“Gov’t approves three Lag Ba’omer fires on Mount Meron, Health Ministry says yes to gov’t plan to reopen state-supervised day-care centers on Sunday”

Posted on May 3, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JERUSALEM POST
Malls, markets and gyms to open Thursday
by Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman
May 6, 2020

Malls, markets and workout centers across the country will open their doors Thursday for the first time since they were forced to shutter nearly two months ago due to the coronavirus crisis. Patrons will be required to wear masks, have their temperature taken upon entry and stay two meters away from each other. On Wednesday, shop and gym owners worked furiously to prepare their facilities for guests. Pictures were shared on TV and social networks of staff hanging signs, wiping down equipment and counters with disinfectant and sticking taping to the floors to mark where people can stand at checkout. READ MORE

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Logan Act has “never yielded a conviction but invites abuse by prosecutors, cops and presidents”

Posted on May 3, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

WALL STREET JOURNAL
Repeal the Logan Act
by Charles Lipson
May 4, 2020

…The Lo­gan Act is a dev­il­ish temp­ta­tion—to bad cops at the FBI, to bad lawyers at the Jus­tice De­part­ment, and to bad pol­icy mak­ers in the White House. The law is so broad and vague it can be used to in­ves­ti­gate al­most any op­po­nent at al­most any time. If any­body can be threat­ened, en­force-ment is bound to be se­lec­tive and dis­crim­i­na­tory, not uni­form and blind as law en­force­ment should be. These en­demic prob­lems mean the Lo­gan Act would prob­a­bly be found un­con­sti­tu-tional, if it faced such a chal­lenge. It hasn’t, be­cause no one has been con­victed un­der it. So it lurks on the books, a tool for po­lit­i­cal mis­chief. READ MORE SUBSCRIPTION CONTENT

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15th Chicago Festival of Israeli Film goes online May 17-26

Posted on May 3, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

10 DAYS, 10 FRESH TITLES, READY TO STREAM AT HOME MAY 17-26

Even with the constraints of social distancing, we can still come together to share in the magic and ruach of the 2020 Festival! With the ingenuity, agility and resilience Israel is known for, your Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema has made it possible to shelter at home and stream a unique, curated-just-for-you Festival, MAY 17-26, 2020. You may access each title as often as you like over the 10 days of the Festival, on any device—TV, computer, tablet or phone.

To become a sponsor, screening host, donor or volunteer, please contact us at info@israelifilmchi.org

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Ban falls far short of a complete prohibition on Hezbollah allowing Germany to claim that it has banned the group even if it has not

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

GATESTONE
Germany’s Partial Ban of Hezbollah: A Half-Measure
by Soeren Kern
May 2, 2020

The German government, after years of equivocating, has announced what amounts to a partial ban on the Iran-backed Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah — Arabic for “The Party of Allah” — in Germany. The so-called ban — supported by the center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats, the two parties that make up Germany’s ruling coalition, and also by the classical liberal Free Democrats — has been hailed as “important,” “significant,” and “long overdue.” The ban is in fact a compromise measure between German lawmakers who want to take a harder line against Iran and those who do not. READ MORE

EMET Benjamin Weil: Considered a Curse by Many, COVID-19 Might be a Blessing to Hezbollah Over the past few years Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization by the US, UK, Israel, EU (only its military arm), and others, has been increasing its power in Lebanon and slowly replacing the government’s relevance by hijacking institutions and providing civil services in place of the Lebanese government.

TIMES OF ISRAEL Mossad gave Berlin intel on Hezbollah ops on German soil ahead of ban Unnamed Israeli official tells TV Germans were provided info on warehouses where terror group stashed materials for explosives, as well as money laundering networks

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“The mayor’s targeting of Jews as pandemic scofflaws was outrageous, yet it shows the way the virus brings out the dictator in some politicians”

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
What’s behind de Blasio’s anti-Semitic outburst? The authoritarian impulse
by Jonathan Tobin
April 30, 2020

…Nor is there any way to treat this as a simple misunderstanding. As numerous observers immediately pointed out, it’s impossible to imagine de Blasio’s damning sentence with the words “African-American” or “Hispanic” or “LGBTQ” substituted for “Jewish.” So it was unsurprising, yet still encouraging, that the reaction to his screed was virtually unanimous with individuals and groups from across the political and religious spectrum, unreservedly condemning the mayor’s intemperate and unjustified willingness to treat the question of how to limit the damage from the contagion as a “Jewish” one. READ MORE

THE FORWARD NYPD helped plan chaotic Orthodox funeral de Blasio blamed on ‘Jewish Community’ New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio blamed “the Jewish community” for a Brooklyn funeral procession that broke social distancing rules, yet New York City police officers helped arrange the event, the Forward has learned…“It was strictly through NYPD’s permission,” said Moshe Weiser, a long-time liaison between police and the Hasidic community in Williamsburg, where the procession took place. 

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Boris Johnson’s Ottoman roots

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Why Was Boris Johnson’s Ottoman Great-Grandfather Murdered?
by Uzay Bulut
April 28, 2020

On April 10, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sent a letter to Boris Johnson, prime minister of the United Kingdom, informing him that Turkey “would like to welcome you in our country, which is your ancestral land.” It is true that the Ottoman Empire, Turkey’s predecessor, is where Johnson’s paternal great-grandfather, Ali Kemal, was born. It is also where he was brutally murdered by Turkish nationalists in 1922 for wanting to bring to account the perpetrators of the 1915 Armenian genocide, and for criticizing the nationalist movement that would establish the Turkish Republic in 1923. READ MORE

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Pope Pius XII: His failure to denounce the Holocaust publicly earned him the title of “Hitler’s pope”

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

I24NEWS
Pope Pius XII knew about massacres of Jews during WWII, newly opened Vatican archive reveals
May 1, 2020

German researchers investigating the recently opened Vatican archives of war-time Pope Pius XII reveal that he was aware of mass killings of Jews in Europe, but that he kept the information from the United States, according to a report in the Washington Post. Although the archives only opened in the first week of March – and were shuttered a few days after due to the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic – it was enough time for scholars to find evidence that Pius’ poor reputation for his supposed official silence during the Second World War, was well-merited. READ MORE

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“This portrayal of the sex lives of Hasidim is not accurate, it is not even close to accurate. It is a hateful libel of a community as a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale””

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

THE FORWARD
No, the way sex is portrayed in “Unorthodox” is not accurate — it’s a hateful libel
by Eli Spitzer
April 24, 2020

…Hasidim, be they Satmar or anyone else, do not have a custom of doing it with their clothes on. As it happens, Hasidic theology frowns on the practice based on a mystical interpretation of the biblical verse, they shall be of one flesh, something it has in common with other streams of Orthodox Judaism. So why did a team that put so much effort into getting every tiny detail right put the same degree of effort into getting this detail wrong The answer is that the clothes are a motif used to convey a wider theme of the series, namely portraying the Hasidic community as sexually aberrant. READ MORE

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Yossi Klein Halevi: “In this pandemic, the nation’s citizens face a crisis that is finally bringing us together”

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

THE ATLANTIC
Israel’s Arab Moment
by Yossi Klein Halevi
April 30, 2020

…Israeli media regularly feature stories of Arab-Jewish intimacy in the quarantine wards. The newspaper Yediot Aharonot published a four-page photo essay of Arab and Jewish nurses—the first time in memory it featured Arabs as Israeli heroes. A video showing nurses removing their masks to reveal hijabs drew more than 2 million viewers. Images of Arab-Jewish coexistence have gone viral—like the photograph of an Arab doctor bringing a Torah scroll into an isolation ward, or of two medics pausing before their parked ambulance to pray, one man in a prayer shawl, the other on a prayer rug. READ MORE

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Saudi TV: “The episode represents one of the first times a Saudi cultural project has shown Israel in a good light”

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
Episode of New Saudi TV Series Presents Positive View of Israel
by Benjamin Kerstein
April 28, 2020

A new Ramadan television series is making waves in the Arab world, arousing controversy for taking a relatively positive view of Israel. The Israeli news site N12 reported that the show — broadcast on the Saudi-run MBC network — is titled “Exit 7.” It is a comedy program dealing with current affairs, and one episode addressed relations with Israel…Later, the father turns to Ziad’s grandfather, who tells him, “The Israelis are human beings like you, the State of Israel exists, whether you want it or not.” READ MORE

A fascinating scene, unprecedented, from Saudi TV about Israelis, begin watching at 0:39

Posted in Islam, Israel & Middle East, Jewish, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment