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Latest news briefs from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Friday, August 6, 2004
(JTA) - N.Z. chapel burned down
Assailants burned down a Jewish funeral chapel and smashed more than 60 gravestones in New Zealand's worst ever act of anti-Semitic desecration. The attack Friday on a Wellington Jewish graveyard was the second since July 16, when New Zealand authorities jailed two Israelis for attempting to obtain New Zealand passports under false circumstances. New Zealand says the men were Mossad spies, and imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel. "We had received no threats of any further attacks. This has come like a bolt from the blue," David Schwartz, president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, told JTA.
(JTA) - P.A. police to rearm
Israel will allow Palestinian policemen to carry arms. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's decision Friday reverses a policy instituted after the intifada began four years ago, when Israel announced an open-fire policy on armed Palestinian Authority policemen because so many were collaborating with terrorist groups. Settler groups opposed Friday's reversal, but government spokesman said the decision was aimed at helping the Palestinians regain control of the increasing chaos in their territories. In order to carry weapons, P.A. policemen must by vetted by the Shin Bet security service and inform Israel in advance of their movements.
(JTA) - Israel thwarts attack on settlement
Israeli troops killed two Palestinians on Friday, including one attempting to attack a Gaza Strip settlement. Troops fired on two Palestinians crawling toward a settlement in Gush Katif, killing one of the men. The other attacker fled. Troops found a 90-pound bomb near the dead man, who reportedly was a member of Islamic Jihad. In the West Bank, troops killed a suspected Hamas terrorist near the Ariel settlement and detained another man. In Ramallah, Israeli troops detained Samah Barghuti, a member of the Tanzim militia affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. Barghuti is believed to be behind the June murder of an Israeli truck driver.
(JTA) - Funds for Israel advocacy
The North American Jewish federation system has received $1.7 million for Israel advocacy efforts. The United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs received a grant from UJC's Israel Emergency Campaign to continue their joint Israel Advocacy Initiative, launched last year. The program gives Jewish federations and community relations councils tools for community campaigns for government and public support for Israel. The two-year grant follows a $1 million grant for the program last year that helped train more than 1,000 American activists, brought expert advocates to communities and supported a program that brings North American radio talk show hosts to Israel for a week of broadcasts. In the next two years, the program will expand to include missions to Israel for influential non-Jews, and community grants for innovative programming.
(JTA) - Palestinians cross into Gaza
Some 1,500 Palestinians crossed from Egypt into the Gaza Strip after Israel reopened the border. Israel had closed the border July 18 because of intelligence warnings of a terror attack planned against the terminal. Israel had suspected that Palestinians planned to tunnel under the terminal and then mine the site, a tactic used twice in the Gaza Strip in recent months. The United States pressured Israel to open the border Friday after reports of hardship suffered by Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side. The Palestinian Authority and Egypt had declined an Israeli offer to allow the Palestinians to cross elsewhere while the tunnel search was underway.
(JTA) - UTJ: No to Shinui
An influential Israeli rabbi ruled out a government coalition that would pair the United Torah Judaism and Shinui parties. Shinui had discussed lowering its stridently secularist profile in order to bring UTJ into the government, but Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv's editorial Friday in Yated Ne'eman, the newspaper of UTJ's Degel HaTorah faction, effectively dashes Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chances of setting up a government that doesn't include the opposition Labor Party but backs withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Sharon's Likud party also is in coalition talks with the Labor Party.
(JTA) - Journalists get cards back
Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to accredit Palestinian journalists. Wednesday's decision by a seven-judge panel upholds an April ruling by a smaller panel and forces the Government Press Office to reverse its ban on press cards for Palestinian journalists, who it says display anti-Israel bias and are security risks. International news agencies, which appealed the decision to Israel's courts, note that prior to the blanket ban, Palestinian reporters - like any other reporters applying for press cards - already were subject to a lengthy and thorough security review. The press cards allow access to news conferences and government buildings.
(JTA) - Austrians: Nazis weren't that bad
More than a third of Austrians believe there were some positive aspects to the Nazi era, according to a new poll. Nevertheless, pro-Nazi sentiment in Austria has declined over the past 20 years, a survey by the Fessel-GfK Institute found. Among the developments under Hitler that Austrians view positively are construction of the first autobahn and low unemployment, said the survey, which was reported by the Austrian Press Agency. Thirty-one percent of those polled said the Nazi era had "good and bad" elements - a drop from 47 percent in a 1987 poll. Of 4,000 respondents, 27 percent said the Nazi period was "exclusively bad;" 40 percent said it was "mostly bad;" and 1 percent said it was "mostly good or almost exclusively good."
(JTA) - Follow that cab!
An El Al flight from London was delayed because the crew refused to take a taxi with a suspicious-looking driver. The Israeli captain turned down two cabs to Heathrow Airport because he feared the Middle Eastern-looking drivers were security threats, Ha'aretz reported. By the time the crew made it to the airport, the flight had to be postponed until the next day. Passengers and crew were put up at London hotels. El Al officials attributed the delay to inclement weather.
(JTA) - Rafah crossing to reopen
Israel will reopen a border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Friday. Israel closed the Rafah border crossing July 18 due to fears of terrorism, stranding an estimated 2,500 Palestinians on the Egyptian side.
(JTA) - Holocaust denial in Egypt
Egypt's leading newspaper published a two-part article denying the Holocaust by saying Jews invented "lies of genocide." The columnist for Al- Liwaa al-Islami, Rif'at Sayyed Ahmad, wrote earlier this summer that the Jews created the "lie" to receive financial, technological and economic aid from the West and to make it easier to establish the State of Israel in Palestine. In reaction to the articles, the newspaper printed a clarification Wednesday saying the article was "the opinion of the writer, which is subject to discussion, agreement or rejection." Though the editor, Mohammed Al-Zorkany, said he was surprised the articles stirred controversy, Ahmad himself was unapologetic saying, "The issue should be the Holocaust that the Palestinians are going through, not the Jews."
(JTA) - She'll look smashing
An Israeli tennis star will compete in the Olympics after a sponsorship rift nearly kept her off the team. Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi, Israel's top female tennis player, will play in the women's singles tournament in Athens now that her regular sponsor, Lotto, has reached agreement with Speedo, the official supplier of the Olympic team, over her Olympic garb. "A solution to the problem has been reached," Ira Froman, chairman of the Israel Tennis Association, told media. "Anna will appear at all the official functions at the Olympics with the official clothing of the Olympic committee, Speedo. On the court she will wear a shirt with no markings." The deal did not include financial compensation for either side, Froman said. Smashnova-Pistolesi, 28, was born in Belarus and resides in Herzliya. She has won nine career WTA titles and currently is ranked No. 18 in the world.
(JTA) - Self-heating meals for kosher troops
Self-heating kosher meals now are available for Jewish members of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq. The meals, shipped by the Jewish Soldier Foundation and New Jersey-based La Briute Meals, come equipped with a salt water- activated, flame-less food heater made of magnesium and iron. To contact La Briute Meals, go to www.labriutemeals.com, or www.jewishsoldier.org.
(JTA) - Jdate digs for gold
Jdate's parent company plans to list its stock on Nasdaq. MatchNet Inc. said Thursday it plans to raise as much as $100 million in the September listing, the Jerusalem Post reported. The company, which is currently traded on the Frankfurt Stock exchange, was founded in 1998 by Los Angeles-based Israelis Alon Carmel and Joe Shapira. The company owns several dating Web sites, the largest of which are AmericanSingles.com and Jdate.com. It merged last year with Tel Aviv-based PointMatch, which owns Israel's leading dating Web sites. The company published its earnings Thursday, showing that its net loss rose by more than 500 percent to $4.1 million, while revenues rose 88 percent to $15.8 million.
(JTA) - Israel: Ma'aleh Adumim stays put
Israel does not plan to expand a settlement near Jerusalem in order to join it to the capital. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Thursday with Elliott Abrams, President Bush's top Middle East adviser, and denied reports that proposed housing units in Ma'aleh Adumim were part of a plan to link the West Bank bedroom community with Jerusalem. An Israeli official said Sharon told Abrams that Israel never would contradict its standing agreements with the Bush administration, including one that prohibits building outside settlement borders. The only way to encompass Ma'aleh Adumim within Jerusalem's current municipal lines would be to expand the settlement beyond its existing borders.
(JTA) - Eitam backs Shin Bet
The head of the National Religious Party said the Shin Bet security service should move against extremist Jews. Effi Eitam said Thursday that Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter had persuaded him of the need to place a handful of Jewish extremists under administrative detention for fear they could resort to violence in a bid to thwart government evacuation of settlements. "The risk of individuals ruining the right-wing struggle against the disengagement plan is greater than the risk of widespread use of administrative detention," Eitam told Israel Radio. Many in Israel's pro-settler lobby still are smarting from a Shin Bet crackdown after the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, when some activists were jailed for extended periods without charges or access to lawyers.
(JTA) - Terror death inspires aliyah
Fifteen Jewish doctors are moving to Israel from North America, motivated in part by a fellow physician slain in a terror attack. The group Nefesh B'Nefesh said Thursday that the doctors and their family members, a group numbering nearly 100 people, will arrive in Israel next week. The doctors, from the United States and Canada, were inspired to make the move in memory of Detroit-born Dr. David Applebaum, who was killed along with his daughter, Nava, by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Jerusalem last September.
Israel leaves Beit Hanoun
Israeli forces pulled back from a Gaza Strip town used to launch rocket attacks on Israel. Thursday's withdrawal from Beit Hanoun ended a siege imposed in late June after a Kassam rocket fired by Hamas terrorists killed two people in the Israeli town of Sderot. Security sources said the operation had been only moderately successful because rocket crews had pulled out of Beit Hanoun but continued firing over the boundary into Israel. Two Kassams landed in the western Negev Desert on Thursday but caused no casualties.
(JTA) - Products to E.U. labeled
Israeli exports to the European Union will have different labels if they are produced beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders. In a deal signed Thursday in Brussels, Israel agreed to the change that will allow it to maintain its favored- trading status with the bloc. Israel previously had refused to label which products were produced in the West Bank, Gaza Strip or the Golan Heights, fearing that the products would be subject to extra trade tariffs. Israeli exports to the European Union, the Jewish state's largest trading partner, currently stand at around $17.5 billion per year. Those produced in the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan account for some $100 million of that figure. Under the agreement, Israel agreed to label its exports by town of origin, on the understanding that products made in settlements would face extra duties. In what was described as a face-saving gesture, the E.U. agreed to have "Israel" printed on all Israeli export labels, even though the 25-nation bloc does not recognize the Jewish state's hold on the West Bank and Gaza.
(JTA) - Australians jailed for hate
Two members of an extreme right-wing group were sentenced to jail for a spate of anti-Semitic attacks. Daniel Tyrone Klavins, 26, and Frank James Lemin, 20, pleaded guilty last week to willfully damaging buildings in Perth. Last month, widespread daubing of buildings including the Perth Hebrew Congregation, a Kosher food store, a Chinese restaurant and a police station sent investigators on a hunt for members of the Australian National Movement, a group headed by Jack van Tongeren, who himself has spent 12 years in prison for fire bombing Chinese restaurants.
(JTA) - Port strike ends
Israeli port workers ended a strike that cost the country more than $1.5 billion. The Histadrut labor federation announced Thursday that the workers would return to work after Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to suspend for several months a plan to privatize Haifa, Eilat and Ashdod ports. Launched last month, the strike had stranded more than 60 ships at sea as workers offloaded cargo only intermittently. Importers put their losses at more than $1.5 billion.
(JTA) - Ma'aleh Adumim under expansion
Israel plans to link Jerusalem to the biggest West Bank settlement, despite U.S. censure. Under a government plan for which ground was broken six months ago, 3,750 acres of land east of the capital are to be annexed to Ma'aleh Adumim, the biggest Israeli community in the West Bank. The move runs counter to Israel's understandings with the United States, under which West Bank or Gaza Strip settlements are not to be expanded. U.S. officials said visiting White House envoy Elliott Abrams likely would raise the issue with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a meeting scheduled for Thursday evening. Ma'aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel said construction of residential complexes on the new annex was expected to begin in mid-2005.
(JTA) - Light-en up
Israeli soldiers may soon be treated with marijuana to relieve symptoms of combat stress in response to reserve duty in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Tests on volunteers with post-traumatic stress disorder will begin in the next few days at the mental health department of the Medical Corps, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.
(JTA) - Chinese help 'Jewish region' of Russia
A Chinese city donated $12,000 to the Jewish community in Birobidjan, Russia. The recent gift was made by the mayor of Hegang, Birobidjan's sister city located in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang, and will be used to purchase computers for Birobidjan's Hebrew school. Next month, Birobidjan which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year will host a number of high-profile events that are expected to draw guests from Russia and abroad. Birobidjan was designated by Stalin in 1934 as a Jewish autonomous region and touted by Soviet propaganda as a Communist alternative to Palestine. Located in a Russian Far East region bordering China, Birobidjan remains home to a few thousand Jews.
(JTA) - Evangelicals plan ties with 'messianic Jews'
A Christian fundamentalist group is planning a new alliance with so- called messianic Jews. Bill McCartney, founder of the Promise Keepers, a Christian men's ministry, is planning to launch a new initiative with "messianic Jews" called "Road to Jerusalem," the Forward reported. McCartney, who has not made information about the new initiative public, told worshipers at an Arizona church in May, "We are going to save the unbelieving Jew," the report said. The organized Jewish community has shunned messianic Jewish groups, many of whom, like Jews for Jesus, actually are comprised of many Christian members. Some observers said the new alliance could undermine ties between Jews and evangelical Christians, whose strong support for Israel has been welcomed by many Jewish supporters of Israel.
(JTA) - State Dept. ratchets up warning on Israel
The kidnapping of a U.S. citizen prompted the State Department to warn Americans to leave the Gaza Strip and defer travel to Israel and the West Bank. Unknown gunmen kidnapped an unidentified U.S. citizen and two Europeans on Saturday in the West Bank; the captives were released within hours after the Palestinian Authority agreed to pay a ransom. U.S. policy opposes paying ransoms, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "I think the Palestinians are quite clear on what our policy is," Boucher said. The State Department's travel warning noted other kidnappings of foreigners by the Al-Aksa Brigade, a terrorist group affiliated with P.A. President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, and warned "U.S. citizens to depart Gaza immediately and defer travel to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza due to current safety and security concerns."
(JTA) - Group to Bush: Nudge Sharon
Americans for Peace Now urged President Bush to lobby Israel to comply with the "road map" peace plan. The dovish group called on Bush to press Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to meet Israel's obligations under the road map, a plan crafted by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The group contends that Sharon's government has promoted settlement growth in the West Bank in violation of a road map provision to freeze settlement expansion. "Your administration correctly insists on the Palestinian Authority's fulfillment of its commitments to fight terrorism and to institute credible political, security and economic reforms," the group's chairman, Luis Lainer, and its president and CEO, Debra DeLee, said in a letter to Bush on Wednesday. "You should do no less with Israeli obligations."
(JTA) - New site criticizes Kerry
A new Web site calls President Bush the better presidential candidate for Israel. BestforIsrael.org founder Jeff Stier doesn't contend that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would be bad for Israel, only that Bush would be better. The site focuses on Kerry's statements on Israel's West Bank security fence, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and terrorism and Kerry's deference to the United Nations, an organization Stier calls "anti-Israel."
(JTA) - B'nai B'rith aids Paraguay victims
B'nai B'rith International is helping to send $2.5 million in supplies to fire victims in Paraguay. The donated pharmaceutical and medical supplies will aid victims of Sunday's supermarket fire in Asuncion that killed more than 400 people and injured hundreds more. Members of B'nai B'rith Paraguay will distribute the shipment when it arrives Aug. 8. "People are fighting for their lives in local hospitals," said Jack Fleischman, president of B'nai B'rith Paraguay. "We need help. We need medicine and supplies."
(JTA) - Army service leads to citizenship
A new law gives automatic Israeli citizenship to non-Jewish soldiers who serve 18 months in the Israeli army. The bill passed its final two readings in the Knesset on Wednesday. The new law also applies to soldiers who have been released from military service before completing 18 months of service due to illness or injury that occurred during their service.
(JTA) - Palestinian security guards shot
Four members of the Palestinian Authority's military intelligence force were shot and wounded. The men were hurt Wednesday when their vehicle was ambushed by unidentified gunmen in the center of Gaza City. The attack came as Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat turned 75 on Wednesday. Unlike in past years, there was no mention of the event in Palestinian media, apparently because of the ongoing crisis in the Palestinian Authority.
(JTA) - Russian Jewish newspaper burglarized
The editorial office of Russia's oldest Jewish newspaper was burglarized. Burglars took seven editorial computers but not the monitors on Sunday, according to Tankred Golenpolsky, founder and editor in chief of the weekly International Jewish Newspaper. Golenpolsky said that most surprising to him was the fact that much of the archives was stolen, including paper documents, CD-ROMs and financial documentation. "I'm not saying this is anti-Semitism because there is enough crime around without it," he told JTA. Golenpolsky said he wouldn't rule out the possibility that his paper was targeted because it published articles critical of the authorities and because the newspaper followed closely the criminal case against Jewish oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Police opened an investigation into the incident. The Federation of Jewish Communities has offered the paper temporary office space.
(JTA) - Vilnius Jews squabble
An internecine dispute within Vilnius' Jewish community took a new turn. Over the weekend, supporters of one of the contenders for the post of Lithuania's chief rabbi were not allowed to attend services in the city's only synagogue. The president of the community, Simonas Alperavicius, said the decision was made not to allow Sholom Ber Krinsky and his supporters into the synagogue in order to protect order and dignity in the shul. The community leadership says it doesn't want Krinsky as chief rabbi because he was a member of the Lubavitch movement. Lubavitch historically had no roots in Lithuania, which long was known as a stronghold of opposition to Chasidism. Krinsky in turn accused Alperavicius of Nazi-like behavior and a desire to control community institutions for his personal gain, accusations Alperavicius denied. Krinsky and his supporters organized open-air services outside the synagogue. Earlier this year, the community temporarily closed the synagogue for services following some infighting.
(JTA) - Photo exhibit opens in Moscow
An exhibition of Israeli and Russian photographers opened in Moscow this week. "Photo-Bridge St. Petersburg-Israel," an exhibition first shown in St. Petersburg earlier this year, is a result of a project that brought six Israeli artists to the city and six Russian photographers to the Jewish state. The month-long exhibition in the Moscow House of Photography includes 300 photos and will run through Sept. 3. JTA END
(JTA) - N.Z. chapel burned down
Assailants burned down a Jewish funeral chapel and smashed more than 60 gravestones in New Zealand's worst ever act of anti-Semitic desecration. The attack Friday on a Wellington Jewish graveyard was the second since July 16, when New Zealand authorities jailed two Israelis for attempting to obtain New Zealand passports under false circumstances. New Zealand says the men were Mossad spies, and imposed diplomatic sanctions on Israel. "We had received no threats of any further attacks. This has come like a bolt from the blue," David Schwartz, president of the New Zealand Jewish Council, told JTA.
(JTA) - P.A. police to rearm
Israel will allow Palestinian policemen to carry arms. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's decision Friday reverses a policy instituted after the intifada began four years ago, when Israel announced an open-fire policy on armed Palestinian Authority policemen because so many were collaborating with terrorist groups. Settler groups opposed Friday's reversal, but government spokesman said the decision was aimed at helping the Palestinians regain control of the increasing chaos in their territories. In order to carry weapons, P.A. policemen must by vetted by the Shin Bet security service and inform Israel in advance of their movements.
(JTA) - Israel thwarts attack on settlement
Israeli troops killed two Palestinians on Friday, including one attempting to attack a Gaza Strip settlement. Troops fired on two Palestinians crawling toward a settlement in Gush Katif, killing one of the men. The other attacker fled. Troops found a 90-pound bomb near the dead man, who reportedly was a member of Islamic Jihad. In the West Bank, troops killed a suspected Hamas terrorist near the Ariel settlement and detained another man. In Ramallah, Israeli troops detained Samah Barghuti, a member of the Tanzim militia affiliated with Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. Barghuti is believed to be behind the June murder of an Israeli truck driver.
(JTA) - Funds for Israel advocacy
The North American Jewish federation system has received $1.7 million for Israel advocacy efforts. The United Jewish Communities and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs received a grant from UJC's Israel Emergency Campaign to continue their joint Israel Advocacy Initiative, launched last year. The program gives Jewish federations and community relations councils tools for community campaigns for government and public support for Israel. The two-year grant follows a $1 million grant for the program last year that helped train more than 1,000 American activists, brought expert advocates to communities and supported a program that brings North American radio talk show hosts to Israel for a week of broadcasts. In the next two years, the program will expand to include missions to Israel for influential non-Jews, and community grants for innovative programming.
(JTA) - Palestinians cross into Gaza
Some 1,500 Palestinians crossed from Egypt into the Gaza Strip after Israel reopened the border. Israel had closed the border July 18 because of intelligence warnings of a terror attack planned against the terminal. Israel had suspected that Palestinians planned to tunnel under the terminal and then mine the site, a tactic used twice in the Gaza Strip in recent months. The United States pressured Israel to open the border Friday after reports of hardship suffered by Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side. The Palestinian Authority and Egypt had declined an Israeli offer to allow the Palestinians to cross elsewhere while the tunnel search was underway.
(JTA) - UTJ: No to Shinui
An influential Israeli rabbi ruled out a government coalition that would pair the United Torah Judaism and Shinui parties. Shinui had discussed lowering its stridently secularist profile in order to bring UTJ into the government, but Rabbi Shalom Elyashiv's editorial Friday in Yated Ne'eman, the newspaper of UTJ's Degel HaTorah faction, effectively dashes Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chances of setting up a government that doesn't include the opposition Labor Party but backs withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Sharon's Likud party also is in coalition talks with the Labor Party.
(JTA) - Journalists get cards back
Israel's Supreme Court ordered the government to accredit Palestinian journalists. Wednesday's decision by a seven-judge panel upholds an April ruling by a smaller panel and forces the Government Press Office to reverse its ban on press cards for Palestinian journalists, who it says display anti-Israel bias and are security risks. International news agencies, which appealed the decision to Israel's courts, note that prior to the blanket ban, Palestinian reporters - like any other reporters applying for press cards - already were subject to a lengthy and thorough security review. The press cards allow access to news conferences and government buildings.
(JTA) - Austrians: Nazis weren't that bad
More than a third of Austrians believe there were some positive aspects to the Nazi era, according to a new poll. Nevertheless, pro-Nazi sentiment in Austria has declined over the past 20 years, a survey by the Fessel-GfK Institute found. Among the developments under Hitler that Austrians view positively are construction of the first autobahn and low unemployment, said the survey, which was reported by the Austrian Press Agency. Thirty-one percent of those polled said the Nazi era had "good and bad" elements - a drop from 47 percent in a 1987 poll. Of 4,000 respondents, 27 percent said the Nazi period was "exclusively bad;" 40 percent said it was "mostly bad;" and 1 percent said it was "mostly good or almost exclusively good."
(JTA) - Follow that cab!
An El Al flight from London was delayed because the crew refused to take a taxi with a suspicious-looking driver. The Israeli captain turned down two cabs to Heathrow Airport because he feared the Middle Eastern-looking drivers were security threats, Ha'aretz reported. By the time the crew made it to the airport, the flight had to be postponed until the next day. Passengers and crew were put up at London hotels. El Al officials attributed the delay to inclement weather.
(JTA) - Rafah crossing to reopen
Israel will reopen a border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Friday. Israel closed the Rafah border crossing July 18 due to fears of terrorism, stranding an estimated 2,500 Palestinians on the Egyptian side.
(JTA) - Holocaust denial in Egypt
Egypt's leading newspaper published a two-part article denying the Holocaust by saying Jews invented "lies of genocide." The columnist for Al- Liwaa al-Islami, Rif'at Sayyed Ahmad, wrote earlier this summer that the Jews created the "lie" to receive financial, technological and economic aid from the West and to make it easier to establish the State of Israel in Palestine. In reaction to the articles, the newspaper printed a clarification Wednesday saying the article was "the opinion of the writer, which is subject to discussion, agreement or rejection." Though the editor, Mohammed Al-Zorkany, said he was surprised the articles stirred controversy, Ahmad himself was unapologetic saying, "The issue should be the Holocaust that the Palestinians are going through, not the Jews."
(JTA) - She'll look smashing
An Israeli tennis star will compete in the Olympics after a sponsorship rift nearly kept her off the team. Anna Smashnova-Pistolesi, Israel's top female tennis player, will play in the women's singles tournament in Athens now that her regular sponsor, Lotto, has reached agreement with Speedo, the official supplier of the Olympic team, over her Olympic garb. "A solution to the problem has been reached," Ira Froman, chairman of the Israel Tennis Association, told media. "Anna will appear at all the official functions at the Olympics with the official clothing of the Olympic committee, Speedo. On the court she will wear a shirt with no markings." The deal did not include financial compensation for either side, Froman said. Smashnova-Pistolesi, 28, was born in Belarus and resides in Herzliya. She has won nine career WTA titles and currently is ranked No. 18 in the world.
(JTA) - Self-heating meals for kosher troops
Self-heating kosher meals now are available for Jewish members of the U.S. armed forces in Iraq. The meals, shipped by the Jewish Soldier Foundation and New Jersey-based La Briute Meals, come equipped with a salt water- activated, flame-less food heater made of magnesium and iron. To contact La Briute Meals, go to www.labriutemeals.com, or www.jewishsoldier.org.
(JTA) - Jdate digs for gold
Jdate's parent company plans to list its stock on Nasdaq. MatchNet Inc. said Thursday it plans to raise as much as $100 million in the September listing, the Jerusalem Post reported. The company, which is currently traded on the Frankfurt Stock exchange, was founded in 1998 by Los Angeles-based Israelis Alon Carmel and Joe Shapira. The company owns several dating Web sites, the largest of which are AmericanSingles.com and Jdate.com. It merged last year with Tel Aviv-based PointMatch, which owns Israel's leading dating Web sites. The company published its earnings Thursday, showing that its net loss rose by more than 500 percent to $4.1 million, while revenues rose 88 percent to $15.8 million.
(JTA) - Israel: Ma'aleh Adumim stays put
Israel does not plan to expand a settlement near Jerusalem in order to join it to the capital. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met Thursday with Elliott Abrams, President Bush's top Middle East adviser, and denied reports that proposed housing units in Ma'aleh Adumim were part of a plan to link the West Bank bedroom community with Jerusalem. An Israeli official said Sharon told Abrams that Israel never would contradict its standing agreements with the Bush administration, including one that prohibits building outside settlement borders. The only way to encompass Ma'aleh Adumim within Jerusalem's current municipal lines would be to expand the settlement beyond its existing borders.
(JTA) - Eitam backs Shin Bet
The head of the National Religious Party said the Shin Bet security service should move against extremist Jews. Effi Eitam said Thursday that Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter had persuaded him of the need to place a handful of Jewish extremists under administrative detention for fear they could resort to violence in a bid to thwart government evacuation of settlements. "The risk of individuals ruining the right-wing struggle against the disengagement plan is greater than the risk of widespread use of administrative detention," Eitam told Israel Radio. Many in Israel's pro-settler lobby still are smarting from a Shin Bet crackdown after the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, when some activists were jailed for extended periods without charges or access to lawyers.
(JTA) - Terror death inspires aliyah
Fifteen Jewish doctors are moving to Israel from North America, motivated in part by a fellow physician slain in a terror attack. The group Nefesh B'Nefesh said Thursday that the doctors and their family members, a group numbering nearly 100 people, will arrive in Israel next week. The doctors, from the United States and Canada, were inspired to make the move in memory of Detroit-born Dr. David Applebaum, who was killed along with his daughter, Nava, by a Palestinian suicide bomber in Jerusalem last September.
Israel leaves Beit Hanoun
Israeli forces pulled back from a Gaza Strip town used to launch rocket attacks on Israel. Thursday's withdrawal from Beit Hanoun ended a siege imposed in late June after a Kassam rocket fired by Hamas terrorists killed two people in the Israeli town of Sderot. Security sources said the operation had been only moderately successful because rocket crews had pulled out of Beit Hanoun but continued firing over the boundary into Israel. Two Kassams landed in the western Negev Desert on Thursday but caused no casualties.
(JTA) - Products to E.U. labeled
Israeli exports to the European Union will have different labels if they are produced beyond Israel's pre-1967 borders. In a deal signed Thursday in Brussels, Israel agreed to the change that will allow it to maintain its favored- trading status with the bloc. Israel previously had refused to label which products were produced in the West Bank, Gaza Strip or the Golan Heights, fearing that the products would be subject to extra trade tariffs. Israeli exports to the European Union, the Jewish state's largest trading partner, currently stand at around $17.5 billion per year. Those produced in the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan account for some $100 million of that figure. Under the agreement, Israel agreed to label its exports by town of origin, on the understanding that products made in settlements would face extra duties. In what was described as a face-saving gesture, the E.U. agreed to have "Israel" printed on all Israeli export labels, even though the 25-nation bloc does not recognize the Jewish state's hold on the West Bank and Gaza.
(JTA) - Australians jailed for hate
Two members of an extreme right-wing group were sentenced to jail for a spate of anti-Semitic attacks. Daniel Tyrone Klavins, 26, and Frank James Lemin, 20, pleaded guilty last week to willfully damaging buildings in Perth. Last month, widespread daubing of buildings including the Perth Hebrew Congregation, a Kosher food store, a Chinese restaurant and a police station sent investigators on a hunt for members of the Australian National Movement, a group headed by Jack van Tongeren, who himself has spent 12 years in prison for fire bombing Chinese restaurants.
(JTA) - Port strike ends
Israeli port workers ended a strike that cost the country more than $1.5 billion. The Histadrut labor federation announced Thursday that the workers would return to work after Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to suspend for several months a plan to privatize Haifa, Eilat and Ashdod ports. Launched last month, the strike had stranded more than 60 ships at sea as workers offloaded cargo only intermittently. Importers put their losses at more than $1.5 billion.
(JTA) - Ma'aleh Adumim under expansion
Israel plans to link Jerusalem to the biggest West Bank settlement, despite U.S. censure. Under a government plan for which ground was broken six months ago, 3,750 acres of land east of the capital are to be annexed to Ma'aleh Adumim, the biggest Israeli community in the West Bank. The move runs counter to Israel's understandings with the United States, under which West Bank or Gaza Strip settlements are not to be expanded. U.S. officials said visiting White House envoy Elliott Abrams likely would raise the issue with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in a meeting scheduled for Thursday evening. Ma'aleh Adumim Mayor Benny Kashriel said construction of residential complexes on the new annex was expected to begin in mid-2005.
(JTA) - Light-en up
Israeli soldiers may soon be treated with marijuana to relieve symptoms of combat stress in response to reserve duty in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Tests on volunteers with post-traumatic stress disorder will begin in the next few days at the mental health department of the Medical Corps, the Agence France-Presse news agency reported.
(JTA) - Chinese help 'Jewish region' of Russia
A Chinese city donated $12,000 to the Jewish community in Birobidjan, Russia. The recent gift was made by the mayor of Hegang, Birobidjan's sister city located in the northeastern Chinese province of Heilongjiang, and will be used to purchase computers for Birobidjan's Hebrew school. Next month, Birobidjan which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year will host a number of high-profile events that are expected to draw guests from Russia and abroad. Birobidjan was designated by Stalin in 1934 as a Jewish autonomous region and touted by Soviet propaganda as a Communist alternative to Palestine. Located in a Russian Far East region bordering China, Birobidjan remains home to a few thousand Jews.
(JTA) - Evangelicals plan ties with 'messianic Jews'
A Christian fundamentalist group is planning a new alliance with so- called messianic Jews. Bill McCartney, founder of the Promise Keepers, a Christian men's ministry, is planning to launch a new initiative with "messianic Jews" called "Road to Jerusalem," the Forward reported. McCartney, who has not made information about the new initiative public, told worshipers at an Arizona church in May, "We are going to save the unbelieving Jew," the report said. The organized Jewish community has shunned messianic Jewish groups, many of whom, like Jews for Jesus, actually are comprised of many Christian members. Some observers said the new alliance could undermine ties between Jews and evangelical Christians, whose strong support for Israel has been welcomed by many Jewish supporters of Israel.
(JTA) - State Dept. ratchets up warning on Israel
The kidnapping of a U.S. citizen prompted the State Department to warn Americans to leave the Gaza Strip and defer travel to Israel and the West Bank. Unknown gunmen kidnapped an unidentified U.S. citizen and two Europeans on Saturday in the West Bank; the captives were released within hours after the Palestinian Authority agreed to pay a ransom. U.S. policy opposes paying ransoms, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "I think the Palestinians are quite clear on what our policy is," Boucher said. The State Department's travel warning noted other kidnappings of foreigners by the Al-Aksa Brigade, a terrorist group affiliated with P.A. President Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, and warned "U.S. citizens to depart Gaza immediately and defer travel to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza due to current safety and security concerns."
(JTA) - Group to Bush: Nudge Sharon
Americans for Peace Now urged President Bush to lobby Israel to comply with the "road map" peace plan. The dovish group called on Bush to press Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to meet Israel's obligations under the road map, a plan crafted by the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The group contends that Sharon's government has promoted settlement growth in the West Bank in violation of a road map provision to freeze settlement expansion. "Your administration correctly insists on the Palestinian Authority's fulfillment of its commitments to fight terrorism and to institute credible political, security and economic reforms," the group's chairman, Luis Lainer, and its president and CEO, Debra DeLee, said in a letter to Bush on Wednesday. "You should do no less with Israeli obligations."
(JTA) - New site criticizes Kerry
A new Web site calls President Bush the better presidential candidate for Israel. BestforIsrael.org founder Jeff Stier doesn't contend that Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry would be bad for Israel, only that Bush would be better. The site focuses on Kerry's statements on Israel's West Bank security fence, Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and terrorism and Kerry's deference to the United Nations, an organization Stier calls "anti-Israel."
(JTA) - B'nai B'rith aids Paraguay victims
B'nai B'rith International is helping to send $2.5 million in supplies to fire victims in Paraguay. The donated pharmaceutical and medical supplies will aid victims of Sunday's supermarket fire in Asuncion that killed more than 400 people and injured hundreds more. Members of B'nai B'rith Paraguay will distribute the shipment when it arrives Aug. 8. "People are fighting for their lives in local hospitals," said Jack Fleischman, president of B'nai B'rith Paraguay. "We need help. We need medicine and supplies."
(JTA) - Army service leads to citizenship
A new law gives automatic Israeli citizenship to non-Jewish soldiers who serve 18 months in the Israeli army. The bill passed its final two readings in the Knesset on Wednesday. The new law also applies to soldiers who have been released from military service before completing 18 months of service due to illness or injury that occurred during their service.
(JTA) - Palestinian security guards shot
Four members of the Palestinian Authority's military intelligence force were shot and wounded. The men were hurt Wednesday when their vehicle was ambushed by unidentified gunmen in the center of Gaza City. The attack came as Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat turned 75 on Wednesday. Unlike in past years, there was no mention of the event in Palestinian media, apparently because of the ongoing crisis in the Palestinian Authority.
(JTA) - Russian Jewish newspaper burglarized
The editorial office of Russia's oldest Jewish newspaper was burglarized. Burglars took seven editorial computers but not the monitors on Sunday, according to Tankred Golenpolsky, founder and editor in chief of the weekly International Jewish Newspaper. Golenpolsky said that most surprising to him was the fact that much of the archives was stolen, including paper documents, CD-ROMs and financial documentation. "I'm not saying this is anti-Semitism because there is enough crime around without it," he told JTA. Golenpolsky said he wouldn't rule out the possibility that his paper was targeted because it published articles critical of the authorities and because the newspaper followed closely the criminal case against Jewish oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Police opened an investigation into the incident. The Federation of Jewish Communities has offered the paper temporary office space.
(JTA) - Vilnius Jews squabble
An internecine dispute within Vilnius' Jewish community took a new turn. Over the weekend, supporters of one of the contenders for the post of Lithuania's chief rabbi were not allowed to attend services in the city's only synagogue. The president of the community, Simonas Alperavicius, said the decision was made not to allow Sholom Ber Krinsky and his supporters into the synagogue in order to protect order and dignity in the shul. The community leadership says it doesn't want Krinsky as chief rabbi because he was a member of the Lubavitch movement. Lubavitch historically had no roots in Lithuania, which long was known as a stronghold of opposition to Chasidism. Krinsky in turn accused Alperavicius of Nazi-like behavior and a desire to control community institutions for his personal gain, accusations Alperavicius denied. Krinsky and his supporters organized open-air services outside the synagogue. Earlier this year, the community temporarily closed the synagogue for services following some infighting.
(JTA) - Photo exhibit opens in Moscow
An exhibition of Israeli and Russian photographers opened in Moscow this week. "Photo-Bridge St. Petersburg-Israel," an exhibition first shown in St. Petersburg earlier this year, is a result of a project that brought six Israeli artists to the city and six Russian photographers to the Jewish state. The month-long exhibition in the Moscow House of Photography includes 300 photos and will run through Sept. 3. JTA END
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