68,000 online stores.

‘Clothes Don’t Just Make the Man, They Can Save the Man’

Greenfield’s memoir explains not only his spunk and desire to persevere, but also the rich array of impossible characters who appear throughout his life. In one moment, he’s standing in line next to Elie Wiesel in Buchenwald and shaking Eisenhower’s hand. Several chapters later, Greenfield is having a drink with Frank Sinatra in Manhattan and then meeting Lana Turner on a movie set in Los Angeles. Shortly afterward, he’s mentoring fashion icons like Calvin Klein and Donna Karan. He wears a gold watch on his wrist with biblical images of the 10 Tribes’ signs on the front and an inscription that reads “Am Yisrael Chai” on the back; the watch, given to him by legendary Cadillac salesman Victor Potamkin, used to belong to Golda Meir. These fleeting characters demonstrate the incredible scope of Greenfield’s journey.
He ascribes these larger-than-life experiences to the opportunities America has to offer. “When I came here at the age of 19, and they gave me a green card and told me I was an American, I thought there was no other place in the world,” he told me. “The opportunities that are here! If you are willing to take time and study, be brought up by your parents the right way, you can be president! You can become whatever you want to become.”
Greenfield told me it was not easy to write the book. His son Tod noted that his father’s past was not something he often talked about—that is, until he spent hours divulging his story to a yeshiva student who had to interview a Holocaust survivor for a school assignment.

CNBC names Israeli air app one of ‘world’s hottest’

Chalk up another big win for Israeli air pollution monitor app BreezoMeter. After being named a finalist at the Israel Mobile Summit in June for best app, and beating out apps from developers in Israel and 30 other countries to win the StartUp Open IL Contest in September, BreezoMeter has been named one of the “20 hottest in the world” by American cable news network CNBC, one of a very select group chosen out of over 600 start-up ideas.
CNBC chose the app, the news organization said, because “BreezoMeter is changing the way people interact with the world, by providing them with the resources needed to make informed choices about what environments they inhabit.”
The app, said CNBC, is one of the “big ideas” that are “part of an entrepreneurial revolution that is spreading to nearly every nook and cranny on the planet.”

12 hot apps from Israel

Made-in-Israel mobile applications have been changing radically how we get from one place to another (Waze, GetTaxi); share videos and photos (Glide, for example), monitor our health; edu-tain our children and many other areas of our lives.
New apps are popping up all the time. Here are some of the newest blue-and-white apps for business and pleasure.

Holocaust survivor meets her rescuer after 69 years

A Holocaust survivor and her childhood friend were reunited for the first time in 69 years on Wednesday.
Mira Wexler greeted Helena Weglowski at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, hugging and kissing each other in a moving reunion.
The two women grew up together in Stara Huta, Poland (now in Ukraine) where Wexler's father owned a mill inside the farm owned by Weglowski's parents.
When the Nazis took over the town, Wexler and her mother hid in woods near Weglowski's farm. Helena Weglowski and her brother Stanislaw took turns bringing them food and water.
"I am extremely happy to see Mira again. I remember the time before the war we were playing together. The war destroyed everything but now we can be together again. I am extremely overwhelmed," Weglowski, now 85, said.
"It's very touching for me to be here and to see Helena again. This is something I could not imagine until now. It was a gift, Helena was a gift for me," Wexler, 78, said in Portuguese.

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Posted By Ian to Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News at 11/27/2014 06:00:00 PM