Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on May 3, 2020

This is a tale of two stories. The first one is a potential tragedy. As many of you know, lightning struck the roof of the Jewish Synagogue in New Iberia on the morning of April 28. An employee of Schwing Insurance Agency noted smoke billowing out of the roof vents minutes later and contacted 911. When the fire personnel arrived on the scene, the attic space of the historic synagogue (built in 1903) was already in flames.

The second part of the story is one of professionalism, community pride, and the generosity of the citizens of Iberia Parish. Fire Chief Coppell and the heroes he works with were exceptional. They assited in removing important religious artifacts from the building to protect them from fire or water damage. They were able to contain the fire primarily to the attic, ceiling and roof structure saving the majority of the historic building. Chief Copell even returned to the building himself several times during the day to ensure that no embers had reignited the blaze. Mayor Freddie DeCourt was on scene, both providing moral support and helping to remove items from the building to protect them from the fire. Chet and Armand Schwing offered to store any items removed from the synagogue at their insurance agency until they could be returned to the building.

The citizens of New Iberia have been extremely generous in their response to this event. Within hours of the fire, several churches in town had contacted me to offer their buildings to our Congregation as a place to hold our religious services if needed. I especially would like to thank the leaders at the First United Methodist Church, the First Baptist Church, and the First Presbyterian Church. In addition, many residents and civic organizations have already offered donations or fund-raising efforts to raise money to rebuild our House of Worship. We are currently working with our insurance carrier to see where we stand financially, but we certainly appreciate everyones efforts on our behalf.

This is why we all chose to live in New Iberia. The food, the weather, the culture and the beauty of the land are all important. But it is the people here that make this area unique. While the citizens in other areas of the country appear frequently to be divisive, we pull together to help one another. We treat our neighbors as family, regardless of race or religion. It is the right thing to do. It is what we do in New Iberia.

On behalf of the Jewish Community here and the members of the Congregation Gates of Prayer Synagogue, I offer our sincere thanks to everyone in our city for their kindness and prayers during this difficult time.

(President of Congregation Gates of Prayer)

The rest is here:

LETTER TO EDITOR: Thanks offered to community for response to synagogue fire - The Daily Iberian

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Posted By admin on May 3, 2020

Last year, together with my co-chair, Yair Meyers, we spearheaded an initiative in our community in Montreal which became known as the Community Mental Health Shabbat. Our goal was to get as many synagogues in our community as possible to dedicate the same Shabbat in May to mental health awareness and destigmatization.

As a psychologist, I had become increasingly aware of, and saddened by, the stigma associated with mental illness in our community. We reached out to synagogues across our city from every spectrum of Judaism to join to observe this Shabbat timed to coincide with Canadian Mental Health week in May. The goal was to increase mental health awareness and decrease stigma by talking about mental health in an open and honest forum. Each synagogue that participated was asked to dedicate that Shabbat to mental health in their own way. Some synagogues invited speakers, some Rabbis dedicated their sermons to speaking about mental health and other organizations invited members to speak about their own experiences with mental health, either as individuals conveying their very personal experiences or as professionals in the field. We were so fortunate that our synagogue, Congregation Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem (TBDJ), arranged for Dr. David Pelcovitz, renowned psychologist and mental health advocate, to be our scholar in residence for the Community Mental Health Shabbat weekend. We were thrilled to learn from his expertise and our synagogue community, together with the members of our community-at-large drew inspiration from a Mental Health Symposium, where Dr. Pelcovitz presided as the keynote speaker. The panel also included a local Orthodox rabbi, a leader of our local community agency for mental health, and a family caregiver who shared her experiences with those in attendance. We had no idea what to expect and were astounded by the capacity crowd in attendance that evening. We had hundreds of people who came from all parts of the community including individuals representing several Hassidic communities. This mixture of communities was not a common occurrence. It was clear that this was a topic that resonated with the Jewish community as a whole and the response was overwhelming. Each speaker was heartfelt and shared critical information. However, it was the family caregiver who shared her pain and at times, her joy, at having spent years caring for her sister with schizophrenia that resonated with the participants. You could hear a pin drop during her talk, and she was overwhelmed and in tears at the standing ovation that she deservedly received after she concluded her presentation.

This year, long before any of us ever heard of the Coronavirus or COVID-19, sheltering at home, or social distancing or began to feel the impact that all of these would have on our mental health, our synagogue had booked Dr. Norman Blumenthal, another renowned psychologist and trauma specialist as the scholar in residence for this years Mental Health Shabbat. It became apparent rather quickly that our local Montreal Jewish Community Mental Health Shabbat would become a virtual one, and thus we took this opportunity to spread the initiative more globally. The topic of mental health that has often been hiding in the shadows has now become a household term, written about in every major newspaper, posted about widely in social media, spoken about regularly by public health officials, and felt by each and every one of us from young to old. We worry about the cancellation of our childrens classes, about workers who lost their jobs or those who now must figure out how to work from home. We worry about our seniors who are isolated, and of course, those with pre-existing mental health conditions. Rabbis made halachic decrees regarding the urgency to reach out to anyone that might be alone and hurting on Passover. Due to a successful social media campaign, hundreds of Jews from across the globe signed up to answer their phones on Yom Tov and Shabbat, because our concern for human suffering is above all else.

This years Mental Health Shabbat will be held on May 7-10, 2020, beginning with the Mental Health Symposium on Thursday evening, May 7, at 7:30pm (www.tbdj.org/mentalhealth2020). The topic will be Anxiety through the Lifespan: A Jewish Community Response. While it is important to note that mental health concerns came long before this crisis, and will last long after we have resumed our normal activities (whatever that new normal may look like), this pandemic has allowed us all to have a very small window into what so many in our communities suffer on a daily basis. These people need our support, now more than ever. That is why I am observing the Community Mental Health Shabbat, and I invite you to join me. Better yet, ask your local synagogue to dedicate this Shabbat to mental health this year and in the years to come. Together, we can destigmatize mental illness and understand that mental health is part of being a whole person. Moreover, caring for those who are suffering, whether publicly or silently, is an attribute that is intrinsic to being a Jew.

Rachel Goodman Aspler is a wife and mother of 3 children living in Montreal, Canada. Rachel is a clinical psychologist in private practice, specializing in working with stress and trauma, as well as memory and memory wellness. She is the co-Associate Director of the Jewish General Hospital's Alzheimer's Risk Assessment Clinic. She is the child and grandchild of Holocaust Survivors and Holocaust Education and Remembrance are among her passions.

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Why I Am Observing the Community Mental Health Shabbat (& Why You Should Too!) - The Times of Israel

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Posted By admin on May 3, 2020

(JTA) It sounds like an old joke, about a rabbi and a priest walking into a bar.

But Keeping the Faith, a romantic comedy released 20 years ago this month, stretched the premise into one of the more clever films of its genre, and the rare Hollywood movie that takes questions of religious faith and obligation seriously.

Keeping the Faith was the directorial debut of actor Edward Norton, from a screenplay by the Jewish writer Stuart Blumberg, who had been Nortons roommate at Yale. Set on New York Citys heavily Jewish Upper West Side, the film stars Ben Stiller as Jake Schram, a young bachelor Conservative rabbi, and Norton as Father Brian Finn, a Catholic priest and Jakes lifelong best friend.

When their childhood friend Anna Riley (Jenna Elfman) comes back to town for work, both clergymen develop feelings for her, which in both of their cases is forbidden for Brian because of his priestly vow of celibacy, and for Jake because his synagogue would not approve of him dating a non-Jew. Nor would his mother (Anne Bancroft), who became estranged from her other son following his marriage to a gentile.

Keeping the Faith is smart enough to realize that these arent the sort of silly contrivances that keep couples apart in movies they are serious questions involving vows, obligations and religious beliefs. Stillers rabbi character a youngish guy whose bearing on the bimah often resembles that of a stand-up comedian is a familiar one to many American Jews.

The film is also uniquely attuned to the specific anxieties of being an unmarried junior rabbi at a synagogue in New York City in the early 21st century (the synagogue scenes were filmed at Bnai Jeshurun). Rabbi Jake fights with the president of his board, he disagrees with the cantor over whether its right to have a gospel choir sing Ein Keloheinu and hes constantly fighting off mothers seeking to set him up with their daughters.

Keren McGinity, a Jewish lecturer of American studies at Brandeis University, describes Keeping the Faith as one of her favorite romantic comedies. She has included the film on her class syllabus and discussed it in her book Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood.

The interfaith love triangle illustrates the modern quandary faced by current rabbinical students involved in interfaith relationships, she told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

How true is Keeping the Faith to the reality of clerical life in America 20 years later?

We asked some real rabbis and priests about their thoughts on the matter.

Jenna Elfman, center, stars as the the two clergymens love interest. (Getty Images)

On the premise:

Rabbi Hillel Norry, Atlanta (who served as a rabbinic consultant for the movie): I met with Ed Norton, and they asked if I would be their consultant. I said I do want to do it, but I need to see the script and I need to know that its not disrespectful to rabbis and Judaism. They sent me a script, and I signed on, and I actually really like the story.

Rabbi Howard Jaffe, Temple Isaiah, Lexington, Massachusetts: It was one of the most realistic presentations of a rabbis life I have ever seen. Having been single for the first 9 1/2 years of my rabbinate, I could absolutely relate to what it was like to be a single rabbi and to go through with what he dealt with. Fix-ups, pressure from the community, etc.

Rabbi Marci Bellows, Congregation Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek, Chester, Connecticut: One of my favorite movies, and I felt it really represented much of what I was feeling early on as a young assistant rabbi in Manhattan. As a single woman rabbi, trying to date and feeling like youre under a microscope was very real.

On rabbinic life:

Norry: The priest and the rabbi not only are they friends, but theyre very real people. Theyre not like these saintly, gray old men who are very unrealistic. Theyre also not criminals, or mobsters or pedophiles, or some other trope of the bad priest or the bad clergy. Theyre just normal people who are flawed, and you see their flaws unfold in the context of their faith, their faithfulness and their friendship.

Rabbi Rafi Cohen, Masorti Olami, New York: I think what the movie really tries to do, it tries to capture Jewish life in Manhattan. Imagine Gen Xers in New York City thats what they were trying to do. They were trying to be hip and cool. The rabbi and priest were trying to conduct themselves and offer what would be compelling to Manhattanites and urbanites.

Rabbi Joseph Black, Temple Emanuel, Denver: If I was an assistant rabbi, and at the end of a service I said to the cantor, Hold on a minute, change of plans forget about the song YOU want to sing, Ive got something better, I would be fired the next day.

On the romance:

Norry: One critique Ive heard is that [the movie] seems to accept or tolerate interfaith relationships and casual sex relationships for rabbis. You learn at the end that shes thinking about converting to Judaism maybe, kinda, sorta. But for the most part, heres a rabbi whos involved deeply, and intimately, with a woman whos not Jewish, and to whom hes not married. My response to that has always been, Who do you think we are? Who do you think rabbis are? Or these priests who do you think they are? Its just an honest portrayal about something and about somebody. Their failings are human failings. The non-Jewish thing? Of course its problematic. But thats why its a good story.

Rabbi Leah Berkowitz, Congregation Kol Ami, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania: I liked how they had both a horrible Jewish date and a great Jewish date [early in the movie] to show that it wasnt just that Jake didnt like Jewish girls. That meant a lot to me as a Jewish girl. In a lot of interfaith romance story lines, the potential partner from the same ethnicity is a horrible caricature.

Father Paul Garrity, Lexington Catholic Community, Lexington, Massachusetts: Celibacy is a real challenge and I thought the movie did an OK job of dealing with it. The movie was a romantic comedy, so an in-depth look at celibacy was not my expectation.

Rabbi Emeritus Elliot Gertel, Congregation Rodfei Zedek, Chicago (from his 2003 book Over the Top Judaism, reprinted with his permission): [The film] depicts a rabbi who wants sex and companionship with a Gentile woman but is unwilling to give up his congregation. Schram is able to make the synagogue grow, but the implication at every turn is that the crowd is attracted and misled by superficiality and emptiness. The New Age innovations are praised here but come across as hollow, as does the relationship between the rabbi and his girlfriend.

The film keeps insisting, even protesting, that Schram is doing a lot of good things, but it says nothing good about him and about his constituency. The synagogue members are either throwing their daughters at the rabbi or involved in trendy spirituality or in self-promotion. The senior rabbi, played by Eli Wallach, is a seasoned lackey with no real advice to offer.

Bellows: I especially love that Jenna Elfmans character converts in the end.

On the rabbi-priest friendship:

Jaffe: In truth, most of my non-Jewish friends are Christian clergy.

Rabbi Emeritus Norman Cohen, Bet Shalom Congregation, Minnetonka, Minnesota: It reminded me of how blessed I have been to have so many close colleagues of other faiths, who remind me that we are all in this together. We often share stories of congregants and their issues and opportunities to play such a significant role in their lives at critical times. Cant say we ever competed for the same women!

Father James M. Hayes, SJ, associate chaplain for mission, College of the Holy Cross: [Rabbi Norman Cohen] and I are dear friends but since are both 70, a woman is not going to get between us.

Rafi Cohen: If you look back on 20 years ago vs. today, I can certainly say within the rabbinate, establishing positive interreligious relations is very important. These relationships help any clergy person respond to acts against their faith community, whether it be anti-Semitism or graffiti on a mosque or church. When things arent so good you want those relationships You may not share sermon ideas, necessarily, but you have commonalities. We all have the same challenges and blessings, and issues that you work with.

Garrity: The rabbi friendship is very real. I can attest to that in my own life. The movie friendship antedates their professions, so that is a little different.

Berkowitz: It always seemed like a joke, a priest and a rabbi, but I have a daily check-in with a Jewish chaplain and two Episcopal priests, and that need for mutual understanding is very real.

The rest is here:

'Keeping the Faith' is 20 years old. Rabbis and priests look back at the interfaith romcom that was ahead of its time. - JTA News

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Posted By admin on May 3, 2020

Both Israeli parties of Likud and Blue and White, regardless of apparent differences, have a common plan for the West Bank, which is nothing more than the use of a new corona virus crisis to annex additional Palestinian territories.

Asa Winstanley, a London-based investigative journalist who writes about Palestine and West Asia, says Israels Zionist regime is seizing every minor opportunity including the COVID-19 pandemic to seize more areas from the West Bank to build new illegal settlements. .

Israel will soon annex much of the occupied West Bank, so under Israeli law, the area will officially become part of the Zionist state. Millions of Palestinians living in the West Bank will continue to be denied the vote, even the most basic. Human rights by the despotic Israeli regime. Winstanley explained in an article published by West Asia Monitor.

The West Bank is home to about 2.2 million Palestinians and about 600,000 Israeli colonizers. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank together represent 22 percent of historic Palestine, although this is a somewhat arbitrary distribution of land based on the green line, the ceasefire line established after the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1949.

Between 1947 and 1949, some 800,000 Palestinians were expelled by the Zionist militias and the Israeli army born, with an indigenous population of about. Two-thirds. The goal of Zionism was to create a Jewish state in Palestine despite the fact that the population of the country was predominantly non-Jewish. It was therefore inevitable that the Zionist project would always be a racist project that would require the forcible expulsion of the Arab majority.

In 1967, Israel waged another war against neighboring Arab countries, occupying and occupying 22% of historic Palestine. Israel has introduced a (declining) military dictatorship against the Palestinians there since the Naksa, but has not been able to expel as many Palestinians as it did during the 1948 Nakba (disaster).

Israel aims to create an ethnocracy, a state created to serve the interests of one ethnic group alone. Therefore, although he wanted the land to be owned, at the same time he wanted the land to be free from non-Jews: Maximum land, minimum Arabs.

Such a state, of course, pays a price to pay. As the Israeli war criminal and late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin once wished in the Gaza Strip, If only he would sink into the sea. Israel wanted the land, but it did not want to guarantee the human, political, or national rights of the millions of people who lived there.

It was crucial for the Zionist project that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip should not be able to vote for self-proclaimed democracy in West Asia. If demographic trends were to take place, which would almost certainly put an end to the Jewish majority in the land of Israel, which was in any case an artificial majority and which was violently refuted in 1948 by acts of ethnic cleansing in 1948.

This explains why Israel has not formally annexed the West Bank so far, despite having occupied it for almost 53 years. The 2.2 million Palestinians there are more than the 600,000 Israeli colonial settlers. Suddenly, millions of Palestinians on the electoral list mark the end of Zionist dominance in Israels parliament, the Knesset. The Common List, the only non-Zionist party (whose majority of voters and MKs are Palestinians) could become the largest in the Knesset. This, in turn, would cause a constitutional crisis, as a non-Zionist Arab party never formed in any part of the Israeli government.

Now, however, Israel is moving towards annexation of the West Bank. Why and why now?

Last year, Israel held three unconvincing general elections, all of which came into a political stalemate. This month was finally interrupted by the announcement of a national unity government between incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his main rival in the election, former general Benny Gantz. Gantz, after swearing in election campaigns that he would never enter a coalition with Netanyahu who faces allegations of corruption has now split his Blue and White party in order to renew his oath and join such a coalition.

As I noted in a column, just before the last election in March, all Zionist political parties in Israel agreed that their racist military dictatorship in the West Bank would continue indefinitely against the Palestinians. It is therefore not surprising that the presumed blue-and-white opposition has agreed with Netanyahu Likud that Israels control over the occupied territory will increase.

Following the approval of U.S. President Donald Trump with the Century Agreement on a Plan of Peace, both sides now want to include much of what the Zionists call Judea and Samaria. Babies born with too bad a ethnicity are seen as a demographic threat to avoid annexing those parts of the West Bank where Palestinians are still the most populous. In practice, however, if Palestinian population centers were islands within the sea of Israeli territory, the effect would be the same as if Israel had annexed the entire West Bank.

A key clause in the coalition agreement between Gantz and Netanyahu will allow the annexation to continue in July, and it now seems certain that Israel will use the Covid-19 crisis as a cover to launch its unprecedented illegal geography.

It is not new for Israel to exercise control and increase control over the Palestinian territories. In fact, the annexation itself was used by the rogue state to declare Jerusalem its indivisible capital, despite international law. The accession on a scale proposed by Netanyahu and Gantz, however, is a major new step in Zionisms 130 years of war for the indigenous Palestinian population. It is a huge crime, even by Israeli standards.

U.S. President Donald Trump in January presented a West Asian vision giving the annexes a green light. Netanyahus coalition agreement with centrist Benny Gantz agreed that the cabinet would consult with Washington before proceeding.

However, the Palestinians were outraged by Israels intention to further strengthen its holdings on the land occupied in the 1967 war, seeking a future state. The European Union has also criticized Trumps plan.

The Palestinians firmly rejected Trumps proposal, in part because it had sought Israels most decades-long conflict, including all the occupied lands on which it had built settlements.

Palestinians have already threatened to terminate existing peace agreements if Netanyahu continues with his plan, while EU foreign policy chief says the annexation would be a violation of international law and force the bloc to act accordingly.

A UN representative in West Asia said such a move would ignite the region.

Most Palestinians and the international community consider Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank illegal under the Geneva Conventions on war-occupied land.

Israel disputes this, citing security needs and the biblical, historical and political connections of the earth.

MJ

Read more from the original source:
Tel Aviv using COVID-19 crisis to occupy more lands in West Bank - The Media Hell

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Posted By admin on May 3, 2020

Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street has a video primer on the history of the conflict that while obviously from a liberal Zionist perspective (the Temple Mount), is good on the unfairness of Trumps deal of the century, showing that Palestinian areas would be connected by a spaghetti of roads.

I like Ben-Amis explanation of the British Balfour Declaration of 1917.

Its one of those things that is absolutely key to understanding this. The British in the course of fighting World War 1 were looking for the support domestically in the U.K. of the Jewish community and there was a desire to offer and to promise to that community something that they wanted in order to have their support for the war effort. And one of the promises that was made was by Lord Balfour to the Jewish community, that in fact the entirety of the British Mandate would be a national homeland for the Jewish people.

And it is a promise, it is on the record. The only real problem is that at the exact same time the British were promising it to the Jews, there was a whole set of correspondence from the Foreign Office going on with the Arab families, the leading families, the ruling families down in Arabia, promising the exact same land as a national home and an Arab state, and that of course, when the war was over, the control and power would be handed over to the Arab population.

So there were very conflicting promises. For the Jewish community, the Balfour Declaration has taken on epic and biblical propoprtions. The McMahon correspondence in the same time with the Arabs was not quite as well known in our history books.

This is a good, straightforward answer. The British regarded the Jewish population as significant to the war effort, enough to want to buy their support with a big colonial gift. And in fact the British were in competition with the Germans on this score.

There is a great deal of denial about this realpolitik in academic quarters. During the centennial of the Balfour Declaration, I heard a lot of arguments about British settler colonialism and the British being fooled by antisemitic theories of Jewish power, or wanting to get rid of the Jews, not to mention the personal magnetism of Chaim Weizmann to waltz into the British power circle and convince them about the need for Zionism.

No, the Balfour Declaration was the act of a colonial overlord trying to please an influential minority inside the country, a minority British leaders perceived to be Zionist. The Brits presumably knew what they were doing. They were experts at the great game. We can debate why they saw the Jewish community as significant, whether it was international finance and the ability to provide bonds, or the newfound powers of the international press. And yes, there may have been some exaggeration of Jewish powers.

Yet Ben-Amis point stands, the British wanted the Jewish community on their side. As vulnerable as Jews were in Europe, they also had some agency. They had a strong Zionist lobby in England and in the U.S., where Louis Brandeis converted to their cause and shepherded the Wilson administrations endorsement of Balfour. That lobby remains an important factor in western policymaking to this day. Ben-Ami is part of it.

More here:
Balfour Declaration was issued to gain Jewish support for war effort, Ben-Ami explains - Mondoweiss

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Posted By admin on May 3, 2020

All books featured in this new section are available fromMiddle East Books and More, the nations preeminent bookstore on the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. http://www.MiddleEastBooks.com (202) 939-6050 ext. 1

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,May 2020, pp. 66-67

By Rashid Khalidi, Metropolitan Books, 2020, hardcover, 336 pp. MEB: $25

Khalidi acknowledges that the first-person dimension is normally excluded from scholarly history, but this aspect is what makes the book original and distinctive. Khalidi seamlessly blends himself into the narrative at a variety of places and times, including Jerusalem, Beirut, New York and Madrid. He also introduces and contextualizes the experiences of his family members, including his grandparents who were driven out of Palestine in the Nakba. The book is interspersed with illustrations of Khalidi and his family members, as they were variously driven out, jailed, had their homes demolished or helped to pick up the pieces after the Israeli bombardment of Beirut in 1982.

Rather than a seamless narrative, Khalidithe Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia Universityframes the account on the basis of six key turning points beginning with the Balfour Declaration (1917) and ending with the contemporary siege of the Gaza Strip. Somewhat idiosyncratically, he represents each of the six turning points and six chapter titles as individual declarations of war. Collectively they comprise the hundred years war waged against the Palestinian people.

Khalidi emphasizes that settler colonization, the driving force behind the Zionist movement, fueled the century of war against Palestinian national aspirations. Moreover, he points out that Zionist migrants alone could not have carried out this century of colonial oppression without the support first of Great Britain and then of the United States.

The Balfour Declarations call for a national home for the Jewish peoplea statement thus couched in the soft, deceptive language of diplomacyconstituted the first declaration of war. The second declaration came in 1947-48 and produced an actual conflict, one that culminated in the systematic ethnic cleansing of the Arab-inhabited areas of the country.

The third declaration of war was another real war, albeit one of only six days duration, in June 1967. Not only were the Arab states trounced by Israel but, adding insult to injury, Palestinians were omitted from the proposed basis for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict. U.N. Security Council Resolution 242 called only for a just solution of the refugee problem. Khalidi notes, If the Palestinians were not mentioned and not a recognized party to the conflict, they could be treated as no more than a nuisance.

The fourth declaration of war was the 1982 Israeli assault on Beirut, where Khalidi was living with his wife and two daughters. The apartment of his brother and mother, who had been living in the city, took a direct hit from an Israeli artillery shell, but fortunately they had already relocated away from the front lines of the assault.

The fifth declaration was not a war but an uprising that began with the outbreak of the intifada in 1987. Khalidi argues that the ensuing Oslo Accords (1993) in effect constituted another internationally sanctioned American-Israeli declaration of war on the Palestinians, only this time Palestinian leaders allowed themselves to be drawn into complicity with their adversaries.

The sixth and final declaration was the well-chronicled devastation of the Gaza Strip in the 21st century. Here Khalidi points out that it made no difference whether George W. Bush or the liberal Barack Obama was in power in Washington, as the latter administration did nothing to restrain Israels indiscriminate 51-day assault on a virtually defenseless Gaza in 2014.

Khalidi references the formidable power of the Israel lobby and the absence of an effective countervailing force in U.S. politics, yet he insists that the lobbys impact has been exaggerated. He condemns the false narrative that the influence of Israel and its supporters on Middle East policy is always paramount, arguing that this is only true when policy-makers do not consider vital U.S. strategic interests to be engaged. He claims a legion of examples to back this point, but in actuality there are only a few and they are not on the whole convincing.

Analysis of the Israel lobby was not a major focus of Khalidis book, however, which remains otherwise a richly informed, personalized account of a century of repression of a peoples national aspirations. Readers seeking a comprehensive study of the history of Zionism and Palestinian nationalism, yet one enlivened by personal accounts and real-life experiences, will enjoy reading Khalidis account.

In the conclusion, Khalidi argues hopefully that Israel is at least as contested globally today as ever before. That contestation is a remarkable testament to the stubborn resistance that characterizes the Palestinians, including Rashid Khalidi and his family.

Contributing editor Walter L. Hixson is the author of Israels Armor: The Israel Lobby and the First Generation of the Palestine Conflict, along with several other books and journal articles. He has been a professor of history for 36 years, achieving the rank of distinguished professor.

Read more:
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 - Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

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Posted By admin on May 3, 2020

State officials Wednesday reported another 92 deaths in Illinois related to the coronavirus, as the statewide death toll reached 2,215. Officials also announced 2,253 new known cases of COVID-19, bringing total to 50,355. Thats the sixth time in the past seven days that the number of new cases has topped 2,000.

The new numbers came as Gov. J.B. Pritzkers extension of a statewide stay-at-home order continued to face pushback, with a second Republican state lawmaker challenging the order in a lawsuit accusing the governor of creating a police state. Pritzker called the new lawsuit another attempt at grandstanding.

Heres whats happening Wednesday with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:

7:45 p.m.: He was supposed to retire Thursday after 34 years as a surgical tech. Instead, he died Monday after testing positive for coronavirus.

After decades of scrubbing in on surgeries as a surgical technologist, Juan Martinez was looking forward to retirement. He planned to travel with his wife and spend more time with his grandchildren.

His final work day was scheduled for April 30.

He was so dedicated to his job that he kept working even as the coronavirus crisis coincided with the final weeks before his retirement.

He died days before reaching it.

My dad was a very dedicated man to work, said his son, Juan Martinez Jr., who was so enthralled by his fathers zest for his work that he, too, chose the same career. He was so passionate.

Father and son worked together at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. On Monday, Martinez, 60, died after testing positive for the coronavirus.

He just didnt make it, said Martinez Jr. Read more here. Alison Bowen

7:29 p.m.: Viral video of Chicago house party reveals disconnect between black youth and media during coronavirus

House parties are meant to be a thing of the past now that COVID-19 has turned into a pandemic.

But on April 25, a viral video showed a Galewood gathering of dozens of people at a memorial party for two friends who died of gun violence years ago. The video drew such a level of nationwide vitriol on social media that Mayor Lori Lightfoot blasted the revelers as foolish and reckless, and Gov. J.B. Pritzker criticized the partygoers for putting everyone around you in danger. (Tribune columnist, Dahleen Glanton, wrote an open letter to the black kids who partied, citing the reality of killing loved ones without even knowing that you are carrying a weapon.) Chicago police have subsequently said they cited the homeowner with disorderly conduct Monday.

With so much conversation about the event, The Triibe, a digital media platform that tells stories of black Chicago, sought to find the disconnect between local government officials, black youth and traditional media outlets in conveying the serious nature of the coronavirus. In her article, Veronica Harrison (aka Vee L. Harrison), talks to a young woman at the party. The woman told Harrison she knows COVID-19 is serious, but shes not letting fear win out over her faith.

The partygoer told Harrison: I get irritated with these celebrities trying to tell us to stay in the house. Us people that arent as rich as them, we dont have nothing to do in the house. Sometimes this can cause you to go into boredom and depression and you have to get out, you have to get some air.

Harrison said her phone has not left her hand since the Triibe story went live Tuesday night. Read more here. Darcel Rockett

6:10 p.m.: River Grove firefighter, apparently recovered from COVID-19, suffers fatal stroke

A River Grove firefighter and paramedic who had tested positive for COVID-19 but appeared to be on the mend died early Wednesday from a stroke, officials said.

Robert David Reisinger, 57, who had been with the department for nearly 18 years and was the longtime EMS system coordinator at Stroger Hospital in Chicago, became ill several weeks ago along with a co-worker who had been on the same ambulance, fire Chief Sean Flynn said.

Reisinger had gotten better and was scheduled to return to work Wednesday, Flynn said, but suffered a stroke Monday. The Cook County medical examiners office does not list COVID-19 as a factor in Reisingers death, but researchers have found links between the virus and some types of strokes. His husband, Kuanwu Lin, does not consider the two events to be coincidental.

Its still unpredictable what this virus will do to a human body, said Lin, a psychologist who is also recovering from COVID-19. We are still learning about it. ... If this was related to COVID-19, then it makes this virus even more powerful, and therefore we cannot be too cautious. Read more here. John Keilman

5:55 p.m.: Suburban distillery joins the pivot to making hand sanitizer

Highwood vodka-maker 28 Mile Distilling Co. is joining the ranks of Chicagoland distilleries lending their facilities to the production of hand sanitizer during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The distillery, named for its 28-mile distance from Chicago, will donate the hand sanitizer which includes nearly 12,000 16-ounce bottles to the Chicago Police Department. Its the largest donation of sanitizer that the department has received yet.

The key ingredient in hand sanitizers is neutral grain spirit, which is essentially vodka. The spirit is combined with glycerin and hydrogen peroxide to make hand sanitizer. Distilleries across the Chicago area and the nation have been pivoting to make the sanitizer during the pandemic.

The approximately 1,400 gallons of 28 Mile Distilling Co. product will be distributed to officers Thursday at the Police Academy. Adam Lukach

5:36 p.m.: Trump order keeps meatpacking plants open, but effect on Illinois facilities is uncertain

President Donald Trump has ordered meat processing plants to remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic even as they have emerged as hotspots for worker illnesses in Illinois and elsewhere, laying bare the challenge of keeping the nations food supply chain intact while protecting workers on crowded production lines.

Trump, in an executive order signed Tuesday, invoked the Defense Production Act to prevent meat plant closures, saying they threaten the continued functioning of the national meat and poultry supply chain, undermining critical infrastructure during the national emergency." Unions and workers rights advocates said the action jeopardizes worker safety.

The order came as COVID-19 cases prompted a growing number of major slaughterhouses and meat processing facilities to temporarily shut down, sometimes under pressure from local authorities. The closures have sent ripples across the supply chain as farmers lost markets for their livestock and grocers braced for a shortage of meat on their shelves.

More than 20 meatpacking plants have closed temporarily over the past two months, including three in Illinois that shuttered last week. It wasnt immediately clear Wednesday what the order means for those facilities.

Smithfield Foods, the worlds largest pork producer, indefinitely shuttered a large pork plant in Monmouth Friday after a small portion of its 1,700 employees tested positive for COVID-19, and it closed a smaller plant in St. Charles, where 325 people work, on orders from the Kane County Health Department to improve social distancing and take other safety measures.

Hormel closed an 800-worker plant in Rochelle that makes bacon and deli meats on orders from the Ogle County Health Department, with plans to reopen May 4.

Monmouth Mayor Rod Davies said he is eager to see work resume at the Smithfield plant, which is a huge employer in his town of about 10,000 people, but is concerned about doing it in a way that keeps workers safe. Read more here. Alexia Elejalde-Ruiz

4:50 p.m.: Illinois AG files appeal in State Rep. Darren Baileys lawsuit over stay-at-home order

The Illinois attorney generals office filed an appellate court brief Wednesday seeking to overturn a southern Illinois judges ruling that temporarily exempts a Republican state representative from Gov. J.B. Pritzkers statewide stay-at-home order.

State Rep. Darren Bailey request for a personal exemption from the order besides being dangerous is flawed as a matter of law, Attorney General Kwame Raouls office argues in the filing with Illinois 5th District Appellate Court.

The filing comes two days after a Clay County judge issued a temporary order freeing Bailey from Pritzkers directive, which is aimed at slowing the spread of the new coronavirus. Read more here. Dan Petrella

3:57 p.m.: Illinois delays awarding 75 licenses for new marijuana dispensaries

The state will delay awarding licenses for 75 new recreational marijuana dispensaries due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Applications for the licenses were due Jan. 1 and were set to be awarded May 1. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which regulates dispensaries, said Wednesday that it will not award the licenses until the end of the Gubernatorial Disaster Proclamation, or until the state announces another date.

The licenses offer the first path into Illinois burgeoning marijuana industry for people who didnt already operate a cannabis facility. Though recreational sales started in the state Jan. 1, only existing operators were allowed to participate.

The delay means those existing operators will continue to control Illinois marijuana market, which has delivered some of the highest first months of revenue in the nation. Customers spent about $110.2 million on legal weed in the first three months of sales.

It is unclear how long the new dispensaries will be delayed in opening. Once the state does award a license, the recipient has 180 days to find a location for the dispensary. The state must then inspect the location. Read more here. Ally Marotti

3:26 p.m.: Facing ongoing ridership drop, Metra cuts service on three of its least busy lines

Faced with an ongoing ridership slump due to the coronavirus pandemic, Metra is sharply cutting service on its three least busy lines starting Monday, May 4.

On the Heritage Corridor, which runs between Union Station and Joliet, and the North Central Service, which goes between Union Station and Antioch, the schedule will be reduced to one inbound trip in the morning and one outbound trip in the evening, Metra said in a news release on Wednesday.

On the SouthWest Service, which runs between Union Station and Manhattan, Illinois, there will be two inbound trips in the morning and two outbound trips in the evening, Metra said.

3:09 p.m.: Police to issue citation in connection with wedding party in West Rogers Park

Chicago police will be issuing a citation in connection with a party at a West Rogers Park residence that spilled into the street last week, prompting police to break up the crowd for violating stay-at-home orders.

The party, first reported by Block Club Chicago, was recorded on video and showed a few dozen revelers dancing to loud music at an Orthodox Jewish wedding party outside a home at Farwell and Francisco avenues. Some people in the video could be seen wearing masks, but the crowd was too large to allow for following rules on social distancing.

Chicago police have said officers responded to the gathering shortly before 6 p.m. Thursday, dispersed the crowd and left the scene without issuing any citations. But on Wednesday, Chicago police said a citation would be issued, though a spokesman could not immediately provide specifics.

At the same time, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said during an afternoon news conference that enforcement action would be taken in connection with the wedding party in the same fashion that police took action with the owner of a Northwest Side home, where viral video showed dozens of young African-American party-goers in close quarters who also were not practicing social distancing.

They should be treated exactly the same," Lightfoot said in reference to the wedding party nearly a week ago. And we are making sure that we identify whose responsible and we will be taking the same kind of decisive action against that large wedding where the video shows people in cars, but people in the street not social distancing, not wearing appropriate mask or garb.

We cant tolerate it anywhere. Its not just the black millennials. Its a problem wherever it rears its head. Were going to move decisively to, again, help educate, but where necessary, take action to give citations to the people who are responsible.

The announcement of the enforcement action at the West Rogers Park party comes two days after Chicago police ticketed the owner of the Northwest Side residence in the 2000 block of North Narragansett Avenue in the Galewood neighborhood. That party occurred some time over the weekend, and while police broke up that large gathering there were initially no citations issued.

The two parties occurred in areas of Chicago with among the highest numbers of positive COVID-19 cases. Read more here. Jeremy Gorner and Gregory Pratt

3:02 p.m.: Mayor Lori Lightfoot encourages landlords and tenants to work together amid coronavirus-related financial crunch

Under pressure from activists and elected officials calling for rent relief and other measures to help struggling tenants, Mayor Lori Lightfoot unveiled a Chicago Housing Solidarity Pledge encouraging landlords and renters to work together through the coronavirus pandemic.

The pledge, which Lightfoot outlined at City Hall on Wednesday, calls for landlords to consider grace period for rent payments, written repayment plans and no late fees. It also calls for housing lenders to agree to grace periods on mortgage payments, neutral reporting to credit agencies and suspension of foreclosures for certain mortgage holders who demonstrate a significant financial impact from the pandemic.

Signatories to the mayors pledge include the Chicagoland Apartment Association, Chicago Association of REALTORS, Bank of America, BMO Harris Bank, Byline Bank, Fifth Third Bank, PNC, Wintrust and Seaway Credit Union.

But in response to questions, Lightfoot acknowledged she cant force landlords to follow through and said the pledge is about public accountability." Read more here. Gregory Pratt

2:56 p.m.: Pritzker responds to second lawsuit over his statewide stay-at-home order

Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday called a second lawsuit brought by a Republican state lawmaker challenging the extension of his statewide stay-at-home order another attempt at grandstanding.

State Rep. John Cabello filed a lawsuit Wednesday morning.

I think its a similarly irresponsible lawsuit, Pritzker said at his briefing Wednesday.

Pritzker clarified that his order does not prevent state lawmakers from convening in Springfield, and said they are considered essential under the orders, as are government bodies across the state.

Pritzker has said he would leave decisions about the legislature convening to legislative leaders, though he has said hes suggested they consult with the state Department of Public Health.

We need to make sure that all the people who work in the Capitol for those legislators, as well as all the legislators, are safe, Pritzker said. Jamie Munks

2:40 p.m.: Pritzker says state has distributed 20 million PPE items as new known cases of COVID-19 push Illinois count over 50,000

Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Wednesday the state has distributed nearly 20 million items of personal protective equipment to local public health departments, nursing homes and hospitals statewide.

The state received a federal shipment of PPE on Monday, including more than 300,000 N-95 masks and over 500,000 KN-95 masks, as well as other supplies, Pritzker said in his daily update on Wednesday.

The governor has repeatedly pushed for additional equipment from the federal government, and Pritzker detailed on Wednesday the states still outstanding requests from the federal government and orders from suppliers.

State officials also announced 2,253 new known cases of COVID-19 Wednesday, including 92 additional deaths. The numbers push Illinois known case count over 50,000, to 50,355 since the pandemic began. The known death toll related to the new coronavirus in the state is 2,215, officials said.

Pritzker said the state Department of Public Health has also inked a contract with Quest Diagnostics to run 3,000 tests per day for testing at long term care facilities.

Pritzker also announced that state Department of Public Health nurses will be deployed to long-term care facilities as part of a clinical support program to conduct swab testing training, take samples and review and improve hygiene practices and PPE use. Jamie Munks

2:30 p.m.: In The Daily Show appearance, U.S. Sen. Duckworth says Trumps task force to reopen economy has met once for a roughly hour-long call

A congressional task force President Donald Trump established to advise the White House on reopening the economy has met virtually just once in the roughly two weeks since it was created, Democratic U.S Sen. Tammy Duckworth said in a television appearance.

Appearing on an episode of The Daily Show with Trevor Noah that aired Tuesday night, the junior U.S. senator from Illinois was asked why the public hasnt heard more from the Opening Up America Again task force. Duckworth said the group met by phone and the president spent most of the time boasting about how great the testing was going in this country.

Our task force has only met once, we had one phone call for an hour 45 minutes of that hour was spent with President Trump boasting on how great the testing was going in this country, how we had conducted more testing than any other country and that other countries were calling us (and) asking us to give them tests, Duckworth, a frequent Trump critic, said.

Duckworth and U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, another Illinois Democrat, were among 65 senators named to the working group, which includes a dozen Democrats and all Republican senators except Mitt Romney of Utah. Romney voted to convict Trump in the presidents impeachment trial.

Of 32 House members also named to the task force, there are 22 Republicans and 10 Democrats, including Illinois U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, a Taylorville Republican, the Tribune previously reported. Duckworth disputes the presidents take on the nations testing efforts, saying that when asked how many tests the country would need to safely reopen the country, the Trump administration had no answers.

This is a basic math problem, you need to know how many tests we need to have, Duckworth said, adding: You can do the basic math and figure out how many tests you need and they dont know.

The presidents communications staff didnt offer an immediate response to Duckworths criticism. Read more here. Lisa Donovan

2:09 p.m.: Wild swing in coronavirus numbers reported at Chicagos federal jail goes unexplained, leaves lawyers skeptical

A week ago, federal prison officials reported that 20 inmates at Chicagos Metropolitan Correctional Center had tested positive for the coronavirus.

But by Tuesday, the number of infected detainees at the downtown high-rise jail had dropped to just six, according to the official tally from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

So far, the wild swing in the numbers has gone unexplained. Did initial positive cases turn out to be wrong? Does it reflect that sick inmates are being moved out of the MCC? Or has the number dropped as detainees have recovered?

BOP officials failed to respond to multiple requests from the Chicago Tribune this week for an explanation on how its coronavirus data which is updated every afternoon on the agencys website is being tabulated.

One thing is certain: A different tally of MCC cases being kept by federal prosecutors is much higher.Earlier this week, prosecutors said in a court filing that 32 of the roughly 650 inmates at the MCC had tested positive for COVID-19, representing about 5% of the population. In addition, 23 staff members were infected, prosecutors said. So far, no fatalities have been reported.

Prosecutors said their numbers were based on information received directly from MCC officials. Most of the infected inmates were quarantined in their cells, but at least one inmate has been hospitalized and would not return to the facility until medically cleared to do so, prosecutors said.

Meanwhile, the lack of explanation from the BOP continues to raise alarms in Chicagos legal community, where criminal defense attorneys have been trying mostly in vain to get clients released due to the diseases presumed ability to spread quickly in the MCCs notoriously cramped quarters. Read more here. Jason Meisner

2:06 p.m.: Decision on fate of Lollapalooza summer music festival could be soon

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the city should have an update shortly on whether Lollapalooza will be canceled this summer.

The mayor again was asked about the popular summer festival during an unrelated news conference on Wednesday and said a decision would be announced shortly, though she didnt say when. Earlier in the month, Lightfoot said its too soon to talk about July and August events. But she has canceled Gospel Fest and Memorial Day events set for May and June. Read more here. Gregory Pratt

12:55 p.m.: Reopen Illinois rally planned for Loop this Friday

Protesters who want Gov. J.B. Pritzker to announce a plan to reopen the Illinois economy have scheduled a Friday rally outside the Thompson Center in the Loop.

Illinois residents have tolerated the governments plan for over a month without a plan on how to slowly and safely reopen the states economy, a news release announcing the event states. We need to discuss the process of cautiously returning back to work. Read more here. John Byrne

12:51 p.m.: Republican lawmakers say Pritzkers exceeding his authority with stay-at-home extension

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Posted By admin on May 2, 2020

(ISRAEL21c)-Israelis receiving daily coronavirus check-ins via text message can thank local startupDiagnostic Roboticsfor developing the cutting-edge questionnaire that is tracking the spread of the virus with uncanny precision and generating actionable recommendations.

"Last Saturday night, we saw worrying data coming from Migdal HaEmek, Tiberias and Ashkelon," Kira Radinsky, the company's cofounder and chief technology officer, told ISRAEL21c. "On Monday morning, the government issued a lockdown order in those cities."

Diagnostic Robotics has sent its questionnaire to millions of Israelis, including some 2,000 Covid-19 patients. Some 80 percent of recipients answer it.

"People understand the importance of accurate data for Covid-19 treatment," Radinsky explained.

The company is now "working on a media campaign to help raise awareness even more and keep the numbers high."

Technion all-star team

Diagnostic Robotics is based on a decade of research by the 33-year-old Ukrainian-born Radinsky, one of Israel's top tech stars.

When ISRAEL21c first wrote aboutRadinskyin 2013, she had just received her PhD from the Technion (in which she enrolled when she was just 15 years old) and was starting her own company, SalesPredict.

SalesPredict was bought by eBayin 2016 and Radinsky was named eBay's director of data science and chief scientist in Israel. She left eBay to cofound Diagnostic Robotics last year.

At the Technion, Radinsky developed software to predict disasters including disease outbreaks, violence and natural catastrophes. The algorithms successfully predicted cholera outbreaks in Angola and Cuba.

Radinsky's years at eBay were focused not on disease but rather on predicting which customers would buy which items. When the opportunity arose to get back into the healthcare space, she didn't hesitate.

Radinsky teamed up with two of her colleagues from the Technion-robotics expert Moshe Shoham and graduate Jonathan Amir-and raised $24 million in 2019. With Amir as CEO, Diagnostic Robotics has a team of 100 data scientists, economists, engineers, doctors and designers.

Triage tool

When Radinsky and her partners were dreaming up Diagnostic Robotics, Covid-19 did not exist.

They intended to use predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to reduce the healthcare load on overcrowded emergency rooms by "directing patients to the most relevant medical setting-the emergency department, urgent care clinic or remote consultation," Radinsky tells ISRAEL21c.

Diagnostic Robotics' software "analyzes a patient's medical history and current medical case using AI and NLP technologies," while integrating "multiple sensory output data," such as blood tests and EKG results, along with "billions of medical records and patient historical records" from around the world.

The system was already up and running with several hospitals and HMOs in Israel when Covid-19 hit. Radinsky and her partners quickly realized that, with just a few tweaks, the same platform could be used to triage patients possibly infected with the novel coronavirus.

"A month before the virus hit us here in Israel, we already decided to adapt our existing systems to track its spread in the country. For the past month and a half, we have been working day and night to put the finishing touches on a digital platform that is a one-stop shop for managing the disease," Radinsky said.

The system, dubbed COVID360, is now integrated with all four of Israel's HMOs and the Magen David Adom system-all for free.

The data collection starts with a link to an anonymous questionnaire, available in Hebrew, Arabic, English, Russian and Spanish. Recipients are asked to respond daily.

"The platform analyzes a patient's clinical symptoms and underlying health status, generates a personalized risk profile for Covid-19 and provides next step guidance," Radinsky explained.

For doctors and HMOs, a special dashboard enables remote monitoring and risk assessment.

Sample questions

Among the questions asked: "Have you provided face-to-face service to more than 10 people in the past two weeks?" "Do you have one or more of the following pre-existing conditions?" and "Did you measure your temperature over the last 24 hours?"

COVID360 incorporates additional valuable data sources, such as travel between cities, population density and the distance between areas that can help identify how one city will influence another.

Data on the history of morbidity by region is provided by the Ministry of Health. While the questionnaire doesn't collect any identifying details, such as names or telephone numbers, it does ask users to list what street they live on.

The questionnaire is easiest to access via a web link on a smartphone, but mindful that not all populations in Israel have the latest phone technology, a workaround using just SMS-and sometimes even old-fashioned phone calls-is also available. That approach won't help with the epidemiological mapping but can aid in care management.

Perhaps the most dramatic visual coming out of the COVID360 system is a "heat map" showing where Covid-19 infections are most prevalent. This helps the Ministry of Health decide which areas should go into lockdown.

By using historical data, Diagnostic Robotics was also able to determine that the source of the mass infection in the city of Bnei Brak was due to large gatherings for the Jewish holiday of Purim and not the improvised prayer services that took place in the weeks afterward.

When will it end?

One thing Diagnostic Robotics can't predict is when the pandemic will end.

"At the moment, we only have full information for the past two weeks," she told the Israeli business journal Globes. "In order to predict two weeks ahead, we need at least five times this window-in other words going back ten weeks."

Diagnostic Robotics was founded by a powerful Technion triad of entrepreneurs, shown here (l-r): Yonatan Amir, Kira Radinsky and Moshe Shoham.

Once the initial outbreak began spreading outside of China, Diagnostic Robotics predicted it would reach Israel, the United States and other locations, Radinsky said.

COVID360 also can describe Covid-19 disease progression. By surveying millions of Israelis, the system has confirmed that there is an average gap of four to five days between infection and the appearance of symptoms; that the loss of taste and smell can appear as far as 30 days after the start of infection; and that some patients never develop a fever.

Diagnostic Robotics' system is operating in Israel and, as of this week, in cooperation with India's Odisha Covid-19 triage and monitoring platform. Radinsky hinted at additional implementations in the works.

"If anybody needs help, and our system can be helpful for them, we will be helping them," she said.

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(JNS)Holocaust survivors do not need annual ceremonies to remind them of the Nazi atrocities that they endured or of the family members that Adolf Hitlers henchmen slaughtered during World War II. No, those memories are just as inked in their hearts and minds as the numbers tattooed on their forearms.

Indeed, it is not those people who require the admonition Never Forget, but rather the rest of the world. It is also a mantra for subsequent generations of Jews to repeat and forge a collective memory of events that we did not experience firsthand, but which require our ongoing attention. If, that is, we are to recognize and combat anti-Semitism in all its ideologicaland militarymanifestations.

The Knesset thus ruled in 1951 that Holocaust Remembrance Day would be marked on the 27th of the Hebrew month of Nissan, which falls between Passover and Israel Independence Daytwo celebrations of freedom, victory and a return to the Jewish homeland.

In Israel, then, Yom Hashoah is particularly significant. Not only was the Jewish state established in the wake of the Holocaust, but many survivors fought and were killed in the 1948 War of Independence.

Their stories of unparalleled heroism in spite of unfathomable victimhood are recounted each year at the main ceremony at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem on the eve of Yom Hashoah and at other locations during the following 24 hours. On the day itself, everyone in the country stops in his/her tracks at the sound of a siren to stand in silence for two minutes.

But not this year.

Thanks to coronavirus lockdownsthe emphasis of which ostensibly is to protect the elderlythe ceremonies are void of participants. With the exception of speeches by prominent politicians and performances by singers to empty halls, all commemorations and survivor testimonieshave been held onlineand televised.

What makes this especially sad is the fact that the aging survivorsmost of whom are not adept at Internet communicationhave been living in isolation for weeks as it is. One survivor toldChannel 12on Monday evening that the hardest part about being alone is the lack of distraction from his daily traumatic memories. He explained that without people around, he finds it harder to push away the ghosts of his past.

One would think, then, that he and others like him would dread Yom Hashoah. In fact, however, it is a day when the aging survivorsmany of whom are widowed or have no offspringwelcome contact with the outside world. It is an opportunity for them to meet one another, while being honored and, above all, heard.

To such people, who tend to be in their 80s and 90s, the onset of COVID-19 has dealt an especially severe blow. Aside from belonging to the highest-risk category where corona is concerned (the first Israeli to die of the virus, on March 20, was 88-year-old Aryeh Even, a survivor from Hungary), their inability to go outside for fresh air and companionship is taking an emotional toll.

I am lonely, one survivor toldChannel 12earlier this month. When I suffer from this loneliness, I get a panic attack. I sit in a room with nobody to talk to. [Before], there was always someone to talk to. I have friends. But now... everyone stays inside their homes and I am alone... Its very hard for me.

Holocaust survivors are not a uniform group, however. On the contrary, some are affluent, while others subsist on meager pensions or are actually poverty-stricken. Some have large families, while others have no one around to check in on them. And some are more optimistic in their outlook than others. When asked, for example, whether the coronavirus closures evoke memories of the Holocaust, a Buchenwald survivor scoffed at the very suggestion.

To compare that miserable situation to todays? he asked rhetorically. Youre home? You have a blanket? You have something to eat? Nobodys beating you?... [This] isnt so bad.

What is bad is the realization that by next Holocaust Remembrance Day, there will be far fewer of the 189,500 survivors left in the Jewish state to tell their tales.

According to data released this week by the Israeli Finance Ministrys Holocaust Survivors Rights Authority, more than 15,000 survivors died over the past year, amounting to approximately 41 per day.

This figure, though unfortunate, makes sense, since 77 percent of the remaining survivors are over the age of 80; 16 percent are in their 90s; and 800 are older than 100.

In other words, even without the outbreak of COVID-19, the number of people who emerged from the ashes of the Nazi genocide is dwindling. Its not clear to what extent the virus will have played a part in the statistics.

It is this that Israelis should never forget, especially now, when all the survivorsother than the ones cherry-picked for TV highlightsare literally out of sight.

No matter what they do until the day they die, the Holocaust is and will be on their minds. The rest of us cannot say the same.

Ruthie Blum is an Israel-based journalist and author of To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the Arab Spring.

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The website Goodreads appears to have ignored calls to take down reviews of Holocaust denial books from its platform.

A Change.org petition, which has garnered over 240 signatures since it was uploaded last week, calls on the book review website to take down entries for Peter Winters The Six Million: Fact or Fiction? and the 1974 pamphletDid Six Million Really Die?.

The Amazon-owned website allows users to search its database of books and post their own reviews and ratings. It contains 90 million reviews in total, according to figures published by Goodreads.

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If you care about truth, respect for survivors, and preventing anti semitism and acts of hate, make an impact by signing this petition to get GoodReads to remove these books from their shelves for good, the petition says.

Both titles have received overwhelmingly positive ratings from dozens of Goodreads users and handfuls of reviews.

An automatically-generated sidebar on the web-page about Did Six Million Really Die? offers personalised recommendations of titles deemed similar. They include Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampfand the forged antisemitic pamphlet The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.

When approached by Jewish News for comment, a spokesperson for Goodreads said in a statement: As a book review site, our goal is to provide a place for people to discuss their views on books even if the book is controversial or has content that may be objectionable.

We take the responsibility of supporting our community of readers very seriously and listen carefully to any concerns raised by our members. Hate speech is not tolerated and reviews or comments that contain hate speech will be deleted.

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