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ANTI-SEMITISM

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com

Not even a war can stop Israel building on its 75-years of success in rebuilding a Jewish State.

Israel continues to build up its basket of subsidized medical treatments, create new remedies for global diseases, discover the secret for building bigger families, and construct medical centers for rehabilitating the injured.

The latest news includes the Israeli woman who oversees the building of Israel’s missile defense system; an Israeli app that rebuilds broken speech into coherent conversation; and 30 Israeli NGOs rebuilding lives in Africa. Israeli startups are restoring the environment, while building efficient EV batteries, hydrogen-powered flying cars, and creating sustainable aviation fuel.  Michael Ordman

 

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
He lied to his wife to rescue survivors. On Oct 7, IDF veteran Eran Masas, from Haifa lied to his wife that he had been called up by the army. He put on a uniform, took his sidearm and drove 220km to the Gaza border. He then coordinated multiple search and rescue operations as survivors thought he was an on-duty IDF officer.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/on-oct-7-killing-grounds-a-vigilante-army-vet-inspires-grieving-us-jewish-leaders/
 
Have a nice flight! IDF reservist Itay returned to Israel on an overbooked El Al flight from Bangkok with a seat in a washroom. The other 14 washrooms also seated IDF reservists, plus 10 in the cockpit and elsewhere. Luckily, he had a pre-flight massage. Two days later he was dodging terrorist bullets in Huwara, near Nablus.
https://www.jns.org/idf-reservist-flies-home-to-fight-hamas-in-planes-washroom-seat/  
 
US mission for volunteer doctors in Israel. (TY Yanky) Israeli Doctors in America, together with the Israeli Ministry of Health and Israel’s Economic Mission to the USA – East Coast, have launched the IL-USDocAID Initiative. It brings US medical professionals to work either in Israeli hospitals or with Magen David Adom.
https://www.ilusdocaid.org/
 
1,000 hugs. Operation Hug (see here previously) has now brought over 1,000 parents from over 50 different countries to visit their children who are lone soldiers serving in the IDF. Thanks to Nefesh B’Nefesh, JNF-USA, and FIDF (Friends of the IDF).  Watch some of the recent reunions here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06D6EpiGnZU
 
Former US Envoy donated an ambulance. Former US Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt and his family donated a mini-lance (mini-ambulance) emergency response vehicle to Israel’s United Hatzalah. He requested that will be specifically driven by a female Arab volunteer and deployed in eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem.
https://www.jns.org/wire/former-middle-east-envoy-donates-mini-ambulance-to-israeli-ems-team/
 
Displaced Israeli kids learn and play in mobile tech lab. More about the work of the charity Machshava Tova (see here previously), which uses funds from CJP in Boston to purchase computers, projectors, 3D printers, VR goggles and other equipment for children evacuated from Sderot.
https://www.israel21c.org/displaced-israeli-kids-learn-and-play-in-mobile-tech-lab/
 
Displaced boy finds 2,000-year-old coin. 11-year-old Nati Tokiyar from Kibbutz Magen was evacuated to the Dead Sea to avoid Hamas rockets from Gaza. As he was exploring the area, he found a coin of Hasmonean king and high priest Alexander Jannaeus (104-76 BCE). The Israel Antiquities Authority gave him a certificate.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/archeology/1708520147-displaced-young-boy-finds-2-000-year-old-hasmonean-coin-in-dead-sea-area
 
We will still sing. Some 7,000 Netanya children came to the city stadium to demonstrate unity and solidarity and express their desire to see the return of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. See other videos of adults and children displaying that Israelis will never surrender to those that hate us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlok2hsPKpU    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hptZdP_hulY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaPhvOLDXjI  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rzq-m8_9bE
 
“I survived for a reason”. Watch an example of the incredible spirit of Israeli soldiers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6nTy72rJo0
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
110 new medications and technologies. Israel’s 2024 subsidized health basket will see an expansion of genetic testing, treatment for adult ADHD, innovative diabetes management, and new treatments for cancer and chronic and rare diseases. The 110 additions will help 317,000 more people at a cost of NIS 650 million to the State.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-2024-health-basket-gets-110-new-medications-and-technologies/
 
Hope for Huntington’s disease patients. Scientists at Israel’s Weizmann Institute have identified two small molecules capable, in the laboratory, of penetrating the blood-brain barrier and reducing the levels of a defective protein that causes Huntington’s disease.
https://www.jns.org/israeli-researchers-take-step-toward-cure-for-huntingtons-disease/
https://wis-wander.weizmann.ac.il/life-sciences/toward-treatment-huntington%E2%80%99s-disease
https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/s44321-023-00020-y
 
Hi-tech medical analysis. Tel Aviv University Prof Noam Shomron digitizes human DNA and uses AI to discover genetic diseases. That’s his day job – in evenings and weekends he helps the IDF identify fallen soldiers. He explains how functional genomics and AI can help make better medical decisions.
https://www.israel21c.org/the-scientist-using-ai-to-build-a-more-resilient-society/  
 
Israeli sunshine increases fertility. Women wishing to expand their family might consider making Aliyah. Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found for the first time that exposure to the sun in women aged 30-40 can increase fertility. Their ovaries secrete more Anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH) due to higher UV levels.
https://www.aftau.org/news_item/sun-exposure-may-have-a-positive-effect-on-fertility-in-women-aged-30-40/
https://safrabio.cs.tau.ac.il/carmit_levy_exposure_to_sun_may_increase_fertility_among_women
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0039128X23001356
 
Migraine?  You’re covered. US non-profit health insurer Highmark has added, to the items covered by its insurance policies, the Nerivio Remote Electrical Neuromodulation (REN) migraine band, developed by Israel’s Theranica (see here previously). Highmark covers around 7 million people in the Pennsylvania area.
https://nocamels.com/2024/02/us-health-insurer-adds-israeli-migraine-treatment-to-coverage/
 
New rehab center. (TY Yanky) Tel Aviv-Yafo Municipality has approved the construction of the Reuth TLV Rehabilitation Hospital – the largest and most advanced rehabilitation facility in Israel. It will take 7 years to build, contain 450 beds, clinics, hydrotherapy pool, hyperbaric chamber, etc., and cost some NIS 850 million.
https://www.reuth-mc.org.il/en/news-in-the-field-of-rehabilitation-a-plan-to-establish-the-largest-rehabilitation-facility-in-israel-is-underway/
 
Walk-in, walk-out surgery. Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center has opened 10 underground operating rooms for ambulatory surgeries. Costing NIS 100 million, they are expected to shorten the waiting periods for operations that do not require general anesthetic, or pre- or post-operative overnight hospital stays.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/surgery-without-a-stay-ichilov-hospital-unveils-new-operating-rooms-to-cut-wait-times/

Amy Winehouse and the fanaticism of the Israelophobes The defilement of her statue was an act of racial animus. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/20/amy-winehouse-and-the-fanaticism-of-the-israelophobes/

Not content with pillorying living Jews, now they’re coming for the dead ones. Witness the desecration of the statue of Amy Winehouse in Camden Town in London. Some lowlife covered the statue’s Star of David necklace with a Palestine sticker. Just when you thought woke anti-Semites couldn’t get any more repellent, they go and defile the likeness of one of modern Britain’s greatest cultural icons. And for one simple, chilling and sickening reason – because she was a Jew.

There have been many gross acts of Jew hate in the UK since the Hamas pogrom of 7 October. Posters of kidnapped Israeli kids have been daubed with Hitler moustaches. The word ‘Gaza’ was spraypainted outside a Holocaust library. Jews have suffered a tsunami of ‘hate incidents’. But there’s something about the posthumous racial harassment of Amy that feels especially egregious. It’s the fanaticism of it. For me, it’s the realisation that there are people in London so in thrall to Jew hate that they can’t even walk by a statue of a singer who died 13 years ago without furiously eradicating its Jewish symbols.

The violation of Amy was an act of brazen racial bigotry. It has eerie echoes of a darker past when Jewish institutions and symbols – synagogues, Jewish-owned shops, Jewish gravestones – were frequently set upon by mobs of the hateful. Yes, it’s good that the weapon in this case was a mere peelable sticker, easily removed, rather than stones or fire. But the fact that the thing is happening again, the fact we’re witnessing a return of seething intolerance for outward expressions of Jewishness, should leave us truly cold.

The shaming of Amy the Jew confirms that the line between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is now so thin as to be virtually imperceptible. The git who put up that sticker no doubt thought he was being pro-Palestinian when in truth he was being anti-Jew. The racist probably thinks he is anti-racist. For all the defensive bleating of the activist class about their ‘anti-Zionism’ being a zillion miles from anti-Semitism, it is everyday Jews who are getting it in the neck on the back of the Israelophobic hysteria these people have whipped up since 7 October.

Indeed, long before the late Ms Winehouse had her Star of David hidden, many British Jews had taken to hiding their Jewishness. The Campaign Against Antisemitism found that 69 per cent of Britain’s Jews say they are less likely to show ‘visible signs of their Judaism’ right now. Kids at the Jewish Free School in London were given permission – for ‘security reasons’ – to remove their school blazer and tie when travelling to and from school. Some Jewish uni students have stopped wearing their kippahs after getting flak from campus leftists. Tell me – if anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have nothing in common, why are their consequences so unnervingly similar?

Anti-Israeli Sentiment in Ireland Is Getting Worse By Barry O’Halloran

https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/02/anti-israeli-sentiment-in-ireland-is-getting-worse/

Recent cultural and political controversies in Ireland suggest a worrying — and growing — hostility to Israel.

In James Joyce’s Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus is asked why Ireland has “the honour of being the only country that has never persecuted the Jews.” When he can’t answer, he’s told it’s because Ireland “never let them in.” Despite the fact that the Jewish population there is very small, antisemitic prejudice in Ireland — and in the United Kingdom — has been a recurring issue.

Outside of the sports’ pages, Ireland’s international basketball games usually pass without much notice. Last Thursday’s Women’s EuroBasket 2025 qualifier game between Ireland and Israel was an exception. It was originally slated to take place last November in Israel, but, because of conflict in the region, it was rescheduled to a neutral venue in the Latvian capital, Riga. The venue may have been neutral, but everything else about this game quickly became toxic.

Basketball Ireland (BI), the sport’s governing body, had been under sustained pressure to boycott the game. However, as the organization noted, “FIBA Europe has not excluded Israel from competing internationally,” so a unilateral Irish boycott would be “an effective 5-year ban from competing at international level” for Ireland. The organization’s CEO said, “I’m not prepared to destroy my sport for a gesture that will have no impact.” There would be no boycott.

Unwittingly, the Israeli Basketball Association reignited the controversy. It posted on its website photos of IDF soldiers visiting a team practice session. Then, a U.S.-based Israeli team member, Dor Saar, told the website, “It’s known that they are quite antisemitic, and it’s no secret.” In the febrile anti-Israeli atmosphere in Ireland, this set the cat among the pigeons.

BI blasted the comments as “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate” and stated, “There would be no formal handshakes before or after the game, while our players will line up for the Irish national anthem by our bench, rather then [sic] the centre court.”

The antisemitism crisis is out of control In both Britain and America, politics is becoming increasingly distorted Melanie Phillips

https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/the-antisemitism-crisis-is-out-of?utm_campaign=email-post&r=8t06w&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

The war in Gaza is prying open a potentially game-changing fissure in British politics that has wider implications for the western world.

Last weekend, a recording surfaced of a meeting of the Lancashire Labour Party in late October. It revealed that Azhar Ali, who was subsequently selected as the Labour Party candidate for a parliamentary by-election that will be held in Rochdale later this month, said Israel deliberately allowed the October 7 pogrom to occur in order to give itself “the green light” to invade Gaza.

Despite this blood libel, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, who has pledged to rid the party of antisemitism, said he was satisfied that Ali had made a genuine apology for the statement.

Nearly two days later, after it emerged that Ali had also blamed people in the media “from certain Jewish quarters” for Labour’s suspension of one of its MPs for using the phrase “between the river and the sea,” Starmer stripped Ali of Labour support.

This was too late to stop Ali from standing in the by-election. Since Labour has withdrawn its endorsement, the party now has no candidate.

This chaos is potentially disastrous. Rochdale is 30 per cent Muslim. Also standing for election, as the candidate for the Respect party, is the demagogic, virulently anti-Israel George Galloway — who was himself expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 for opposing the “war on terror”. He is now well-placed to capitalise on the explosive Muslim hostility to Israel and win the seat.

Shortly after Ali was finally disowned, it was revealed that, at the same Lancashire meeting, Graham Jones — a former MP who is now a parliamentary candidate seeking to regain his former seat — repeatedly referred to “f***ing Israel”.

He also ranted that Britons who volunteer to fight for the Israel Defence Forces “should be locked up,” claiming falsely that such volunteering was illegal. Jones was suspended by the party, this time immediately.

Joseph Sternberg:Antisemitism Rises Again in the British Labour Party Keir Starmer seemed to have solved the problem but turned out to have merely suppressed it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/antisemitism-rises-again-in-the-british-labour-party-starmer-corbyn-israel-ed6b93a9?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

London

Barring some impressive political accident, Keir Starmer of the Labour Party is on track to become the U.K.’s next prime minister after an election later this year. This week, such an accident may have arrived.

Labour leaders in recent days have had to distance themselves from two parliamentary candidates who have been accused of antisemitism. Azhar Ali, who is running in a by-election for the safe Labour seat in the northern town of Rochdale, was caught on tape last year suggesting Israel had allowed the Oct. 7 Hamas attack to proceed as a pretext to invade Gaza. Mr. Starmer dithered for two days after this tape was released by the Mail on Sunday last weekend over whether to allow Mr. Ali to remain in the party. He finally withdrew support when the Mail released a longer recording that revealed Mr. Ali had also inveighed against “people in the media from certain Jewish quarters.”

Graham Jones, Labour’s candidate for a seat in Hyndburn in the next general election, was taped at the same event referring to “f— Israel.” Mr. Starmer has also stripped Mr. Jones of his eligibility to represent the party. Critics inside and outside Labour are calling on Mr. Starmer to discipline other Labour politicians as well. At least one of these politicians heard Messrs. Ali and Jones deliver their remarks at that event and didn’t challenge them. Others have made different objectionable statements about developments in Israel and Gaza.

It’s an electoral nightmare for Labour and Mr. Starmer, and for more reasons than the obvious.

The obvious is that Mr. Starmer was supposed to have purged antisemitism from the party already. Mr. Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, embraced the far-left fringe’s fantasies about Jewish control of the capitalist markets and loathing of Israel as a “settler-colonialist” project of Jews and Americans. On his watch, his allies in Labour leadership all but stopped investigating allegations of antisemitic abuse among party members.

Voters noticed, and Mr. Corbyn led Labour to a historic defeat against Boris Johnson’s Tories in 2019. Voters didn’t trust Mr. Corbyn on economics, but they really didn’t trust him on culture: Labour’s serial antisemitism scandals helped drive off working-class voters, who flocked to the Tories.

There’s nothing funny about Jew-baiting When did it become acceptable to hound Jewish audience members out of a comedy show? Simon Evans

https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/02/14/theres-nothing-funny-about-jew-baiting/

On Saturday night, at London’s fashionable Soho Theatre, Northern Irish comedian Paul Currie performed a largely non-verbal hour involving mime, slapstick, prop work and audience participation. Towards the end, he produced two final props – two flags, one Ukrainian, one Palestinian. He encouraged support for their respective causes. He then gestured to the audience to get on their feet for a comically contrived standing ovation.

Most of the audience played along. But a few did not. When Currie asked them if they didn’t enjoy the show, one of them said that he was enjoying it, until the flags emerged. He was Israeli.

Accounts vary as to exactly what happened next. According to a report on Chortle, Currie then ordered the man out of the theatre. ‘Leave my fucking show now’, he reportedly shouted. ‘Get out… get the fuck out of my show!’, he repeated. The Israeli audience members did indeed leave. And as they did, the crowd chanted ‘Get out’, ‘Ceasefire now’ and ‘Free Palestine’ at them. In a complaint to the theatre, the Israelis said they felt physically unsafe after crossing the stage under a barrage of abuse.

Soho Theatre put out an initial apology of sorts on Monday, saying that it was ‘sorry and saddened’ by the incident. Last night, it put out a considerably stronger statement, denouncing Currie’s ‘intimidation of audience members’ as ‘appalling’ and ‘unacceptable’. Soho Theatre says he will not be invited back to perform.

This is a delicate issue for a comedian to write on. It concerns one of the things I find it hardest to be funny about – namely, comedy. And also, you know, Jew-baiting.

’Zionism’ and ‘Zionist’ carry no shame By Harold Witkov

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/02/zionism_and_zionist_carry_no_shame.html

According to the Washington Post, Facebook, due to the abundance of online antisemitic rhetoric, is considering censoring the word “Zionist.”

No doubt about it, “Zionism” and “Zionist” have become hate words du jour.  I find the whole thing quite upsetting.  But not to take it lying down, I have decided to defend the two words.

The word “Zionism” comes from the word “Zion,” a word that appears often in the Hebrew Bible and refers to the city of Jerusalem (and the Land of Israel).  Zionism is the name for the 19th-century nationalistic movement that called for the creation of a new Jewish nation in the same area where the Jewish people originated and have always had a remnant, and where the Hebrew kingdoms of the past once stood.

When Zionism was in its infancy in the 19th century, the land now called Israel was a sparsely populated region called Palestine, a small part of the Ottoman Empire.  Why was the lack of a significant population in Palestine so important?  Because it was important to Theodor Herzl.

Herzl (1860–1904) was a Hungarian Jew moved by the tragic story of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army officer wrongly accused of being a traitor and then sentenced to Devils Island.  Shocked by the antisemitism of his day, Herzl, who would one day be known as the father of modern Zionism, believed that the Jewish people would always be second-class citizens in their native countries and called for the creation of a new Jewish homeland where the old once stood — a homeland where Jews would not be discriminated against because they are Jews.

‘White Kikes’ and ‘Melanin Recessives’ By Janet Levy

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/white_kikes_and_melanin_recessives.html

Tamara Weitzman, an oncology social worker in Seattle, was called an “insensitive, Canadian white bitch” and a “white kike” at her workplace. 

On both occasions she informed her superiors, but no action was taken against her abusers. 

Instead, her employer – the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), since merged with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Center (FHCC) – required Ms. Weitzman to endure “remedial” courses in racial sensitivity and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) at which her experiences with antisemitism were discounted and her political views denounced. 

She says the message she got at the courses was that a) though she was Jewish, she “could pass” as white, so she could not have experienced discrimination; and b) she could not understand the history of racial discrimination. 

Course moderators disparaged her opinions.

To add insult to injury, in February 2021, she was fired despite five years of service during which she received several favorable performance reviews – one said she was a “wonderful addition to the SCCA social work team” – and a 23% raise. 

Reason: her “ethnic sensitivity” and core values did not align with those of the SCCA and her supervisor could not work with her to address these issues.

On January 16, Ms. Weitzman filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington (Seattle division) seeking relief and damages from the SCCA/FHCC and her supervisors there.  She was unable to evoke the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as her employer is not a government entity.  Unfortunately, she also missed the 180-day deadline to sue under the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

POSITIVE NEWS FROM ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

www.verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com 

Israel’s resilience in the wake of the Oct 7 onslaught has astounded many of its overseas supporters and opponents alike. Israel is making an astonishing comeback, as this week’s positive newsletter highlights. Michael Ordman

There should be an antonym for genocide probably “benecide” a new word for doing good should be added to the dictionary, particularly about Israel. Israel, even during wartime, achieves more to benefit the world and ease suffering and deprivation than all the participating stooges in the United Nations and international kangaroo courts that routinely libel the Jewish nation. Read the positive news below.  rsk

POSITIVE NEWS DURING A WAR
 
Helping wounded soldiers recover. New York based NGO Belev Echad (With One Heart) supports wounded IDF soldiers, providing respite, rehabilitation, and emotional support. Volunteers who make hospital visits are mostly army veterans who were themselves wounded in battle and have been through the recovery process.
https://www.jns.org/soldiers-give-wounded-comrades-strength-during-road-to-recovery/ https://belevechad.nyc/
 
IDF recovers tractor stolen by Hamas. One of the videos that Hamas broadcast on Oct 7 was of a tractor that they stole from Kibbutz Nir Oz and drove through the streets of Khan Yunis. The IDF have since found the tractor, repaired it, and driven it out of the Gaza strip.  It will return to work in a rebuilt Kibbutz Nir Oz.
https://worldisraelnews.com/watch-tractor-stolen-by-hamas-on-oct-7th-returned-by-idf/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2D0-ojOdXw
 
Christian group supports with visit and donation. A delegation from the Christian Passages group traveled to Netiv HaAsara and Kfar Aza in the Gaza Envelope – two of the hardest-hit communities on Oct. 7, to express their friendship. They gave a donation of $250,000 to help each community rebuild.
https://www.jns.org/wire/passages-christian-leaders-donate-500000-to-affected-communities-in-gaza-envelope/
 
JNF-USA plants trees at ground zero. More than 100 Jewish National Fund-USA volunteers planted trees at Kibbutz Re’im, near the site of the infamous NOVA music festival during Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish New Year for trees. It was part of JNF-USA’s broader efforts to revitalize and renew the battered region.
https://www.jns.org/wire/planting-trees-at-israels-ground-zero/
 
He raised the flag he lowered 19 years ago. Zvi, an IDF reservist volunteer, lowered the last Israeli flag in Gaza when he was the last IDF soldier to leave in 2005. He kept that flag for 19 years and has now raised it again in Khan Younis.  https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/384042
 
Bar Mitzvah boy treats soldiers to dinner. Amichai Jackson, from Elazar in the Gush, canceled his Bar Mitzvah party and used the money to prepare a lavish dinner for 200 IDF soldiers. He wasn’t sad about missing his party, “When I saw the soldiers eating and enjoying themselves, that was 1,000 times more meaningful.”
https://thejewishvoice.com/2024/01/bar-mitzvah-boy-forgoes-party-treats-200-idf-soldiers-to-dinner/
 
Showing reality to overseas students. The Maccabee Task Force fights against Antisemitism on college campuses. It brought 40 US student leaders (Jewish and non-Jewish) to see wartime Israel for themselves and then use the knowledge gained to make a difference on campus when they return to the USA.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/allies-of-jewish-us-students-visit-israel-after-oct-7-and-come-back-armed-with-info/   https://www.maccabeetaskforce.org/
 
Kibbutz printing press reopened in 3 days. Kibbutz Be’eri was famous for having the largest printing press in Israel.  Despite the devastating Hamas attack, by Oct 10 factory workers were back at work and within the week, President Isaac Herzog officially reopened the press in a special ceremony.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-768546
 
Displaced volunteer EMT is still working. United Hatzalah volunteer paramedic Vicky was evacuated from the upper Galilee to escape Hezbollah rockets. Now in a hotel in Tzfat she is the first responder for all residents, treating panic attacks, pneumonia, etc. She also co-ordinates doctors, insurance, incident training, and more.
https://israelrescue.org/stories/displaced-as-a-result-of-the-figthing-in-northern-israel-volunteer-emt-continues-to-help-the-community/
 
We shall not be moved. (TY Hazel) The residents of Hurfeish, a Druze town of 7,000 in the Galilee just 1.5 miles from the Lebanese border, refused to be evacuated. As the commander of the first response team said, “We’ll fight to the end. Whoever tries to infiltrate or harm us or the State of Israel, we’ll stop them.”
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/community/articles/never-too-old-to-fight-druze-hamas-hezbollah
 
Amazing rescue. The remarkable story (could be a movie) of I24 News employee Noam, who was shot in his car on Oct 7 while his 9-month-pregant wife Noa was under attack in their Kibbutz Mefalsim. Noam was rescued by two men, both who were shot but survived. He woke up in hospital in time to hold his newborn son.
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel-at-war/survivor-testimonies/1706440683-what-could-a-movie-plot-becomes-an-october-7-miracle   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr9zTn6egDM
 
 
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
 
Partnering to develop solid tumor therapy. (TY OurCrowd) India’s Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is partnering Israel’s Edity Therapeutics (see here previously). They plan to build a platform for developing intracellular proteins to destroy solid tumors. https://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=316507
 
“Locked in” woman can speak again. The Israel ALS Research Association IsrA.L.S. It has worked with Israel’s D-ID (see here previously) to develop a virtual avatar for Debbie, a woman with ALS who can only move her eye muscles.  The AI technology recreated Debbie’s image, voice, facial and lip movements.
https://www.jpost.com/health-and-wellness/article-783095  https://en.israls.org.il/
 
3D printer helps rebuild shattered leg. (TY Yehoshua) Doctors at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital used a 3D printer from Israel’s Stratasys to reconstruct the fractured knee of wounded IDF soldier Shilo Segev. The printer model identified a lack of upper thigh bone which surgeons rebuilt using bone from Shilo’s pelvis.
https://www.jpost.com/science/article-783484
 
A better world for animals. University of Haifa’s Tech4Animals lab (see here previously) is developing AI-powered analysis of video, sensor, and audio data to determine animals’ emotional states. Its most advanced project is Cat Reader, a mobile app for detecting cat pain – initially for veterinarians, and later for cat owners.
https://www.israel21c.org/unique-lab-uses-ai-to-make-a-better-world-for-animals/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-35846-6
 
Israel’s first Advanced Therapies Award. Israel’s Bonus Biogroup (see here previously) is the first Israeli company ever to receive an Advanced Therapies Award, winning in the Cell Therapy Biotech Innovation category. Bonus Biotech has two products in advanced human trials – MesenCure and BonoFill.
https://www.israel21c.org/first-ever-israeli-win-in-advanced-therapies-award-event/
https://advancedtherapiesawards.phacilitate.com/winners/  https://advancedtherapiesawards.phacilitate.com/
 
 
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
 
A home for graduates with disabilities. The “Line for Life” Association has completed a new NIS 6 million home for its graduates. Situated in Kibbutz HaGoshrim, it will house eight individuals aged 21+ who will integrate into the local community, study at Tel Hai College, and then work in the surrounding communities.
https://www.jpost.com/business-and-innovation/real-estate/article-782506  
 
Knights deliver rice to Israeli food charity. The order of the Knights of Malta (full title “Maltese Knights Hospitaller of the Order of St John of Jerusalem”) delivered 24 tons of rice to Leket Israel to support the people of Israel during the ongoing war. It was financed by Governor of the Nevada Commanderie David Flippo.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-782715
 
Israeli Arabs visit Auschwitz. It was a historic event when the first Arab Israeli delegation visited the Auschwitz death camp on Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day).  Israel-Arab Yussef Haddad features on this special documentary of the emotional journey of dozens of Arab Israelis to Poland to learn about the Holocaust.
https://unitedwithisrael.org/watch-history-in-the-making-first-ever-israeli-arab-delegation-visits-auschwitz/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91OpBfO4_M4
 
Bedouin eco-village turns desert into oasis. Project Wadi Attir in the northern Negev (see here previously) aims to show the world that proper land stewardship and technologies can turn an unlivable place into an oasis. It opened an agricultural school in 2018, grows medicinal plants and produces health and skincare products.
https://www.israel21c.org/bedouin-culture-combined-with-modern-tech-blooms-the-desert/
 
Promoting Arab-Jewish unity. The non-profit Tsofen (see here previously) has launched a new campaign to promote unity among Jews and Arabs working in Israel’s high-tech sector. Its slogan is “working together – right now we are making a voice of partnership.” Startups Intuit, Hailo, and Sanofi have joined the campaign.
https://nocamels.com/2024/01/new-campaign-fosters-arab-jewish-unity-in-israels-high-tech-sector/
 
Helping protect ships in the Red Sea. This article mentions five Israeli startups that either are being used or could be used to help keep cargo ships safe from attack in the Gulf. Windward, and theDOCK hub startups WaveBL, Hoopo, ConboAI and DockTech. They all have previously been included in this newsletter.
https://www.israel21c.org/5-technologies-keeping-cargo-ships-safe-in-turbulent-times/

Rule of thuggery prevails in Denmark By Raymond Ibrahim

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/01/rule_of_thuggery_prevails_in_denmark.html

Denmark recently capitulated, forfeiting its hard-fought freedoms to those who hate it. According to a recent report,

Denmark’s parliament has passed a bill that makes it illegal to burn copies of the Quran in public places… The bill, which prohibits “inappropriate treatment of writings with significant religious importance for a recognized religious community,” was passed with 94 votes in favor and 77 opposed… In practical terms, it will be forbidden to burn, tear or otherwise defile holy texts publicly or in videos intended to be disseminated widely. Those who break the law risk a fine or up to two years in prison… The purpose of the law is to counter “the systematic mockery” that, among other things, has contributed to intensifying the threat of [Islamic] terrorism in Denmark, the Ministry of Justice said.

There is much to say here.

First, it is interesting to note that the new bill does not single out Islam or the Koran by name, but rather seeks to protect from desecration “writings with significant religious importance for a recognized religious community.” By employing such generic wording that applies to and presumably protects every religious text and community — though everyone knows the law exists exclusively to protect the Muhammadan creed — the Danes appear to have copied a play from the Islamic gamebook.

As it happens, the blasphemy laws of many Muslim nations do not officially protect Islam alone but extend to other religions. (Egypt, for example, criminalizes the mockery of “heavenly” religions — Islam, Christianity, and Judaism — though the law is virtually exclusively used to protect Islam.) Muslim nations — and now Denmark — pretend to protect all religions in order to appear neutral, objective, not siding with this or that faith. Muslim nations also do it for their image: better to appear interested in protecting the sanctity of all religions rather than appear as rabid fanatics who cannot tolerate criticism.