Israeli tech companies raised $2.74 billion across 139 deals during the first quarter of 2020

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

CALCALIST
Despite Covid-19 Crisis, Israeli Tech Registers Record Quarter
by Hagar Ravet
April 5, 2020

The coronavirus (Covid-19) crisis may have shaken the world’s economy to its core, but Israeli tech still managed to close a record-high quarter. Israeli tech companies raised a total of $2.74 billion across 139 deals during the first quarter of 2020, a record amount, according to a joint report released on Sunday by Tel Aviv-based research firm IVC Research Center and the Israel office of international law firm Zysman, Aharoni, Gayer & Co. (ZAG-S&W). The painful effects of the coronavirus are likely to be felt from the second quarter onward, but during the first quarter, Israeli tech companies raised 76% more funds than in the first quarter of 2019. READ MORE

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Schindler’s List inspired me to challenge extremism

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

CLARION PROJECT
Jason Walter’s story: I was Radicalized

Jason Walters self-radicalized and allied himself with the Dutch Jihadi group Hofstad Group, whose spiritual head Mohammed Bouyeri killed Dutch film producer and open critic of Islam Theo Van Gogh. Jason was imprisoned for nine years for throwing a grenade at police while trying to evade arrest. In prison, studying philosophy helped him understand how illogical jihadi extremism was, but it was a screening of Schindlers List that finally made him realize all extremism is the same, whether jihadi or Nazi.

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“New York City punishes a councilman for stating a historical fact”

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

THE FEDERALIST
Sorry You’re Offended, But ‘Palestine’ Does Not Exist
by David Harsanyi
April 2, 2020

In progressive America, an official elected in a predominantly Jewish district in the country’s largest city can be punished for asserting an indisputable historical fact if it happens to offend the sensibilities of hard-left activists. In this case, Kalman Yeger, a councilman from Brooklyn, in a back-and-forth about Rep. Ilhan Omar, tweeted that, “Palestine does not exist. There, I said it again. Also, Congresswoman Omar is an antisemite. Said that too.” Mayor Bill de Blasio quickly issued an ultimatum to Yeger demanding he apologize, or else. After he refused, NYC Council Speaker Corey Johnson booted Yeger from—what I assume is a wholly useless—city immigration committee. READ MORE

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“With all respiratory diseases, the only thing that stops the disease is herd immunity”

Posted on April 9, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

DAILY WIRE
Epidemiologist Warns Of Unintended Consequences From Lockdowns
by Amanda Prestigiacomo
April 10, 2020

…“About 80% of the people need to have had contact with the virus, and the majority of them won’t even have recognized that they were infected, or they had very, very mild symptoms, especially if they are children.” “So, it’s very important to keep the schools open and kids mingling to spread the virus to get herd immunity as fast as possible, and then the elderly people, who should be separated, and the nursing homes should be closed during that time, can come back and meet their children and grandchildren after about 4 weeks when the virus has been exterminated,” he continued. Herd immunity, Wittkowski argued, would stop a “second wave” headed for the United States in the fall. READ MORE

GATESTONE Coronavirus: Elderly Europeans Denied Treatment In addition to the ethical questions raised by the rationing of healthcare according to age, the denial of medical attention to the elderly, many of whom have paid into the social welfare system all their lives, also casts a spotlight on the shortcomings of socialized medicine in Southern Europe, where austerity measures imposed by the European Central Bank have resulted in massive budget cuts for public healthcare.

BILL MAHER In his editorial New Rule, Bill argues that China should be held responsible for allowing the conditions that scientists have long warned could lead to a pandemic.

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“With families confined at home, country belts out Four Questions, traditionally sung by youngest member of household, asking ‘Why is this night different from every other night?”

Posted on April 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

TIMES OF ISRAEL
Under Passover lockdown, thousands take to balconies to sing ‘Mah Nishtana’
by Staff
April 8, 2020

Tens of thousands of Israelis, locked down by the government and separated from their families on Passover, came out to their balconies to sing together Wednesday night…From Thursday morning until Friday, Israelis will again be permitted to move within their cities and towns for essential needs, but will not be allowed to leave city limits. Exceptions will be made for those who do not have supermarkets and pharmacies in their towns, but they may go only to the nearest town with those services. Jerusalem residents will be confined throughout the lockdown and curfew within the city zone they live in…READ MORE

JPOST No, your coronavirus quarantine isn’t comparable to Anne Frank’s There are quite a few things I’ve been seeing all over my social media feeds ever since the spread of COVID-19 forced everyone to social distance. There are the jokes about no longer wearing a bra, comments about being confused over what day it is and comparisons to Anne Frank hiding in an attic….On Twitter, if you search “Anne Frank” now, you will find an abundance of users tweeting about how they now know exactly how Anne Frank felt after a week in quarantine.

REUTERS Israel makes masks in public compulsory as Passover lockdown begins The Israeli government issued orders on Tuesday requiring citizens to wear face masks in public to try to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus as the country enters a lockdown for the Jewish Passover holiday.

TIMES OF ISRAEL Virus carrier nabbed on bus to J’lem, accused of deliberately endangering public A coronavirus carrier was arrested Sunday on a bus on its way to Jerusalem, on suspicion of deliberately spreading the disease. Police said in a statement that the suspect, a confirmed COVID-19 patient, was taken in for questioning on Route 1, and that all the other bus passengers were ordered to quarantine for 14 days.

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“Enduring Lightning took place over the deserts of southern Israel, where American and Israeli pilots rehearsed combined operations against a variety of simulated air and ground threats”

Posted on April 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Despite Coronavirus, U.S. and Israel Conduct Combined F-35 Exercise
April 7, 2020
by Bradley Bowman and Mikhael Smits

Despite growing coronavirus concerns in both countries, the United States and Israel conducted a combined air-power training exercise on March 29, marking the first time U.S. and Israeli F-35s have trained together in Israel. The “Enduring Lightning” exercise improved the ability of the U.S. Air Force and its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli Air Force (IAF), to operate together and sent an important and timely message of deterrence to adversaries. Widely considered the most advanced fighter in the world, the F-35 is a fifth-generation multi-role fighter that combines exceptional sensor and network capabilities with advanced technologies that make it difficult to detect. READ MORE

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“In the end, Israel was established not by Great Britain but by the Jews themselves. It was done against not only British opposition but an invasion from five Arab armies, including those of countries that owed their own existence to the plan executed by Churchill and Lawrence”

Posted on April 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH REVIEW OF BOOKS
Lawrence of Judea: T. E. Lawrence and the Deal of the Twentieth Century
by Rick Richman
Spring 2020

…But T.E. Lawrence [of Arabia] also supported Zionism. He and Chaim Weizmann were close friends, and they held historic meetings and discussions about the Zionist goals. On January 3, 1919, Lawrence brokered an agreement between Faisal and Weizmann, weeks before the post–World War I Paris Peace Conference commenced. The Faisal-Weizmann agreement recognized the national aspirations of both Arabs and Jews and exchanged Arab support for the 1917 Balfour Declaration on Palestine for the promise of Zionist support for an Arab state beyond Palestine. At that time, Palestine comprised both the east and west banks of the Jordan River. READ MORE

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“The sad truth, however, is that if announcements of Israeli scientists producing a coronavirus cure and/or vaccine along with, were made tomorrow, it would change no minds in the BDS movement”

Posted on April 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JNS
BDS co-founder: Israel should save us … and then die
by Jonathan Tobin
April 7, 2020

Advocates of Israel have always liked to joke that supporters of the BDS movement shouldn’t be selective about their efforts to convince the world to boycott the Jewish state. In particular, lately they have said that they are waiting to see what those who seek to isolate and destroy Israel will do if its scientists come up with a vaccine for the coronavirus…In a video posted on Facebook by an anti-Israel group, BDS co-founder Omar Barghouti said this past weekend that if Israel finds a cure for cancer or for a virus, then there is no problem to cooperate with it.” READ MORE

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When it comes to the Middle East, former VP Biden has a history of endorsing woolly and reckless ideas”

Posted on April 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

BLOOMBERG
Biden’s Call to Ease Iran Sanctions Fits a Bad Pattern
by Bobby Ghosh
April 6, 2020

…Biden has doubled down on Obama’s Iran policy, saying he would, as president, return the U.S. to the deal — without first insisting that the regime in Tehran halt its murderous activities in Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen and Gaza. He has never acknowledged that the agreement freed Iran to expand those activities, contributing to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people. Nor does he recognize that, by giving the regime access to billions of dollars in unfrozen assets, the nuclear deal strengthened the theocrats. Biden’s call for sanctions relief for the Islamic Republic is, likewise, unburdened by concern for the millions of people who daily suffer the consequences of Iran’s destructive policy. READ MORE

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“A bestselling and controversial book when first published in Lithuania, “Our People” has undermined many convenient truths that Lithuanians have told themselves about their nationalistic heroes”

Posted on April 5, 2020 by ArchitectGuy

JEWISH JOURNAL
Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust and the Writers Who Revealed It
by Michael Berenbaum
April 3, 2020

“Our People: Discovering Lithuania’s Hidden Holocaust” is a powerful, poignant and painful exploration of the murder by bullets of Lithuanian Jews by Lithuanian nationalists — not Germans. The unusual team of writers consists of the granddaughter and grandniece of perpetrators, and the great nephew of a murdered Jew. Prominent Lithuanian writer Ruta Vanagaite and preeminent Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff visited 35 killing fields throughout Lithuania — 234 mass Holocaust graves in that country — and five in Belarus, where Lithuanian police murdered 15,000 to 20,000 Jews in 1941-42 in that country alone. The authors personally were linked to many of these sites through family history. READ MORE

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