RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-new-antisemitism-is-the-oldest-kind-israel-gaza-college-campus-protest-d29bb68a?mod=opinion_lead_pos5

I remember a dinner party on Martha’s Vineyard in the 1970s when I and my first wife, who was Jewish, shared lobster with a half-dozen nicely tanned Protestants in sherbet-colored golfing trousers. They chattered about what pests “those people” were, who kept “pushing” to join the local beach club, even though they were “not wanted.”

“Gee,” said a middle-aged Princeton man—pronouncing the word “jay”—“why don’t they stick to their own clubs?”

My then-wife and I left the party early, and in the car she burst into tears.

How innocent the moment seems. That was the postwar “Gentleman’s Agreement” version of American antisemitism—gentiles relaxing up-island, on their fourth glass of Chablis. The word “Jew” wasn’t mentioned. In the Martha’s Vineyard iteration—post-Auschwitz—American antisemitism often had a discreetly covert quality. It emerged from a kind of sly politesse because, after all, everyone at some time or other had seen the films from the Nazi camps—the ones that Gen. Eisenhower had ordered his troops to watch. In Elia Kazan’s 1947 movie based on the Laura Hobson novel “Gentleman’s Agreement,” desk clerks fidget and look away when Gregory Peck, as a journalist pretending to be Jewish, pushes them about renting a room.

America’s antisemites in those days were more fools than monsters. With exceptions—Henry Ford, Father Coughlin, et al.—their antisemitism seemed more snobbery than hate crime. It wasn’t political, programmatic or fanatical. One evening in 1918, Eleanor Roosevelt (of all people) came home from a Washington dinner party for the financier Bernard Baruch and wrote to her mother-in-law that “the Jew party was appalling.”

The antisemitism that has poured forth onto the country’s streets and campuses in the autumn of 2023 is a different thing—a reversion to a politics of aggressive, unapologetic hate. The ominous historical regression at work in the latest Jew-hatred takes up the themes of the mid-1930s, the spirit of Hitler’s brown shirts and Kristallnacht. Of course, the new Jew-haters—especially young people on campuses—think of themselves as perfectly virtuous. What is a thousand times worse, they think of their Jew-hatred as righteous. It’s morally fashionable among them.

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/demonstrating-against-jew-hatred?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The enormous demonstration against antisemitism in London last Sunday provided a much-needed morale boost to the beleaguered Jewish community.

There is profound shock that the barbaric Hamas pogrom in Israel on October 7 has given rise to a tsunami of incitement, intimidation and abuse of Jews. In this appalling situation, the emergence of tens of thousands of decent British citizens declaring their support for the Jewish people was heartening indeed.

However, declaring abhorrence of antisemitism needs to be backed by action if it is to mean anything.

The government has stated its solidarity with Israel over the massacre and has vowed to combat antisemitism. Yet if it really wanted to tackle this eruption of the oldest hatred, it would be addressing what’s driving it.

It would be speaking out against the virulent Islamic antisemitism that’s now on display in Britain and worldwide. It would be shutting down mosques where imams are preaching incitement against Jews and Israel.

It would be educating the country about the extraordinary lengths to which Israel goes in order to avoid harming Gaza’s civilians, unmatched by any other country.

It would be declaring that anyone who portrays Israel as genocidal, Nazi or guilty of illegality or human rights abuses is perpetrating a grotesque lie about the Jewish state that incites abuse and violence against Jews everywhere.

But the government has said none of these things. Instead the new Foreign Secretary, David Cameron, has actually fuelled the demonisation of Israel.

Echoing the malign barbs delivered by the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, Cameron lectured Israeli leaders that “they must abide by international humanitarian law, that the number of casualties are too high and that they have to have that top of their mind”.

The news from Israel is dominated by reports of war, hostage exchanges, and hostages including children still in bondage in appalling conditions. Beyond the headlines Israeli resilience and patriotism, and research and development to benefit humanity continue apace. Michael Ordman compiles an essential catalog of the foregoing every week. Here is positive news at a time of suffering and despair. Read it all…..rsk

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR

Female tank crews save kibbutzim. (TY Manfred) On Oct 7 Israel’s all-female tank crews made history when they fought Hamas terrorists and prevented them from overrunning many Israeli southern communities. They are the first female armored crews in Israel, and perhaps the world, to participate in active battle.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/female-idf-tank-crews-ran-down-dozens-of-hamas-terrorists-on-october-7/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjy0wpdSAI0

The farmer who neutralized a Hamas cell. Eran Smilansky was a member of Kibbutz Nir Oz’s emergency squad. On Oct 7, he eliminated eight Hamas terrorists who had stormed his home. He then saved his father and his two daughters at his father’s home that the terrorists had tried to burn down with his family inside.

https://idsf.org.il/en/stories-of-valor/singlehandedly-neutralized-a-terrorists-cell/

Eritrean given residency for saving life. Eritrean national Mulugeta Tsagi received permanent residency status in Israel as a “thank you” for saving an Israeli soldier’s life on Oct. 7. Tsagi gave lifesaving first aid to an IDF officer shot by Hamas in Sderot, then stayed with him for several hours until he finally reached hospital.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/eritrean-given-permanent-residency-in-israel-after-saving-idf-officers-life-on-oct-7/  https://www.jns.org/eritrean-granted-israeli-residency-for-oct-7-heroism/

What’s cooking? Beraha Astruk is a Head Nurse at Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya. After work, she voluntarily spends her evenings and weekends cooking for two IDF battalions stationed near the northern border. She even invites the soldiers to do their laundry at her house. Beraha has two sons in the IDF in Gaza.

https://www.israel21c.org/after-hospital-shifts-head-nurse-cooks-for-idf-battalions/

Care for released hostages. (TY Cynthia) Schneider Children’s Hospital is THE hospital designated to receive many of the released children and their families. It has a media-free area, decorated recovery rooms, a multi-disciplinary team of medical and support staff, even family pets are allowed. See photos & donation links here.

https://www.schneider.org.il/?CategoryID=844&ArticleID=5328

https://www.schneider.org.il/?CategoryID=1011&ArticleID=5327

https://www.justgiving.com/ukfriendsofschneider/donate (UK donors)

https://www.schneider.org.il/?CategoryID=1063&ArticleID=3238 (Israeli & US donors)

Late birthday present for released hostage. On his 9th birthday, Ohad Munder was a hostage in Gaza. He was told that his favorite soccer team, Hapoel Be’er Sheva, wished him a happy birthday on TV. It gave Ohad renewed strength and on his release, the players visited him in hospital.

https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-soccer-teams-heartfelt-reunion-with-9-year-old-captive-is-a-birthday-wish-fulfilled/

Entrepreneur raises $40 million for IDF. Since Oct 7, Dutch-based Israeli entrepreneur Eran Efrat, has raised some $40 million to produce tactical gear for IDF soldiers. He didn’t simply give the money to the army but directly solicited US-based manufacturers to produce helmets, ceramic vests, and more.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/bkseqpnnp

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Liver cancer patient saved. A patient with advanced hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) who participated in the Phase II trials of namodenoson from Israel’s Can-Fite (see here previously) had an extremely good response. His liver function returned to normal, and he is looking forward to a good quality of life.

https://ir.canfite.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1035/can-fite-complete-response-and-6-9-yearsoverall-survival

Traffic lights to silence cancer genes. (TY Laura) Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have discovered how DNA methylation acts as a gene control system, like a traffic light that can modulate gene activity and trigger or prevent cancer mutations. It will help develop personalized therapies for cancer patients.

https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-775427

https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-023-03094-6

Clearing the airways. The LibAirty compression vest from Israel’s Synchrony Medical (see here previously) has begun clinical (human) trials at the National Cystic Fibrosis Center of Sheba Medical Center, where it was developed. Synchrony’s CEO says the device is twice as effective as similar products currently on the market. 

https://nocamels.com/2023/11/compression-vest-that-clears-the-lungs-in-clinical-trial-in-israel/

Amorphous calcium to treat IBD. Israel’s Amorphical (see here previously) has adapted its amorphous calcium carbonate production technology to treat inflammatory diseases such as Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and arthritis. The mineral neutralizes the acidity within affected tissue to prevent inflammation.

https://nocamels.com/category/news-briefs/#post-125592

Developing RNA-based treatments for rare diseases. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s Skip Therapeutics is partnering with Sheba Medical Center to develop ASO-based (short RNA sequences) treatments for rare genetic diseases. Skip’s ASOs (Antisense Oligonucleotide) aim to restore the function of mutated genes in genetic disorders.

https://www.prnewswire.com/il/news-releases/skip-therapeutics-and-sheba-medical-center-to-collaborate-for-the-development-of-rna-based-treatments-for-rare-diseases-301994662.html   https://www.skiptx.com/

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20188/genocidal-hatred-jews-west

Many Muslims living in the West remain under the influence of Islamist movements and the hatred of Israel and Jews that permeates their countries of origin. Hatred of Jews and Israel is therefore markedly present in Muslim communities in the West.

In the 1960s, when the Soviet Union wanted to gain more influence in the Arab Muslim world, its leaders decided to support what was at the time a sacred cause for Arab leaders: the attempt to destroy Israel. They… chose to invent a “national liberation struggle”…. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964 with the task of “liberating Palestine,” and the borders of “Palestine” on the maps used by the PLO showed that the goal was to erase Israel from the face of the earth.

Western leftists started vocally to express hatred of “imperialist Israel” and, ironically, the hard-won democratic freedoms they were at that moment enjoying to the fullest: freedom of speech, assembly, education, sexuality, and supposedly equal justice under the law.

The Oslo Accords only made everything worse. By signing them, Israel’s then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin recognized… that a terrorist organization was somehow the legitimate representative of a people invented fewer than three decades earlier, and that this invented “people” had “rights” and deserved to have territory and self-government.

In reality, it was Israel that decolonized the land from the grip of the British, who governed it from 1917 until Israel’s war of independence in 1948.

The recent pro-Hamas demonstrations in the US, Canada, Europe and Australia show that hatred of Jews and Israel among Muslims living in the West has reached a degree where many of them openly support genocidal atrocities not only against Jews in Israel but against Jews anywhere…. These demonstrations also show that support for the “Palestinian cause” sometimes also leads Westerners to support genocidal atrocities so long as they are committed against Jews.

[I]f nothing is done to respond to the forces seeking to overturn Western civilization, all in the name of “democracy” of course – and Western values such as equal justice under law, equality of opportunity rather than of result, education from facts rather than from propaganda, a media that actually challenges authority rather than allowing itself to be suborned by it, freedom of speech with which one disagrees, the sovereignty of the individual rather than of groups — the worst is bound to come.