04/09 Links: Anti-Israel Indoctrination in American High Schools; 'Sanders must apologize for the lie that he spread about Israel' ~ EoZ

From Ian:

Video Exposes Anti-Israel Indoctrination Happening in American High Schools

A new video has been released by Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) that exposes an alarming new trend of anti-Israel indoctrination happening in American high schools and middle schools.
The pattern of bias and bigotry against Jews and Israel is most noted at Newton South High School, found in an affluent suburb west of Boston. Concerned parents there are meeting resistance from school officials that defend the curriculum which APT has discovered comes from very suspect sources.
A statement accompanies the film's release, detailing its many findings:
- Newton's high schools have used Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) maps that falsify the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Newton students were not told that the maps were created by the PLO's propaganda unit.
- Newton's schools presented students with a falsified version of the Hamas Charter. In Newton's doctored version the word "Jews" – as a target of hatred -- is replaced with the word "Zionists."
- In one lesson, Newton students are asked to consider the Jewish state's right to exist. (The legitimacy of no other nation-state's existence is questioned.) The lesson included "expert" opinions, which are drawn overwhelmingly from anti-Israel academics and anti-Semitic activists.
- A book used in Newton high schools has a recommended reading list that includes the extremist writings by Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Sayyid Qutb, and Yusuf Qaradawi, whose sermons call for the murder of Jews and homosexuals.
- Newton schools officials are shown to continuously refuse to make school curricula and teaching materials available to the Newton residents.

Indoctrination @ Newton High

'Sanders must apologize for the lie that he spread about Israel'

Science, Space and Technology Minister Ophir Akunis said on Saturday that US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders should apologize to Israel for misstating the number of Palestinian casualties during the 2014 war with Gaza.
"Sanders has spread horrible lies against the State of Israel and he needs to apologize as soon as possible," Akunis said at a cultural event in Rishon Lezion.
"We cannot interfere in the internal elections of the United States, but when there is libelous misinformation being spread against Israel, we need to react and stand firm on the truth and the facts," the minister said.
For the second time in one week, Sanders on Friday named an inflated number for Palestinian civilian deaths during Operation Protective Edge.

PA arrests 3 missing youths, foils ‘large-scale attack’ against Israelis

Palestinian security forces on Saturday arrested three Palestinian youths who have been missing since March 30, foiling a planned large-scale terror attack against Israeli targets, according to Palestinian Authority sources.
PA forces conducted intensive searches for the three since they were reported missing late last month.
The trio were found in an open area north of the West Bank city of Ramallah by a joint force of Palestinian police and the Palestinian Internal Security service, according to Palestinian sources who spoke to the Times of Israel.
They had a large amount of weapons with them and it is believed they were planning an attack, the sources said.
The three were taken for interrogation. According to the Palestinian sources, they are believed to be members of terror group Hamas.

Global School Twinning Network to Receive Prize Founded in Memory of Abducted, Murdered Israeli Teens

One of the recipients of this year’s Jerusalem Unity Prize — founded in memory of kidnapped and murdered Israeli Jewish teenagers Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frenkel — has been awarded to the Global School Twinning Network, a program of the Jewish Agency for Israel’s Partnership2Gether (P2G) initiative.
P2G was created to build connections between students at more than 650 schools in Israel and the Diaspora. The program’s participants engage in educational activities and online interactions.
“The Global School Twinning initiative showcases the very best of Jewish communal life through its efforts to bridge gaps and is proof that the Jewish people remains as united as ever. This is a strength that enables us to overcome any challenge,” said Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, the unity prize’s committee chair and one of the prize’s founders following the 2014 Gaza war, along with the Gesher non-profit and the families of the three slain teenagers.
The prize — whose creation was inspired by the unity displayed across the global Jewish community during the period when it was unclear if Hamas had killed the teens or was still holding them captive — will be awarded at an official ceremony in Jerusalem on June 1, which has also been designated by the prize’s creators as “International Unity Day.”

Bahloul doubles down on charge that attacks on soldiers aren’t terror

Zionist Union MK Zouheir Bahloul stirred controversy on Saturday for the second time in three days by insisting that Palestinians who attack soldiers, as opposed to civilians, should not be considered terrorists.
During a cultural event in the northern city of Acre, Israeli-Arab MK Bahloul said Israeli soldiers were “a symbol of the occupation” for Palestinians and asked why Jewish groups fighting British soldiers during the Mandate area [era?] could be considered as fighting for their freedom while Palestinians could not.
“What can a Palestinian, suffocating under the yoke of occupation for 49 years, do in order regain his freedom? The soldiers are, for him, a symbol of the occupation. Before 1948 there was the British Mandate here. Etzel, Lehi and the other Jewish organizations went out to the street to fight British soldiers and build your state, which is an amazing state. Why are the Palestinians not allowed to do so?” the MK, a former sports broadcaster and journalist, asked.
On Thursday, Bahloul said the Palestinian assailants who stabbed a soldier in Hebron last month should not be considered terrorists because the attack was on an IDF target. The Hebron incident made international headlines and sparked a national debate after a video emerged of an IDF soldier shooting one of the attackers — who was injured and on the ground — in the head. The shooting occurred several minutes after the attack ended. The other assailant was killed earlier during the attack.

Cabel: No room in Labor for MK who said attacks on soldiers aren’t terror

Leading Zionist Union/Labor MK Eitan Cabel on Saturday became the latest lawmaker to condemn a fellow party legislator for saying that a Palestinian who attempts to stab an Israeli soldier is not a terrorist, unlike those who attack civilians.
“There is no place for [Zouheir] Bahloul in Labor,” Cabel, a former secretary-general of the party and the current head of the Knesset Economics Committee, told a cultural event in Yokne’am, Army Radio reported.
“I would like to say that he made a slip of the tongue, but to my regret this is apparently his opinion. He knew that remarks of this nature would harm the Zionist Union faction, which adds insult to injury,” Cabel said.
Labor is the greater partner in the Zionist Union, which was formed when Labor united with Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah party ahead of the March 2015 Knesset elections.

Palestinians threaten to smash Temple Mount security cameras

Palestinians placed notices on the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem warning of plans to smash security cameras installed at the site holy to both Muslims and Jews, which has been at the epicenter of tensions in recent months.
Jordan, which is behind the camera initiative, subsequently stated that the cameras will not be used to monitor the activities of the Muslim worshipers at the two mosques on the Mount, Channel 10 reported Saturday.
In October, US Secretary of State John Kerry endorsed a plan to install cameras at the site in a bid to calm repeated disturbances, after talks with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also agreed to the plan.
Abbas met with Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh last month to finalize plans to install the cameras.

10,000 millionaires left France last year

Around 10,000 millionaires left the country in 2015, according to a report by New World Wealth, which provides analysis on the global wealth sector.
Paris saw the biggest exodus of high net worth individuals, with 7,000 millionaires leaving the city last year. That's roughly 6% of Paris' millionaires, a population of 126,000, according to the new report.
Most millionaire Parisians moved to the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia and Israel.
.... Australia, which saw 8,000 millionaires coming to its shores. Around 7,000 millionaires moved to the U.S. in 2015, and 4,000 to Israel.
The report said exiting millionaires is a "bad sign," for countries. "Millionaires are often the first people to leave ... they have the means to leave unlike middle class citizens."
The millionaire exodus could also hurt local economies, as many are business owners employing people and paying high taxes, the report said.

Norway syndrome: a new condition for Western victims of rape

Here is a story that needs little extrapolation.
A male left-wing politician in Norway – Karsten Nordal Hauken – has spoken out about his rape, a few years ago, at the hands of a Somali refugee. The self-professed feminist and ‘anti-racist’ was subjected to a brutal anal attack in his own home. The culprit was subsequently caught and sentenced to more than four years in prison, though he is now free and due to be deported back to his native Somalia.
All of which has occasioned Hauken to speak out about how guilty he himself feels. Guilty because he says that he is ‘responsible’ for the Somali rapist being returned to Somalia. He explains that ‘[I] had a strong feeling of guilt and responsibility. I was the reason that he would not be in Norway anymore, but rather sent to a dark uncertain future in Somalia.’ He also added that ‘I see him mostly like a product of an unfair world, a product of an upbringing marked by war and despair’.
This is not the first such case. Among others, last year a ‘no-borders’ activist on the French-Italian border was gang-raped by a group of Sudanese immigrants but persuaded to keep quiet about her own rape in case it was used to undermine the open-borders cause.
Everyone now knows the term ‘Stockholm syndrome’, used to describe hostages who take on the perspectives of their kidnappers. Perhaps the Hauken case could be used to coin the term ‘Norway syndrome’, an affliction that causes rape-victims to feel concern over the prospects of their rapists? There certainly should be a term, because I suspect we’re going to need one in our vibrant and exciting future.

Belgian terror suspect found with ‘biological material’ during arrest

A terror suspect arrested in Brussels three days after the attacks at the airport and the metro last month was reportedly carrying materials that could have been used to make a biological weapon.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal citing an internal Belgian police report, Abderrahmane Ameuroud, a 38-year-old Algerian national, was found with “a plastic bag containing three identity cards surrounded by excrement and animal testicles.”
The police report said that on jihadist forums “if you mix a combination of excrement, of water and of animal meat for 10 days in a dark place, this can create a toxic reaction.”
“In the case of unprotected contact with this substance, one can be infected by some virus or some bacteria provoking illness like typhoid, tetanus, colibacillosis, botulism, cholera or listeria,” the police report read, as published by the Wall Street Journal.
The report advised those coming into contact with the material to wash their hands with chlorine.

Top Hamas official slams movement, says it's responsible for tragic situation in Gaza

A top Hamas official has strongly criticized his movement, holding it responsible for the harsh and tragic situation inside the Gaza Strip.
Ahmed Yousef, who previously served as advisor to former Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, made his criticism in an article he published over the weekend.
Yousef lashed out at Hamas mosque preachers, saying they were using the podiums to sound meaningless words.
He called upon the preachers to “live the bitter reality and stop deluding people that we are living in a reality of a utopia.
“Everyone is shocked because of the reality we are living in and people don’t stop talking about the pain and tragedy,” the Hamas official said.
He said that Hamas rulers have failed to improve the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

The Same Palestinian Charade

To anyone who read Bernie Sanders’ comments about Israel in his Daily News interview last week, heard the candidate’s Middle East policy speech (that he chose not to deliver at the AIPAC conference), or President Obama’s numerous evaluations of the current situation, there’s no mystery about the blame for the lack of peace in the region. They both put the onus on Israel for failing to better relations with the Palestinians and specifically think that the existence of settlements in the West Bank, as well as Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem that they also call settlements, is the primary obstacle to peace. That point of view received a kind of validation last week when Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas called for new peace talks with Israel.
Speaking on Israel’s Channel 2, Abbas claimed, “I want to see peace in my life” and called upon Prime Minister Netanyahu to meet with him “at any time.” The implication of the statement was that the Palestinians have been and continue to be willing to talk peace but that it has been the Israelis who have refused to engage with them or make any offers that would allow them the statehood and independence they desire. The interview fit in nicely with the image that Israel’s critics have nurtured about its “hardline” government.
Nor did those who take Abbas at face value understand the Israeli government reaction to Abbas’s attempt at outreach. Speaking with more amusement than eagerness, Prime Minister Netanyahu tweeted that he had cleared his schedule on Monday and was waiting for Abbas. The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs reacted similarly, declaring that it was time for the Palestinians to make good on Abbas’ offer and to come and talk. The PA’s response was telling. “Negotiate what?” replied PA chief negotiator Saeb Erekat. He went on to say that if the Israelis really wanted to talk they needed to concede in advance about settlements, agree to withdraw to the June 1967 lines, and release all imprisoned Palestinian terrorists.

Echoing Israel, US issues emergency warning of ‘credible threats’ in Turkey

The United States embassy in Turkey on Saturday warned American citizens of “credible threats” to tourist areas in Istanbul and the resort city of Antalya, a day after Israel warned of “immediate risks” of attacks.
“The US Mission in Turkey would like to inform US citizens that there are credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya,” read the emergency travel warning published on its official website.
“Please exercise extreme caution if you are in the vicinity of such areas,” read the statement.
On Friday night, Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Bureau issued a rare statement underlining a recent travel warning calling on Israelis to avoid visiting Turkey, and urging those currently there to leave as soon as possible.
“Following a situational assessment, we are reiterating and sharpening the high level of threat in Turkey,” Friday’s statement from the bureau said.

If Hezbollah has the SA-17, it’s a ‘big deal,’ expert says

The Hezbollah terrorist organization recently acquired an advanced missile system, a German news outlet claimed on Thursday evening, which — if true — could have serious implications for the Israeli Air Force.
The Iran-funded terror group somehow came into possession of the Russian SA-17 missile battery, which had previously been given to the Bashar Assad regime, journalist Julian Roepke of the German Bild newspaper said on Twitter, citing anonymous, but presumably Israeli, “intelligence sources.”
The German report did not indicate where the alleged SA-17 battery was being kept or when it fell into Hezbollah’s hands, and the IDF has not responded to requests for comment.
However, if the information is indeed credible, this development would be “interesting,” said Nadav Pollack, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, whose research focuses on Hezbollah.

Fred Maroun: Letter from an Arab to a Jew who supports BDS

When you learn that the vast majority of the accusations of human rights abuses against Israel consistently turn out to be false, you remain satisfied in the knowledge that some of them turn out to be true. When you are reminded that your own people, the Jews, have lived on the land of Israel for over 3000 years and that they had a long history all over the Middle East (until they were ethnically cleansed), you dismiss it because it contradicts your narrative.
When you are asked why you want to penalize the Jews of Israel while not penalizing Arabs for the much worse crimes that they commit against Jews and Arabs, you say that you are only concerned about improving the behavior of your own people and that it is up to Arabs to worry about improving the behavior of Arabs. Your response confirms the importance of my stand, which is to try to improve the behavior of Arabs. Unfortunately, while you seem to complement what I do, by demonizing Israel, the only real hope for the Arab world, you are also making my struggle much more difficult.
So here you are. A Jew who insists on an impossibly high moral standard for Israel even if it brings an end to the security or even existence of your own people, and even if it undermines the Arab struggle to achieve modest liberal values that Jews have achieved long ago. You take a left-wing, progressive, activist stand and yet your stand aids the anti-Semites and the most right-wing reactionary Arabs.
Which brings me to my question. Is there perhaps some other cause that you can support instead of the Arab/Palestinian cause? Preferably a cause that does not involve Arabs?

Exclusive: Israel warns German banks over anti-Semitic BDS accounts

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan put a number of German banks on notice that they could face penalties for enabling anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanction (BDS) groups to raise money through their financial accounts.
“We continue to urge all financial institutions to carefully consider the potential legal, reputational and ethical consequences of facilitating the activities of BDS groups,” Erdan wrote The Jerusalem Post by email on Friday.
The financial industry in Germany, where scores of banks provide accounts to hardcore BDS groups, is on a collision course with Israel and a growing number of anti-BDS laws in the US.
"We have been working extensively over the past half year to increase awareness among decision-makers in Europe and North America of the anti-Semitic, anti-democratic, and discriminatory nature of the BDS movement, which seeks Israel's destruction and often has ties to terror-supporting organizations,” said Erdan.
He added, “This awareness is growing, and is increasingly being translated into counter-BDS legislation, legal rulings against BDS activities, and decisions by Western institutions to end their financial relationships with BDS organizations.”
A Post investigation of German banks revealed a long-standing network of BDS groups using leading German financial institutions to damage Israel’s economy.

Anti-Israel graffiti found defacing UK campus after ambassador's visit

Anti-Israel graffiti defacing the campus of a British university with vulgar slogans was being removed after the Jewish state's new ambassador to the United Kingdom paid a visit to the London campus earlier this week, The Jewish Chronicle reported Thursday.
Ambassador Mark Regev on Wednesday toured England's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) having been invited by the university's director, Baroness Valarie Amos.
Shortly after his departure, however, anti-Israel graffiti was discovered scattered about the school's campus including "F**k Regev, Amos and Israel. BDS or else."
A day after Regev visited the SOAS campus, protests erupted by anti-Israel activists demanding an apology from the university director.
In response to the graffiti's discovery, Amos' office released a statement: “With regards to the graffiti, we have started the removal process and some of the graffiti is no longer legible." The statement continued by noting, “the removal process must be carried out carefully.”

New Controversy Swirls at Oberlin Around Appointment of Interim Dean of Students

Oberlin College’s announcement last week of a new interim vice president and dean of students has attracted further controversy as the school works to address what some community members describe as a hostile campus environment towards Jewish students and freedom of inquiry and expression.
Meredith Raimondo, who joined Oberlin’s Department of Comparative American Studies in 2003, was appointed special assistant to the president for diversity, equity, and inclusion and Title IX coordinator in 2014. In this capacity, Raimondo was one of the administrators in charge of addressing the controversy surrounding Oberlin assistant professor Joy Karega, who shared a series of posts on social media that have been widely criticized as anti-Semitic. The posts were first reported by The Tower in February.
However, some members of the Oberlin community have expressed deep misgivings about Raimondo’s suitability to address concerns about discrimination against Jews and Israel, pointing to materials she has used in her own courses.
According to several online syllabi, Raimondo’s classes feature readings from academics including Joseph Massad, Lisa Duggan, Judith Butler, and Jasbir Puar. As Andrew Pessin indicated in The Algemeiner, all of these academics have previously been accused of espousing views that are intolerant of Israel and Jews.
Massad, for instance, has previously written of the “anti-Semitic basis of Zionism,” the “pro-Zionist policies of the Nazis,” and Israel’s “hopes to kill more Arabs and Muslims”; Duggan fully endorsed the American Studies Association’s boycott of Israeli universities; Butler supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel and sits on the advisory board of the anti-Israel group Jewish Voice for Peace; and Puar has recently come under fire for allegedly claiming in a lecture that Israel conducts medical experiments on Palestinians and harvests their organs. Puar, who requested that the lecture remain off-the-record, threatened to take legal action against anyone who leaked an audio recording of her remarks.

Syria releases U.S. freelance photographer Kevin Patrick Dawes

The Syrian government has freed an American freelance photographer who was abducted after traveling to the country in 2012, according to two U.S. officials.
Kevin Patrick Dawes, 33, from San Diego, was released following months of negotiations, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details of Dawes’s release have not yet been made public.
In a separate case, Oman released a statement that another U.S. citizen — this one held by Yemeni rebels in Sanaa — had also been freed. Officials declined to identify the American.
Secretary of State John F. Kerry was personally involved in winning Dawes’s release, which took place in the past few days, according to a State Department official. Another official said the Syrians handed Dawes over to Russian authorities, who then flew him out of Syria. Russia has been one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s biggest backers.

Iran official blasts Kerry’s ‘foolish words’ on Tehran destabilizing Mideast

Iran’s defense minister poured scorn Saturday on US Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks that Tehran was “destabilizing” the Middle East, countering that America should get out of the region.
The broadside illustrated new tensions between Iran and the United States, despite last year’s nuclear deal, with contrasting stances on the conflicts in Yemen and Syria underpinning the latest barbs.
If the US seeks “stability” it should “leave the region and stop supporting terrorists,” Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan said, according to Iranian state TV.
“If John Kerry thought about these subjects, he would no longer utter nonsense and foolish words,” he said.
The reaction came after Kerry, speaking on a visit to Bahrain on Thursday, condemned “the destabilizing actions of Iran,” noting that the United States was taking Tehran’s actions “very seriously.”

Saudi Arabia and Egypt Want to Build a Bridge Over the Red Sea

King Salman of Saudi Arabia announced Friday that a bridge will be built linking Saudi Arabia to Egypt to boost commerce between the allied nations.
The King made the announcement during the second day of a five-day visit to Egypt, where he is expected to announce more trade agreements. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi said the bridge will be named after King Salman, according to the BBC.
There have been several other proposals for a bridge linking the Arab states, but none have come to fruition. The most recent proposal, for a 20-mile bridge in 2011, was expected to cost roughly $5 billion, which planners said would be easily offset by the tolls paid by pilgrims traveling to Saudi Arabia’s holy sites. No cost or distance estimates have yet been released for the current plan.
“This historic step to connect the two continents, Africa and Asia, is a qualitative transformation that will increase trade between the two continents to unprecedented levels,” the King said in a statement.

Congress Moves to Spur Return of Artwork Stolen By Nazis

Congress is paving the way for Holocaust survivors to reclaim artwork stolen by the Nazis during World War II, according to new legislation filed by a bipartisan group of senators.
The new bill would facilitate the return of these looted artworks by permitting Holocaust survivors to have their cases heard before courts in an expedited manner.
The legislation, titled the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, or HEAR Act, seeks to build upon current efforts by the U.S. government to pave the way for survivors to have their claims reviewed and ruled upon.
The latest legislation would establish a clear nationwide time frame by which these must be heard, according to a copy of the bill, which is being spearheaded by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), John Cornyn (R., Texas), and Richard Blumenthal (D, Conn.).
“The phrase ‘never forget’ is more than a slogan,” Cruz said in a statement. “‘Never forget’ means working to right all the terrible injustices of the Holocaust, even if many decades have passed. The HEAR Act will empower the victims of this horrific persecution and help ensure that our legal system does everything it can to redress the widespread looting of cultural property by the Third Reich as part of its genocidal campaign against the Jewish people and other groups.”

Croatia’s Jews to boycott official Holocaust events

The Jewish community in Croatia said it will boycott the country’s official Holocaust commemoration events this year to protest alleged government inaction to curb neo-Nazism.
The Coordinating Committee of the Jewish Communities of Croatia said it would hold its own commemoration “in line with Jewish tradition” instead of participating in the government one, the Voice of America reported Monday.
The committee’s president, Ognjen Kraus, told the radio station that the move followed cases of open anti-Semitism, including chants by demonstrators of pro-Nazi slogans at an anti-government march in January and during a soccer match between the Israeli and Croatian national teams last month.
“The state is simply not doing anything about it and does not want to,” Kraus said Monday.

Russian Jewish cemetery vandalized with swastikas

According to local media reports, vandals spray-painted swastikas on many tombstones in the Jewish cemetery of Petrozavodsk, Russia.
Dmitry Zwiebel, a community leader from the northwestern Russian city, announced that he would submit a formal complaint to law enforcement agencies.
"Such acts have not happened in Petrozavodsk for several years. We thought that such behavior is a thing of the past, it turns out we were wrong," said Zwiebel.
Two weeks ago, vandals painted anti-Semitic profanities on the gravesite of the father of the Musar movement, Rabbi Israel Salanter, in the Russian city of Kaliningrad.

Serial Holocaust memorial vandal jailed in Austria

A homeless Austrian man who vandalized dozens of memorials to victims of the Nazis in Salzburg was on Friday sentenced to five years in jail.
The 40-year-old serial vandal, who was not named, was accused of 53 acts of vandalism including destroying a monument to euthanasia victims and of daubing black paint five times on a memorial to members of the resistance.
In addition he was accused of defacing 10 “stumbling blocks,” small brass plaques in honor of people murdered by the Nazis inserted into pavements in front of their old homes.
Prosecutors said the Austrian man also painted Nazi symbols on schools, student halls and offices of political parties between 2013 and 2015, causing damage worth 90,000 euros ($103,000).

Dyson to Incorporate Israeli Monitoring Software in Its New Air Purifier

BreezoMeter, an Israeli big data analytics company that provides dynamic air quality data in real-time, has announced the use of its software platform in the new Dyson Pure Cool Link air purifier. BreezoMeter’s data will be used to provide users with live access to outdoor air quality data on their mobile devices.
“Creating a clean and healthy environment requires actionable air quality data, that empowers people to take control of their well-being,” said Ziv Lautman, co-founder and chief marketing officer of BreezoMeter. “Our partnership with Dyson allows us to integrate our data into a system that is providing people with an IoT connected, smart home device, which provides them with a very complete picture of the air they breathe on a daily basis, and helps them make informed decisions for their home.”
BreezoMeter’s data analytics determine the dispersion and flow of air pollution by analyzing information, including weather data and historic air quality data, gathered from thousands of existing sensors around the world, providing users with an accurate picture of the real-time air quality.
The BreezoMeter data will help users detect harmful outdoor air pollutants that could affect the air inside their homes.

IsraelDailyPicture: Time to Get Ready for Passover. The Matza Factories Are Hard at Work

With Passover just weeks away, Jewish households around the world are purchasing or making their matzot (unleavened bread) for the festival.
One of Judaism's oldest customs, the baking of matza goes back to the Jewish exodus from Egypt. Ever since, Jews often went to great trouble to bake their cracker-like bread. Jewish communities in Europe and the Arab world faced "blood libels" for making their matza. Ancient synagogues in France built matza bakeries under their synagogues. Jews in Nazi concentration camps risked being shot to bake their Passover "bread." In the former Soviet Union, Jews baked their matza in secret, lest they be discovered and sent to the Gulag. During major wars, armies made sure to provide matza to their Jewish soldiers.

900-Year-Old Passover Haggadah Fragments on Display in Jerusalem

Remnants of one of the oldest surviving Passover haggadahs in the world, which was discovered in the trove of archived Jewish texts known as the Cairo Genizah, are currently on display as part of an exhibit at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem. The haggadah, hand-scribed on parchment, dates from the 12th century CE.
Dr. Aviad Stollman, head of the collections at the National Library, said, “This haggadah is particularly exciting for me since it’s 900 years old. Only a single page of it remains, on which can be made out four small columns [of text] of eight lines each, with four or five words in each line. What’s surprising is that even though 900 years have passed, the text is nearly identical to the text we read today.”
Offering some background about the Cairo Genizah, Stollman said, “In the women’s section of the ancient Ben Ezra Synagogue, there was a room that had an opening that couldn’t be reached without a ladder. The room functioned as a genizah (a storeroom for sacred texts that are no longer readable or usable but cannot be destroyed). As early as the 8th century CE and until the genizah was discovered in the 19th century, they would throw worn-out holy texts in there. Today, we know that there were about 300,000 pages and partial pages there. Nearly all the fragments were handwritten in the past 1,000 years. Today, the [contents of the] genizah are divided among libraries throughout the world, including the National Library.”

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