“Starting Saturday, May 21, both Israeli and foreign travelers will no longer need to be tested for COVID-19 to enter the country, neither before boarding a flight nor after landing”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Israel to end mandatory masking aboard international flights on May 23
Alexander Fulbright
May 17, 2022

Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz on Tuesday announced that face masks will no longer be required on international flights as of May 23, as the government moves to end Israel’s few remaining coronavirus restrictions. “We aren’t keeping unnecessary restrictions in place,” Horowitz tweeted. Under the new policy, starting next Monday masking will be only mandatory in medical centers and senior living facilities…According to Ynet news site report Monday, Horowitz and top Health Ministry officials in recent weeks have discussed dropping quarantine rules for Israelis who contact COVID. READ MORE

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Chicago’s first large-scale active shooter drill involving police and fire departments intended to address shul-specific attacks and incidents

JNS
CCL shul members and Kehilat Chovevei Tzion take part in public safety training exercise
May 17, 2022

Concerned Citizens League Shul Members (CCLSM) staged a large-scale active shooter simulation at Kehilat Chovevei Tzion in Skokie recently, with the direction and supervision of the Skokie Police and Fire Department. Hatzalah Chicago also attended this drill. Simulations for responding to hostile fights within the synagogue and keeping people of concern out of the building, recognizing and dealing with suspicious individuals, and two full-scale active shooter drills were all part of the five-hour training program. The training exercise was the Chicagoland area’s first large-scale Synagogue active shooter drill…Given the surge in antisemitism, Naiditch feels that every Shul should hold and participate in such an event. READ MORE

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Kate Winslet narrates new film about deaths of Gazan children during last May’s conflict with Israel, “tells Jewish News she was not told it was a ‘pro-resistance’ project”, didn’t “fact-check” her script

JEWISH NEWS
Kate Winslet misled over Gaza conflict documentary
Richard Ferrer
May 11, 2022

Kate Winslet has clarified to Jewish News her involvement in a new film on the Israel-Palestinian conflict released this week, whose co-director is closely linked to Hamas. The Oscar-winning actress provides the voice-over for Eleven Days In May, co-directed by Michael Winterbottom and Gaza-based Mohammed Sawwaf, who accuses Israel of “colonialism” and “apartheid”…Its opening sequence features news footage reporting on “Jewish settlers trying to expel Palestinians from their homes”, “vigils aggressively broken up by Israeli security forces”, “the expulsion of (Arab) residents in East Jerusalem”, “heavy-handed tactics by Israel police” and “Israeli nationalists marching though Muslim quarters.” READ MORE

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“Paraguay’s slain criminal prosecutor Marcelo Pecci made many enemies in his lifelong effort to protect the rule of law. One of them was Hezbollah”

TABLET MAG
Murder on the Beach
Emanuele Ottolenghi
May 17, 2022

…His enemies were the enemies of the rule of law, transparency, good governance, and public integrity: mafias, terror finance networks, and the corrupt politicians who sold their souls and the future of their country to transnational crime. Marcelo must have known the risks, but rejected the lure of a lavish life bought at the price of cowardice. He was incorruptible. Eventually, last week, they came for him. Marcelo had flown to Colombia a few days earlier with his newly wedded wife, to spend their honeymoon at the Isla Barú Decameron Hotel, an exclusive, secluded resort on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, near Cartagena. READ MORE

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“It had been reported last week that Mossad got Rasouli to admit that he was assigned to assassinate an Israeli diplomat in Turkey”

NY POST
Israel’s Mossad says it stopped Iranian plot to assassinate US general
Emily Crane
May 12, 2022

Israel’s Mossad spy agency has claimed it recently thwarted an Iranian assassin’s plot to murder a US general stationed in Germany, an Israeli diplomat in Turkey and a journalist in France. Mossad agents said the man they apprehended late last month on Iranian soil is an alleged gang member with ties to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Jerusalem Post reported Thursday. The suspect, Mansour Rasouli, 52, admitted during the April 30 interrogation that he’d been assigned to carry out the triple assassination, the outlet said. READ MORE

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“Many people’s opinions that Israel was guilty of killing Shireen abu Akleh were formed hours after the incident before there were any facts”

JPOST
Killing of abu Akleh shows Israel will always be guilty to the world
Seth J. Frantzman
May 12, 2022

…While some say they want an international investigation because they don’t trust Israel’s authorities to carry out an investigation, others didn’t even wait for any investigation before accusing Israel and then demanding an end to “apartheid” or support for Israel. This narrative was already set in place before Abu Akleh was killed. She is then placed into the narrative. The narrative is like a train track and it has only one destination which is a desire to blame Israel and heap hatred on Israel, and then any example that fits this is put onto the track. The issue here is that Israel has no chance of ever being innocent. It doesn’t matter if there is an international investigation because the guilty verdict has already been handed down. READ MORE

TIMES OF ISRAEL Palestinians refuse joint Israeli probe into reporter’s death; won’t transfer bullet The Palestinian Authority said on Thursday it had refused Israel’s request to conduct a joint investigation into the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.“Israel requested a joint investigation and the handing over of the bullet that assassinated the journalist Shireen, and we refused that…

ALGEMEINER Palestinians May Try to Damage Evidence Related to Reporter’s Death, Israeli Sources Warn Israeli officials told American and international counterparts that there is a suspicion that Palestinian authorities are trying to destroy or damage evidence related to the death of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, in order to make it impossible to determine who shot her, Yedioth Achronot reported on Thursday.

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“Anti-Zionism, from its earliest beginnings, was a reassertion of privilege. It was an attempt to force the Jews back into “their place,” which history had supposedly assigned them”

JNS
The Harvard Crimson’s hatred of Israel proves anti-Semitism is a privileged ideology
Benjamin Kerstein
May 8, 2022

What it reveals is simple: Anti-Semitism is a privileged ideology. This is perfectly obvious when one considers the very nature of the Crimson and of Harvard, because Harvard is not just privileged, it is privilege. It is the manifestation, mechanism and perpetuator of the American upper class—yes, America has one—and its graduates inevitably spill out across that aristocracy. Harvard’s student newspaper is no different, having produced legions of elite journalists and others who exercise profound influence over what Americans read, see and hear. Its current editorial board basks in that privilege, however vehemently they may claim otherwise. READ MORE

JTA Larry Summers and Alan Dershowitz join over 100 Harvard faculty and alumni in denouncing student paper’s Israel boycott endorsement In an open letter, more than 100 Harvard faculty members objected to the paper endorsing an academic and financial boycott of the state of Israel, including the school’s former president Larry Summers; prominent psychologist and author Steven Pinker; endowed law professor Gabriella Blum; former Harvard Medical School dean Jeffrey Flier; and emeritus law professor and longtime pro-Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz.

HARVARD CRIMSON Alan M. Dershowitz Letter to the Editor: Editorial Normalizes Growing Campus Anti-Semitism In one of the most ignorant, discriminatory, and deceptive editorials published by The Crimson, its editors call on “everyone” to promote the current form of antisemitism.

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Thousands more from around the world have arrived in Israel this year in the shadow of the coronavirus crisis, which has increased interest in aliyah

JERUSALEM POST
Largest number of olim in 2 decades have arrived this past year
May 1, 2022

Some 38,000 new immigrants have arrived in Israel since Independence Day 2021, including thousands of families and young olim who came to build their future, integrating into programs supported by the Jewish Agency and the Aliyah and Integration Ministry, the Jewish Agency reported Sunday. They will mark their first Independence Day as Israelis this week. That represents the highest number of olim in the past two decades and is due, in part, to the wave of immigrants who have arrived during the war in Ukraine, mostly in rescue operations conducted by the Jewish Agency in cooperation with the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, the Jewish Agency said. READ MORE

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“Lufthansa says incident not consistent with its policies or values; videos shows airline supervisor saying all Jews barred from flight because a few hadn’t worn masks”

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Lufthansa apologizes after report all visibly Jewish passengers barred from flight
JTA/Staff
May 10, 2022

Lufthansa issued on Tuesday an apology after Orthodox Jews complained that all visibly Jewish passengers were thrown off the flight because one group didn’t follow the German carrier’s masking rules. In a video from the incident, a Lufthansa supervisor could be heard saying “everyone has to pay for a couple” and that “it’s Jews coming from JFK. Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems.” In a statement Tuesday, Lufthansa said that only the “non-compliant guests” should have been prevented from boarding and not the entire group. “Lufthansa regrets the circumstances surrounding the decision to exclude passengers from flight LH 1334 on May 4. Lufthansa sincerely apologizes,” it said. READ MORE

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The Intercept–which hasn’t seen an anti-Israel article it doesn’t like–assesses loss of Ohio progressive Nina Turner to incumbent Rep Shontel Brown

THE INTERCEPT
Progressives, “Massively Outgunned,” Ditched Nina Turner
Akela Lacy
May 3, 2022

Justice Democrats, the group that has launched several progressive members of Congress, said it’s being “massively outgunned” by Republican donors giving millions to attack progressive candidates in several competitive races. One of those was Tuesday’s Democratic primary in Ohio’s 11th District, where incumbent Rep. Shontel Brown won with 66 percent of the vote. The defeat of Nina Turner, the former co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign, deals a repetitive blow to progressives who backed her run — the second Turner waged against Brown in nine months…Justice Democrats blamed pro-Israel super PACs run by DMFI and AIPAC for its decision to stay out of the rematch with Ohio Rep. Shontel Brown. READ MORE

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