LLX News

By: Sean Savage – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

The legislation seeks to address growing concerns over educational materials being used by the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA.

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) introduced a bill on Tuesday that seeks to address whether Palestinian students are being taught inaccurate or racist content about Israel and the Jewish people.

The bill, Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act, would require the U.S. Secretary of State to submit annual reports examining the curriculum Palestinian schools are using to teach students. The reports would also review whether Palestinian curricula encourage racist violence against Jews and whether U.S. foreign aid is supporting such material.

“The Middle East will never experience peace until Palestinians stop teaching their kids to hate Israel, and American dollars should not fund this anti-Jewish propaganda,” said Kennedy in a statement. “The Peace and Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act would give us a closer look at what Palestinian schools are teaching and whether or not American money is supporting anti-Semitism.”

cont’d…

https://www.jns.org/new-senate-bill-seeks-to-counter-anti-semitism-incitement-in-palestinian-classrooms/

By: Eran Bar-Tal – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

Despite the development, the Bank of Israel has avoided interfering in the market, and its governor has remained ambiguous about possible future intervention.

The U.S. dollar hit a 25-year low against the shekel on Tuesday, officially dropping below the benchmark that the Bank of Israel had hoped to avoid crossing. The euro also dropped sharply against the shekel and was traded on Tuesday at an exchange rate of 3.511 shekels to 1 euro.

At the end of official trading, the Bank of Israel (BOI) set the dollar-to-shekel exchange rate at $1 to 3.09 shekels. The dollar lost -0.387 percent of its value in total against the shekel on Tuesday.

Despite the development, the BOI has avoided interfering in the market, and BOI Gov. Amir Yaron has remained ambiguous about possible future intervention.

continued…

https://www.jns.org/us-dollar-hits-25-year-low-against-israeli-shekel/

By: Dmitriy Shapiro – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

The former Israeli Consul General in New York and current chairman of Yad Vashem acknowledged that when he first came to the United States in 2016, he didn’t see anti-Semitism as the pressing issue it is today, believing that it might have been an “overblown phenomenon” in the United States.

In his first visit back to the United States as chairman of the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, former Israeli Consul General in New York Dani Dayan seek to impart a sense of unity that he believes is an essential piece in knowledge of the Holocaust and Jewish identity around the world.

Dayan arrive in the United States this week to speak in Sunday’s virtual gala held by the American Society for Yad Vashem on the 83rd anniversary of Kristallnacht—the massive pogrom against Jews in Germany and Austria in November 1938.

“One of the interesting things that I value in Holocaust remembrance that Yad Vashem leads is that it’s one of the things that unites Jews across the ocean,” he said during an interview with JNS while on a train from Washington to New York. “There are many issues that divide us: political issues, religious issues and others, while the remembrance of the Holocaust is one that unites us in our pain, in our grief, and to some extent, also in the lessons we learn from the Shoah. So it is also important, it’s relevant, for the mission that I was very dedicated to when I was consul general in New York, and that is Jewish peoplehood and the unity of the Jewish people.”

continued…

https://www.jns.org/dani-dayan-on-what-holocaust-taught-about-extremes-and-how-anti-semitism-persists/

By: Marco Margaritoff – All That’s Interesting; allthatsinteresting.com

The Hellenistic fortress was destroyed by a Jewish Hasmonean army in their war to retake the region from the Greek Seleucid Empire, which had outlawed Judaism.

Archaeologists just excavated a 2,100-year-old Greek fortress in Israel’s Lachish Forest — and they say it confirms aspects of the origin story of Hanukkah.

Built by the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire in the second century B.C. to protect the Greek-controlled city of Maresha, the fortress failed to stop a Jewish revolt by the Hasmoneans. Hanukkah commemorates their ultimate victory over the Greek Seleucids and their Hellenistic rule.

The excavation site yielded numerous artifacts, including slingshots, iron weapons, pottery shards, burnt wooden beams, and dozens of coins dated. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said these remnants served as evidence of Greek soldiers’ defeat at the hands of the Jewish Hasmonean warriors.

“The excavation site provides tangible evidence of the Hanukkah stories,” the excavation directors said in a statement.

continued…

https://allthatsinteresting.com/maresha-greek-fortress

By: Chris Mitchell – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – In the 14 months following the signing of the Abraham Accords, relations between Israel and many of its Arab neighbors are flourishing. Several world leaders are surprised over the dramatic progress. 

In one of the latest signs of cooperation, Israel and the United Arab Emirates signed a joint venture to send an unmanned vehicle to the moon by 2024. That followed a surprise visit last month during a multi-national military exercise – when the commander of the UAE air force met with his Israeli counterpart.   

On the commercial front, this Israeli Expo in Abu Dhabi is another sign of success resulting from the historic peace agreement.   

“It’s been amazing the progress,” said best-selling author and Mideast analyst Joel Rosenberg. “We’ve been watching business deals to be developed, tourism deals. We’re seeing, The Jerusalem Post forming a media alliance with an Emirati newspaper and TV company. We’re seeing Israeli airlines open up direct routes to Arab countries – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco. We’re seeing Moroccan and Emirati and Bahraini airlines flying direct routes into Israel.”

continued…

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/november/it-rsquo-s-been-amazing-rosenberg-shares-how-the-abraham-accords-are-dramatically-reshaping-the-middle-east

By: Anna Ahronheim – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com

With the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad seemingly being reaccepted into the Arab world, Israel and Russia are seeking to remove Iran and its proxy Hezbollah from the county.

Israel has been working on the difficult task of destroying Tehran’s dreams of regional hegemony and a forward base against the Jewish state for close to a decade through its “Campaign between the Wars” (CBW, or the Hebrew acronym mabam) with hundreds of airstrikes in Syria.

Most recently, it was accused of using a surface-to-surface, non-line-of-sight missile to strike Iranian targets outside Damascus in a rare daytime attack. That strike came as Russia was accused of striking some 20 opposition targets in Idlib province.

continued…

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/israel-russia-share-common-goal-of-ousting-iran-from-syria-683814

By: Aaron Reich – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com

The Suez Crisis was a military success for the UK, France and Israel. Politically, it was Egypt’s undisputed victory.

The period of October 29-November 7 marks the 65th anniversary of the 1956 Suez Crisis, a conflict between Egypt, the United Kingdom, Israel and France over the vital waterway that had significant geopolitical ramifications in the region and in the Western world.

The Suez Canal is one of the most vital shipping lanes in the world, connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and bypassing the long trip around Africa.

Up until 1956, the canal was controlled by the Suez Canal Company, itself controlled mostly by the UK and France. However, this changed when Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized it.

Continued…

https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/suez-crisis-65-years-since-israel-uk-france-fought-egypt-683585?utm_source=jpost.app.android&utm_medium=share

By: Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

“The choice of Eilat will continue to strengthen its position as a leading international tourist city,” said the city’s mayor, Eli Lankri.

The 70th “Miss Universe” competition is slated to take place in the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat on Dec. 12, the first time the Jewish state has hosted the contest.

“The choice of Eilat will continue to strengthen its position as a leading international tourist city,” said Eilat Mayor Eli Lankri in an Israeli government press release.

Officials from the U.S.-based Miss Universe Organization visited Lankri in October, part of a series of planned meetings ahead of the event. They also supervised infrastructure and construction work related to the complex where the competition will be held.

The state-of-the-art venue measures 54-feet high and can hold more than 70 tons of equipment. The building is designed to accommodate TV filming and includes a stage of about 5,000 seats, including an imported arena from Portugal.

https://www.jns.org/israel-to-host-miss-universe-competition-for-first-time/

By: Emily Jones – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – The United States issued its harshest rebuke yet of Israel’s expansion of settlement communities in the contested West Bank – biblical Judea and Samaria. 

On Wednesday, Israel plans to advance the construction of 2,862 new Jewish homes in the West Bank, and recently published tenders for another 1,355 units to be built across seven different communities. 

“We strongly oppose the expansion of settlements, which is completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions and to ensure calm, and it damages the prospects for a two-state solution,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Tuesday.

“We also view plans for the retroactive legalization of illegal outposts as unacceptable. We continue to raise our views on this issue directly with senior Israeli officials in our private discussions,” he added.

When the matter was raised with Price last week, he issued a general statement urging Israel and the Palestinians to “refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tension and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution” to the conflict. 

Tuesday’s comments are Washington’s most severe critique of Israeli settlement communities since President Joe Biden took office in January. The UN, EU, Palestinians, and members of Israel’s government have also condemned the construction.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/october/us-strongly-condemns-expansion-of-israels-settlement-communities

By: Jonathan S. Tobin – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

A “New York Times” article raised questions about whether the actress was “neutral” enough to lead the TV institution. But the focus on her support for Israel raises more questions about the newspaper than Bialik.

It may turn out that a lot of Americans are devoting more thought to the question of who will ultimately succeed the late Alex Trebek as the host of “Jeopardy!” than they do about far weightier issues. When Trebek, who had been the face of the venerable quiz show for 36 years, died last year at the age of 80 it set off a much-ballyhooed search for a successor. The competition was intense and ultimately involved a broad range of celebrities who aspired to the job.

But now, after a series of twists and turns that was the stuff of soap operas, a tentative, if not permanent choice has been made—in the person of actress Mayim Bialik—some people seem to be asking whether it’s kosher for “Jeopardy!” to be led by someone so open about both her Jewish faith and her support for the Jewish state.

America in 2021 is a place where anti-Semitism is quite real. But it’s also a country where Jews have been accepted in just about every sector of culture, industry and government. Indeed, it may be that the only job titles that can be said to be off-limits to Jews are those like, say, Catholic Archbishop of New York, which are reserved for believers of a different faith.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-mayim-bialik-too-jewish-for-jeopardy/