“That Israel’s health system had to enlist Mossad was evidence that it had not readied itself to respond to the type of threat represented by the coronavirus”

Posted on April 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

NEW YORK TIMES
Israel’s Not-So-Secret Weapon in Coronavirus Fight: The Spies of Mossad
by Ronen Bergman
April 13, 2020

When Israel’s health minister was found to be infected with the coronavirus early this month, all high-level officials in close contact with him were quarantined, including one who stood out: the director of the Mossad, the storied Israeli spy service. Mossad officers, primarily associated with covert operations abroad in the name of protecting Israel, are not normally in the business of public health. So Israelis were immediately intrigued. Why would the Mossad director, Yossi Cohen, a widely respected figure in the country, have even been in the same room as the health minister, Yaakov Litzman? READ MORE

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Amnesty International employee betrays Gazan peace activist for “collaborating” with Israels

Posted on April 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

UN WATCH
Amnesty researcher prompts Hamas to arrest peace activist
April 13, 2020

Amnesty International, the group that was founded to free political prisoners, is being asked to terminate its relationship with a Gaza researcher after the New York Times reported that she prompted Hamas to arrest a Palestinian peace activist for holding a Zoom call with Israeli peace activists. Gaza Youth Committee leader Rami Aman, 38, who organized the peace dialogue, has not been heard from since he surrendered Thursday morning at Hamas Internal Security headquarters in Gaza City…According to the Times, Ms. Hind Khoudary “posted angry denunciations on Facebook of Mr. Aman and others on the call, tagging three Hamas officials to ensure it got their attention.” READ MORE

ALGEMEINER Amnesty International Employee Denounced for Getting Gaza Peace Activist Arrested by Hamas for Virtual Meeting With Israeli In response, Human Rights Watch official Peter Bouckaert, who is himself often hostile to Israel, told Khoudary, “You should be ashamed of yourself.” “It is disgusting that a so-called ‘journalist’ got an activist for dialogue arrested by Hamas,” he later said. “Conflicts are resolved through dialogue and understanding, not hatred.” Khoudary replied to Bouckaert in a tweet, asking, “Being ashamed of myself for fighting normalization with Israel?”

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“For the past 26 years, I’ve worked at Zabar’s, the famous appetizing store located on 80th Street and Broadway in New York City”

Posted on April 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

THE FORWARD
The unkindest cut: Last call for a Zabar’s lox slicer
by Len Berk
April 8, 2020

…I was three quarters through the slice when my supervisor came behind the counter. I stopped slicing and looked up at him. “I don’t think I want you here next Thursday, Len.” he said. “We’ll talk later.” My stomach sank. What had I done?…“There are over 230 people that work in the store,” he said. “The way I see it, it’s not a matter of if, but when. What will I do when it happens? Close the store for a week or two, do a major clean-up and sanitize everything?…I told the same thing to Saul (Zabar), but I can’t tell him not to come in to the store. It’s his store! But I do have the power to let you go.” READ MORE

Len Berk: Lox Me Tender

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“A low-tech, high-energy hour managed to be both perfectly silly and profoundly moving” (and it was almost 100% non-political)

Posted on April 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH WEEK
How a Celebrity ‘Seder’ Modeled Real Jewish Pluralism
by Andrew Silow-Carroll
April 14, 2020

I’ll confess: I get a little giddy when Jewish celebrities acknowledge, never mind celebrate, their Jewishness. Over the years, I’ve spilled more ink over the B-list star or ho-hum athlete who drops a Yiddish word than, say, the day school teacher who has dedicated her life to Limmudei Kodesh. I’m not proud. But my enjoyment of last week’s “Saturday Night Seder” was more than mere stargazing. Somehow, this low-tech, high-energy hour managed to be both perfectly silly and often profoundly moving, while capturing our terrifying global reality. And at a time when we were all forced to host attenuated seders, it amplified Passover and its themes — of hope, of family, of tradition — in cheerful defiance of the coronavirus. READ MORE

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World Health Organization has history of singling out Jewish state

Posted on April 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

FREE BEACON
WHO’s Anti-Israel Bias Raising Questions About Organization’s Direction
by Adam Kredo
April 13, 2020

The World Health Organization’s decision-making body has a history of singling out Israel for criticism, fueling concerns of bias as the United Nations organization faces criticism of its response to the coronavirus pandemic. The World Health Assembly, WHO’s policymaking body, has only one item on its agenda directed at a specific country—Israel—according to research by Human Rights Voices (HRV) and the Touro Human Rights Institute, which monitor bias at the U.N. READ MORE

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“If the Democrats are to defeat Trump, Sanders’s leftist and anti-Israel supporters must embrace the nominee, but what will he have to give them to secure their support?”

Posted on April 12, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
Biden needs the Bernie Bros. Will he give them a say in policy?
by Jonathan S. Tobin
April 14, 2020

In a flight of fancy and an almost superfluous reminder of his irrelevance, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman suggested this week that a dream cabinet for Joe Biden should he win in November would include a rather odd choice for ambassador to the United Nations: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.). AOC’s lack of foreign-policy knowledge is not the main reason to mock this suggestion. When asked this week whether the camp of the presumptive nominee had reached out to her in the wake of the withdrawal of her choice for president—Sen. Bernie Sanders—from the race, the congresswoman admitted that it hadn’t. READ MORE

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“Residents of neighborhoods with high infection rates to be confined to one of seven zones dividing the capital starting at noon, but can leave for work or other essential needs”

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Jerusalem ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods to be locked down starting Sunday
by Staff
April 11, 2020

Several Jerusalem neighborhoods with high coronavirus infection rates will be locked down starting Sunday afternoon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said early Sunday. The order to close off parts of the capital starting at noon Sunday was approved by the government following an late-night cabinet meeting and days of discussion on how to contain the spread of the virus in the capital, which has led Israel in number of confirmed cases with nearly 2,000. According to Health Ministry data, about 75 percent of the infections in Jerusalem have occurred in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods, most of which will now be locked down. READ MORE

ARUTZ SHEVA Returning travelers to be isolated in ‘coronavirus hotels’ At the meeting, it was decided to reopen the doors to Israelis returning home. However, all those returning to Israel will be required to remain in one of the “coronavirus hotels” operated by the Defense Ministry and funded by the Israeli government. All of the returning travelers will remain in the “coronavirus hotels” for 14 days. 

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“Jews don’t need a crisis to tell them who or what they are. For Jews, the sense of who and what they are is what sustains them through such crises”

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
The story that Jews repeat on Passover is the secret of their survival
by Melanie Phillips
April 8, 2020

As Jews around the world celebrate the festival of Passover this week, the ironies are painful. The festival celebrates the pivotal biblical event that followed Pharaoh’s refusal to free his Hebrew slaves. The last and most terrible of the 10 plagues inflicted as punishment upon the Egyptians, the death of the firstborn in every family, passed over the houses of the Hebrews who then left Egypt for freedom and their destiny as a Jewish nation. Today, of course, the plague of the coronavirus has not passed over the Jewish people—a proportion of whom are suffering and tragically dying alongside others of all faiths and none. READ MORE

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California judge “called Plaintiff a ‘Jew Boy’ and made fun of his Jewish heritage loudly, in a demeaning and unwelcome manner”

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JWEEKLY
Lawsuit: judge called public defender ‘Jew boy,’ shoved him into Lake Shasta
by Gabe Stutman
April 7, 2020

A Jewish public defender in Humboldt County has filed a lawsuit alleging a judge verbally assaulted him during a camping trip, called him “Jew boy” and then shoved him into a lake. Rory Kalin, a deputy in the Humboldt County public defender’s office, said Superior Court Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis peppered him with insults during a short ride on Lake Shasta in a rented boat. Eventually the judge shoved the fully-clothed lawyer over the stern, the filing claims. READ MORE

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“It has become clear that the Jewish Chronicle will not be able to survive the impact of the current coronavirus epidemic in its current form”

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

ALGEMEINER
After Nearly 200 Years of Publication, Coronavirus Drives UK’s Main Jewish Newspaper Into Liquidation
April 8, 2020

One of the world’s oldest Jewish newspapers announced that it was going into liquidation on Wednesday, with staff members learning on the eve of the Passover holiday that they were to lose their jobs. The Jewish Chronicle, which began publishing in the UK in 1841, announced on its website that its Board had taken the decision to seek a creditors voluntary liquidation of Jewish Chronicle Newspapers Ltd, the paper’s parent company…News outlets that are heavily dependent on their print editions have been badly hit by the coronavirus crisis, as revenue from advertisers has been slashed. READ MORE

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