Nobel Prize in Medicine awarded to two American Jews
(JNS.org) Two American Jews, along with their German partner, have been awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Medicine.
The three scientists, Yale University professor James E. Rothman, 64, University of California, Berkeley professor Randy W. Schekman, 64, and German-born Stanford University professor Thomas C. Südhof, 57, were awarded for their “discoveries of machinery regulating vesicle traffic, a major transport system in our cells,” according to the Nobel prize committee.
“Disturbances in this system have deleterious effects and contribute to conditions such as neurological diseases, diabetes, and immunological disorders,” the committee said.
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Israel approves high-speed train route to Eilat
(JNS.org) An Israeli government committee has approved plans for Israel’s most expensive transportation project ever, a high-speed rail line from central Israel to southern port city of Eilat.
The 217-mile track to Eilat will run along the eastern flank of the Negev, allowing it to avoid rocket fire from Gaza or the Sinai. The train is expected to reach speeds up to 155 miles per hour, cutting travel down to two hours from the four-to-five-hour trip by car or bus. An estimated 5 million passengers a year are expected to ride the train, Haaretz reported.
There are tentative plans for a Chinese company to handle the construction, which will cost up to NIS 7 billion, or $2 billion.
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Israeli-Palestinian conflict’s root is objection to a Jewish state, Netanyahu says
(JNS.org) Four years after a historic speech at Bar-Ilan University during which he first backed a two-state solution, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the venue Sunday and said peace will only be possible when the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The “root” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is “the profound objection by the hard core of Palestinians to the right of the Jewish people to its own country in the Land of Israel,” Netanyahu said at the 20th anniversary international conference of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.
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Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, former Sephardi chief rabbi and Shas leader, dies at 93
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, former chief Sephardi rabbi of Israel and the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Shas political party since its inception, died Monday at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem of complications from multiple organ failure. He was 93.
Yosef was responsible for several breakthrough halachic rulings, including allowing more than 1,000 women—the wives of Israeli soldiers who were killed in Israel’s wars and declared military fatalities whose resting places were unknown—to remarry, in a decree known as “the release of agunot”; declaring a collective recognition of the Jewishness of Ethiopian Jews; and in more recent years, ordering the Shas party to vote in favor of a law recognizing brain death as death for legal purposes.
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Nine-year-old Israeli girl wounded in terror attack
(JNS.org) Nine-year-old Noam Glick was wounded Saturday night in a terror attack in Psagot, a Judea and Samaria community located north of Jerusalem and adjacent to the Palestinian city of Ramallah. She was rushed to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem in serious-to-moderate condition, suffering from a gunshot wound to her chest. Her condition eventually stabilized.
It was unclear whether Glick was shot by a terrorist who had infiltrated the community or by a sniper from nearby Ramallah. Glick described the perpetrator as “a man wearing a black wool cap,” Israel Hayom reported.
“We have enjoyed peace and quiet for years. This is a difficult time for us,” said David Tzviel, spokesman for Psagot.
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Fatah glorifies shooter of 9-year-old Israeli girl on Facebook
(JNS.org) The Palestinian Fatah party praised Saturday’s shooting of 9-year-old Israeli girl Noam Glick on its Facebook page, Palestinian Media Watch reported.
“The sniper of Palestine was here,” Fatah posted. “He saluted Hebron, and rested in El-Bireh. He left the signature of [real] men in different parts of the homeland. He saluted and left, and moved on to a different place, with a new signature, as he tells the stories of those who love the homeland.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday in reaction to both the Glick shooting and a recent rise in Palestinian terror attacks that as long as “incitement continues in the Palestinian media,” the Palestinian Authority “cannot evade responsibility for these incidents.”
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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calls U.S. ‘arrogant, unreliable and irrational’
(JNS.org) Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday described the U.S. government, which recently engaged in a level of diplomacy with Iran that was unprecedented for three decades, as “arrogant, unreliable and irrational.”
“We have no trust in them at all,” Khamenei said, The Associated Press reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also slammed U.S. President Barack Obama, whose phone call with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was the first such talk between the nations since 1979, for “insulting the Iranian nation” by telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that a military option is on the table for the Iranian nuclear threat.
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Warren Buffett acquires Israeli electronics company Ray-Q
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Electronics company TTI Inc.—an indirect, wholly owned subsidiary of American billionaire Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway—on Friday announced its acquisition of Israeli electronics company Ray-Q Interconnect.
Founded in 1969, Ray-Q specializes in electrical and fiber optic interconnects for military, aerospace, medical and other high-reliability product industries.
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Arid state of Nevada seeks help from Israeli agricultural experts
(JNS.org) In a campaign to revitalize its barren terrain, Nevada hopes to share best practices on water and crops with Israel.
The desert-heavy U.S. state’s governor, Brian Sandoval, is planning a trip to Israel’s Negev in October to learn more about indoor farming, and how using Israeli technology could rejuvenate Nevada’s lackluster farming industry.
Nevada, which suffers from a lack of water and farmable terrain, has only 40 acres of indoor farming statewide. Israel, meanwhile, has historically adapted to chronic water shortages.
“One of the prominent areas of mutual interest is water management,” said Uri Resnick, deputy consul general of Israel to the Southwest United States, Jspace.com reported.
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Wonder Bread for reinvigorated, iconic American brand
(JNS.org) Wonder Bread, fresh off its post-bankruptcy revival, will get kosher certification in the New York area from the Orthodox Union (OU), according to a bulletin from the OU.
OU-certified Wonder Bread won’t be sold everywhere, but approved products will bear the OU’s symbol on their packaging. Previously, Wonder Bread was certified by the Triangle-K, which is not as widely accepted by kosher consumers as the OU, the New York Jewish Week reported.
Flower Foods, which acquired the Wonder Bread brand during the Hostess brande’s recent bankruptcy fire sale, is a “very old and important OU account,” said Rabbi Moshe Elefant, the chief operating officer of the OU’s Kashruth Department.
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Christians in Israel declare renewed identity and bonds to Jewish state
(JNS.org) Leading Israeli Christians gathered at a Jerusalem conference to declare their own identity apart from Arab Muslims and their support for Israel.
Participants at the conference—titled “Israeli Christians: Breaking Free? The advent of an independent Christian voice in Israel”—said their history, culture, and heritage have been hijacked by Muslim Arabs in the region. A former Israeli Christian paratrooper, Shaadi Khalloul, said he has lobbied the Israeli government to recognize his community, called “B’nei Keyama,” as Aramaic Christians, referring to the majority language spoken by Christians and Jews prior to the Arab Invasions of the 7th century.
“The typical Christian student thinks that he belongs to the Arab people and the Islamic nation, instead of speaking to the people with whom he truly shares his roots—the Jewish people, whose origins are in the Land of Israel,” Khalloul said, Israel Hayom reported.
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Egypt turns back Palestinian pilgrims, mulls military action in Gaza
(JNS.org) Egyptian authorities turned back more than 100 Palestinians on their way to Mecca as part of their Hajj pilgrimage, citing security reasons.
Reports say that the Egyptian military is considering military action inside Gaza if terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula continues. Egyptian aircraft have recently been conducting reconnaissance over Gaza.
“The Egyptian army does not believe the population of Gaza is involved in the violence in Sinai, but certain factions strongly support Sinai groups,” a senior Egyptian official told Ma’an News Agency.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org