The Dutch government has allocated $2.56 million for the maintenance and restoration of Jewish cemeteries in the Netherlands, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported on Saturday. Culture Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven announced the funding last week in a letter to the lower house of parliament. “Jewish cemeteries are one of the only remnants of Dutch Jewish culture, which was largely destroyed from 1940 to 1945,” the Organization of Jewish Communities of the Netherlands (NIK) said in a statement . “The forgotten cemeteries will be maintained for the next five years thanks to the new funds,” said NIK.
The United States and South Korea have postponed joint air drills scheduled to take this month in an attempt to save a faltering dialogue process with North Korea, officials announced Sunday. North Korea said that cancellation of the exercises would be seen as a positive gesture by President Trump to preserve the momentum of negotiations, but threatened “shocking punishment” if the United States went ahead with a “hostile provocation.” Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper announced the postponement of the exercises at a news conference alongside his South Korean counterpart, Jeong Kyeong-doo, on the sidelines of a regional meeting in Bangkok, news agencies reported. “I don’t see this as a concession. I see this as a good-faith effort … to enable pea...
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) set out on a mission last week in response to the escalation of violence in the Gaza region to equip some 500 first response volunteers with protective vests among other objectives. On Wednesday, a number of those vests were delivered to United Hatzalah volunteer first responders in the region. United Hatzalah Chapter Head of Sderot and the Sha’ar HaNegev region, Nehorai Darshan thanked the IFCJ for their assistance in protecting the first responders who drop everything to go out and save lives even under fire. “The protective vests that the IFCJ donated to us will allow a larger number of our first responders to be active when there is a threat of rocket fire. All of the volunteers in Sderot and the Sha’ar HaNeg...
Impeachment inquiry is turning into a waste of our times.
Jewish institutions in Italy reported on Friday that the catastrophic flooding in Venice had impacted many of the city’s sites of Jewish interest, including the historic ghetto quarter. The flooding, which began on Tuesday night, toppled trees and caused some damage at the Jewish cemeteries on the Lido island. It left the main square of the historic ghetto — the Ghetto Nuovo — under water, but did not appear to have caused damage to the historic synagogues, located on upper floors of ghetto buildings, or the Jewish community’s library and archives, according to the Jewish Heritage Europe website. The Venice Jewish Museum closed temporarily on Wednesday and posted on its Facebook page a dramatic picture of the flooded Ghetto Nuovo. It indicated that there had been ...
Israel‘s military said on Friday it was investigating “harm caused to civilians” from an air strike it carried out in Gaza that Palestinian medics said killed eight members of one family including five children. It was the deadliest incident in two days of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip earlier this week. Islamic Jihad and Israel declared a halt to fighting across Gaza on Thursday but a lasting ceasefire appeared tenuous as they differed on terms. The flare-up was triggered by Israel’s killing early Tuesday morning of Iran-backed Islamic Jihad’s top Gaza commander, having deemed him an imminent threat. Islamic Jihad responded with a barrage of hundreds of rockets into Israel, forcing entire com...
Baltimore, MD - Nov. 16, 2019 - Six Baltimore Chaverim units came to the rescue of a couple whose car, house and work keys fell in to a sewer drain in the Greenspring Shopping Center.  It took them all of 5 minutes to accomplish their goal. The Baltimore Chaverim organization is built by individuals who want to positively contribute to our community, with skill they are taught and equipment they are provided.  They cannot continue to support the ever-growing community without more volunteers.  If everyone does a little, Chaverim can continue to do a lot.  Please do not only consider calling Chaverim in your time of need, call Chaverim now to volunteer, in others’ time of need. Applications are available online at www.chaverimofbaltimore.o...
All are asked to daven for a refuah sheleimah for Rebbetzin Gittel Kaplan of Yerushalayim, who is in need of rachamei Shomayim. Rebbetzin Kaplan is the wife of Rav Nissan Kaplan, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva Daas Aharon and former longtime R”M at Yeshivas Mir Yerushalayim. Rebbetzin Kaplan is a daughter of Rav Avrohom Gurwicz, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Bais Yosef of Gateshead. Her name for Tehillim is Gittel bas Sarah.
Two men — including a prominent neo-Nazi activist — have been arrested in connection with the recent vandalization of 84 Jewish tombstones in the central Danish city of Randers, the BBC reported on Thursday. The cemetery desecration took place last Saturday — the 81st anniversary of Kristallnacht, or “Night of Broken Glass,” which was a prelude to the Nazi Holocaust. One of the detained suspects was identified as 38-year-old Jacob Vullum Andersen, a leader of the Nordic Resistance Movement, while the name of the other, a 27-year-old, was not published. Andersen has denied involvement, but was quoted as telling Danish news outlet TV2, “We think it is positive that people have finally woken up and recognized that Jewish power and Jewish infiltration in ...
The Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund and American victims of terror have filed an unprecedented lawsuit in Washington, D.C., targeting a U.S. charity tied to the BDS movement that is allegedly funneling donations to Palestinian terror groups. The lawsuit, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund, et al vs. Education for Just Peace in the Middle East dba US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, seeks to hold the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), also known as the Education for a Just Peace in the Middle East, liable for conspiring to provide financial aid and other assistance to Palestinian terror groups, such as Hamas, that make up the Boycott National Committee (NBC), which leads the BDS movement. “With this lawsuit, we’re exposing the link between org...
NEW YORK (VINnews) — Last April, a complaint was filed by Adela Cojab,a 22-year-old senior at NYU, about anti-Semitism on campus. Her complaint mainly centered around a group called Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), an on-campus pro-Palestinian group. According to the complaint, Adela alleges that SJP has created a “hostile atmosphere” for Jewish students, and that NYU has allowed “extreme anti-Semitism” to thrive. Initially, the NYU administration declined to take any steps against the hostile organization. “It was breaking my heart and I immediately went to the administration from the very time SJP put Zionism in the same equivalent as Nazism,” Adela told Fox News. “I told the administration that SJP was creating an unsafe envi...
REDMOND, WA (AP) – Microsoft is hiring former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to review its investment in a facial recognition startup that scans faces at Israeli military checkpoints. Microsoft said in a statement Friday that Holder will lead a team of former federal prosecutors conducting an audit. Its aim is to determine whether Israeli firm AnyVision’s technology applications comply with Microsoft’s ethical principles against using facial recognition for mass surveillance. AnyVision announced a $74 million investment in June from a group including Microsoft’s venture capital arm. The firm and its Microsoft backing attracted public scrutiny as the Israeli military installed face scanners at border crossings where Palestinians enter Israel from the West Bank....
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump spent more than two hours at Walter Reed National Medical Center on Saturday for what the White House said were medical tests as part of his annual physical. The appointment wasn’t on Trump’s weekend public schedule, and his last physical was in February. Press secretary Stephanie Grisham said the 73-year-old president was “anticipating a very busy 2020” and wanted to take advantage of “a free weekend” in Washington to begin portions of his routine checkup. She was not more specific about the testing. Trump’s 2018 and 2019 physicals were announced in advance and appeared on his public schedule. The February checkup showed he had put on some pounds and was now officially considered obese. His Body Ma...
An adviser to Vice President Mike Pence told House impeachment investigators this month that President Trump's request for Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden and his family "struck me as unusual and inappropriate" and "shed some light on possible other motivations behind a security assistance hold." The three House committees overseeing the impeachment inquiry against Trump released hundreds of pages of closed-door testimony by Jennifer Williams, a special adviser to Pence on Europe and Russia, and Tim Morrison, the former senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council. Morrison was interviewed Oct. 31 and Williams was interviewed Nov. 7. Both Will...
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. —The boy accused of shooting five students on Thursday, killing two, at his Los Angeles-area high school on his 16th birthday died Friday afternoon, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. A homicide official said earlier Friday that investigators did not find a diary, manifesto or note belonging to the suspect. No motive or rationale has been established yet in the Thursday morning shooting at Saugus High School in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita, said sheriff’s homicide Capt. Kent Wegener. Officials gave the update Friday outside the Santa Clarita police station. The teenager opened fire around 7:30 a.m. and authorities estimated that the suspect took just 16 seconds to pull out the weapon, shoot five classmates and the...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Transcripts released Saturday in the impeachment inquiry show Ambassador Gordon Sondland playing a central role in President Donald Trump’s effort to push Ukraine to conduct political investigations as a condition for receiving needed military aid. The fresh details come from hundreds of pages of testimony from Tim Morrison, a former top official at the National Security Council. They contradict much of the ambassador’s own testimony behind closed doors. Both Morrison and Sondland are expected to testify publicly before the House next week. While some, including Trump himself, have begun to question Sondland’s knowledge of events, Morrison told House investigators the ambassador “related to me he was acting — he was discussing these m...
WALL STREET (AP) — Wall Street closed out the week with more milestones Friday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 28,000 for the first time and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit record highs. Health care and technology stocks powered most of the broad rally, which helped drive the S&P 500 to its sixth straight weekly gain. The Dow extended its streak of weekly gains to four. Investors have been encouraged by surprisingly good corporate earnings, three interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and data showing the economy is still growing solidly. Hopes that the U.S. and China can make progress in their latest push for a trade deal have also helped keep investors in a buying mood. “Over the past week the market absorbed a number of challenging trade headlines, and i...
The United States has threatened Egypt with sanctions were the latter to acquire Russian warplanes. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper told Egyptian Defense Minister Mohamed Zaki in a letter on Wednesday to cancel a $2 billion agreement to purchase more than 20 Russian Su-35 jet fighters, reported The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. “Major new arms deals with Russia would—at a minimum—complicate future U.S. defense transactions with and security assistance to Egypt,” stated the letter. In recent decades, Washington has given Cairo billions in economic and military assistance, including providing F-16 fighter planes, attack helicopters and other equipment. If enacted, the sanctions would be in accordance with a U.S. law ...
Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., emerged this week as a central figure on the Republican side of the House Intelligence Committee in the public impeachment hearings -- and a top antagonist of Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif. The 35-year-old lawmaker featured prominently as tensions boiled over between lawmakers on Friday during the questioning of former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., attempted to give up the remainder of his time to her. But as Stefanik spoke, Schiff slammed down the gavel, arguing that it was not allowed under committee rules: "The gentlewoman will suspend." "What is the interruption for now?" she shot back. What followed was a debate between Nunes and Schiff as to whether the Republican could of...
The ceasefire put into place on Thursday morning between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror organization stood on shaky ground as terrorists violated it and launched a number of rockets from the Gaza Strip at Israel throughout the day, with Jerusalem refraining from responding. Skeptical Israelis see no end to the rocket fire, even if a temporary halt is reached. Some see an Israeli military ground incursion into Gaza as the only solution to finally wipe out the military capabilities of PIJ and Hamas, which would ultimately eliminate the terror threat that exists today against millions of innocent Israeli civilians. Udi Dekel, managing director of the Institute for National Security Studies, told JNS he believes that “there is no good format to solve Gaza” ...
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