Daily Jewish news briefs: January 15, 2015

jns logo short version
-Compiled by JNS.org

‘This is your land,’ Netanyahu tells Birthright participants at program’s 15th anniversary
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) The Taglit-Birthright Israel program celebrated 15 years of bringing young Jews (ages 18-26) on free 10-day trips to Israel on Wednesday evening in Jerusalem.

The speakers and crowd at the event observed a moment of silence in remembrance of the 17 people killed in three terrorist attacks in Paris last week.

One of the victims, Yoav Hattab, had visited Israel on a Birthright trip just two weeks before he was killed. He was laid to rest in Jerusalem on Tuesday in a funeral attended by thousands of mourners.

“I saw there (in Paris) masses of French people marching and rightfully proclaiming ‘Je suis Charlie’ (in support of the victims of theCharlie Hebdo attack),” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the Birthright event, “and I thought to myself that we Jews have another question: Can Jews in other countries march in the street and declare ‘Je suis Juif, I am Jewish?’”

“In Israel, every Jew can say, ‘I am a Jew, Je suis Juif,’ out loud and proudly, without fear,” the prime minister said. Netanyahu urged the Birthright participants, “Come to Israel. Come visit Israel. Come stay in Israel. Come make aliyah to Israel. This is your land.”
*

Ruderman Family Foundation, Chabad partner on $1 million disability inclusion initiative
(JNS.org) The Ruderman Family Foundation (RFF) will devote $1 million to a new partnership with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement in order to help “create a culture of inclusion” for people with disabilities in about 4,200 communities around the world.

According to a press release, the initiative will work to change attitudes within Jewish communities from “doing for” to “working with” people with disabilities.

“With emissaries in virtually every Jewish community across the globe, Chabad represents one of the most extensive and influential outreach efforts in the Jewish world. … The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson z”l taught that every Jew is equal and every Jew is a valued member of our community regardless of their abilities. Our partnership with Chabad will ensure that his message is embraced by all Jews,” RFF President Jay Ruderman said.

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of Chabad’s educational and social services divisions, said that “the values of inclusion that the Rebbe pioneered are inherent to Chabad.”

The RFF, which is based in Boston, previously launched partnerships on disability inclusion in synagogues with the Union for Reform Judaism and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. The new initiative with Orthodox-affiliated Chabad means the foundation now has partnerships in all three major Jewish denominations.
*

Israel’s Lieberman: Turkey’s Erdogan is ‘anti-Semitic neighborhood bully’
(JNS.org) Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Wednesday called Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan an “anti-Semitic bully.”

Earlier this week, Erdogan—who is a strong supporter of the Palestinian terror group Hamas—slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for attending Sunday’s mass anti-terrorism rally in Paris, accusing Netanyahu of carrying out “state terrorism” during this summer’s Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

In addition, a member of Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, Ibrahim Melih Gökçek, told a gathering of youths on Sunday that because Israel is angry with France for supporting a recent Palestinian statehood resolution at the United Nations, it is “certain” that Israel’s Mossad spy agency is behind the recent Islamist terrorist attacks in Paris.

“[The] Mossad inflames Islamophobia by causing such incidents,” Gökçek said, the Turkish newspaper Zaman reported.

Responding to Turkey’s rhetoric in an address to Israeli ambassadors on Wednesday, Lieberman said that “civilized, politically correct Europe’s silence over an anti-Semitic neighborhood bully like Erdogan and his gang takes us back to the 1930s.”

Netanyahu said that “[Erdogan’s] shameful remarks must be repudiated by the international community, because the war against terror will only succeed if it’s guided by moral clarity,” Reuters reported.
*

Unofficial Israeli delegation testifies at U.N. Gaza inquiry despite government absence
(JNS.org) While the Israeli government is officially boycotting the William Schabas-led United Nations investigation into last summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, several Israelis reportedly gave the Jewish state a voice at a hearing for the probe in Geneva on Wednesday.

Gadi Yarkoni—the economic coordinator of Kibbutz Nirim, who lost his legs after being hit by a mortar shell—and Eshkol Regional Council Chairman Haim Yellin gave their testimony as part of a larger unofficial delegation of residents from the western Negev that was assembled by the International Association of Jewish Lawyers and Jurists.

The Israeli government approved the delegation’s travel to Geneva and their testimony, but made it clear that the witnesses were not considered official Israeli representatives.

The Schabas Commission said that it heard the testimony of “many witnesses both from Israel and from the occupied Palestinian territories,” but did not reveal the identity of the witnesses in order to “protect” them.

Meanwhile, the Israeli government continues to express its disapproval with Schabas’s investigation. Foreign Ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said Tuesday that “the Schabas Commission was born in sin, and its continuing activity is a demonstration of hypocrisy and lies.”

“The commission was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, a body known for its vilification of and hatred for Israel,” said Nahshon, Yedioth Achronoth reported. “The commission’s mandate is twisted, and its chair is committing a fundamentally unjust sin by already expressing his opinion on Israel, and determined in advance that Israel committed war crimes. If Schabas were a decent person, he would have had to resign a long time ago. Nevertheless, Israel will not prevent any Israeli citizen from having their say before international bodies and institutions.”
*

Survey: Nearly 60% of British Jews think they have no long-term future in Europe
(JNS.org) Nearly 60 percent of British Jews think they do not have a long-term future in Europe, while nearly half of British adults hold some type of anti-Semitic sentiment, according to two surveys released by the United Kingdom-based Jewish group Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA).

In the first survey, which polled 2,230 British Jews, 58 percent of respondents said that they have no long-term future in Europe and nearly a quarter said they have considered leaving the U.K. because of anti-Semitism. Additionally, more than half of all British Jews said they feel that current anti-Semitism echoes that of the 1930s, and that they have witnessed more anti-Semitism in the past two years than ever before. During the Israel-Hamas war last summer, anti-Semitic incidents hit record levels in the U.K.

Meanwhile, in a YouGov survey of 3,411 British adults conducted on behalf of CAA, almost half (45 percent) of respondents were found to hold some type of anti-Semitic sentiment.

The YouGov survey revealed that a quarter of British adults believe that “Jews chase money more than other British people,” and 20 percent believe that “Jewish loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people.” Among those polled, British men were more likely (51 percent) to agree with anti-Semitic statements than women (39 percent).

“The results of our survey[s] are a shocking wakeup call straight after the atrocities in Paris,” Gideon Falter, CAA’s chairman, said in a statement. “Britain is at a tipping point: unless anti-Semitism is met with zero tolerance, it will grow and British Jews will increasingly question their place in their own country.”
*

Hezbollah’s Nasrallah: Israel has no idea how many weapons we have
(JNS.org) Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that his Lebanon-based Shi’a Muslim terror group has more weapons that Israel can imagine.

“Hezbollah has weapons that the enemy can expect and we have ones that they aren’t expecting. Our resistance has not been damaged, and Israel is mistaken if it thinks it has,” Nasrallah told the Hezbollah and Iranian-linked Arabic TV station Al-Mayadeen.

Nasrallah added, “If Israel attacks Lebanon, our resistance is strong and our ability to win is great.”

While the Israel-Lebanon border has been relatively quiet since the last war there in 2007, Hezbollah planted two bombs along that border last October, wounding two Israeli soldiers who were on patrol.

Hezbollah has also been preoccupied supporting the government of President Bashar al-Assad in the Syrian civil war, reportedly experiencing heavy casualties in its fight against Sunni jihadist groups like the Islamic State or the al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front. Hezbollah has also faced increased criticism at home for its involvement in Syria.

At the same time, Israel has periodically launched airstrikes in Syria that have reportedly targeted weapons transfers from the Syrian government to Hezbollah.
*
Articles from JNS.org appear on San Diego Jewish World through the generosity of Dr. Bob and Mao Shillman.