Jewish man who helped Sandy Hook children harassed
(JNS.org) Gene Rosen, a Jewish man who found and sheltered six terrified children who had run away from the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary school on December 14, 2012, is being harassed by phone and email by conspiracy theorists who believe that the Newtown shooting was either faked or was set up for political gain.
The 69-year-old retired psychologist found the children in his driveway together with the school bus driver who had taken them away from the violence at the school. He took the children into his house and watched them until their parents and authorities arrived.
Now unknown individuals have set up social media accounts in Rosen’s name, and others have uploaded spoofs to YouTube of the now well-known video in which the sobbing Rosen describes what happened. “[The children] said, ‘What are we going to do for a teacher? Our teacher is dead,’” the distraught Rosen said in the video according to the Forward. One of these YouTube spoofs calls the clip an “audition tape” for Rosen’s TV debut.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m getting hang up calls, I’m getting emails with, not direct threats, but accusations that I’m lying, that I’m a crisis actor, ‘how much am I being paid,” Rosen said told Salon.com.
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Italian-Jewish politician to quit politics and make Aliyah
(JNS.org) Jewish-Italian politician Fiamma Nirenstein announced she is quitting politics, returning to her Journalism career and making Aliya. The vice president of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the Italian Chamber of Deputies plans to apply for Israeli citizenship. “Everybody can see that unfortunately anti-Semitism is still growing worldwide, and Israel is the only warm homeland for the Jewish people,” she told the Italian newspaper Il Giornale according to the Jerusalem Post.
Born in 1946 in Florence, Nirenstein has written many articles and books on the Jewish people, anti-Semitism and Israel. She is known in Italy and Europe for fighting terrorism and racism, and for her efforts to get the EU and the Italian government to ban Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps within the EU’s territories and to officially list them as terrorist organizations. She is also chairwoman of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians.
“Israel is today the best country able to offer culture, sociality, democracy, morality; a country where people adopted a lifestyle simple and natural,” and where its people are united as a family in “their fight for survival, and in their great love for their country…Love for life in Israel is everywhere,” she said.
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Bulgarian government denies Hezbollah link to terror attack
(JNS.org) The Bulgarian government and media have denied any Hezbollah link to the terrorist attack against Israeli tourists at the Black Sea resort of Burgas last summer which had killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian.
In a report on Israel’s Channel 2 that was broadcast on January 17th, an investigation found that Hezbollah was involved in the attack.
However, the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry denied the Israeli TV report linking Hezbollah to the Burgas attack. Additionally, a report in the Bulgarian media said that there is no evidence of Hezbollah’s involvement. It also added that the suspected bomber had ties to al-Qaeda, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Earlier in the week, Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov visited Israel to brief Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Shimon Peres on the investigation. However, officials have remained quiet on the details of the briefing.
Bulgaria has said that the bombing was perpetrated by outsiders, but has yet to publish the full findings of its investigation. Israeli and American officials suspect Hezbollah’s involvement in the attack. The two countries have also been lobbying the EU to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization and impose sanctions on the group.
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Netanyahu wants haredim and Lapid in government, sources say
(Israel Hayom/ Exclusive to JNS.org) With just four days to go before Israelis go to the polls, the ruling party is sending a clear message on the preferred makeup of the next coalition of the Israeli government. All the so-called natural coalition partners (Shas, United Torah Judaism, and Habayit Hayehudi) as well as one or two parties from the Left, will be invited into the next coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is re-elected, Likud sources said Thursday.
The way things seem now, the joint Likud-Yisrael Beytenu list will try to convince one or two parties from the Center-Left to join a coalition that includes the ultra-Orthodox parties and other parties from the Right. The Sephardi haredi party Shas, the Ashkenazi haredi United Torah Judaism, and religious-Zionist Habayit Hayehudi will be asked to join first. As for the parties on the Center-Left, it seems that former journalist Yair Lapid’s party, Yesh Atid, is Netanyahu’s first choice.
Should the centrist Kadima get enough votes to qualify for Knesset seats, Netanyahu will want to include it in his government, the Likud says.
Former Kadima leader Tzipi Livni’s Hatnuah party is not ruled out as a coalition partner, but it is going to be courted less, the Likud sources say. They stressed that Netanyahu believed a partnership with Labor will not be feasible because its leader, Shelly Yachimovich, has pledged not to join a Likud-led government. The Likud has also denied reports that its renowned campaign guru Arthur Finkelstein has left the campaign.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org