Syrian civil war refugee receives pacemaker at Israeli hospital
(JNS.org) A 4-year-old Syrian civil war refugee from the besieged city of Homs recently underwent what was likely life-saving surgery at the pediatric cardiology ward of the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, Israel.
The boy, Mohammed Hamudi, was born with reversed ventricles, a rare heart condition. A surgical team led by Dr. Dudi Mishali managed to implant a pacemaker in his heart with a long-lasting battery.
“Either we could have operated regularly on him, allowing him to live another 15 to 20 years, or we could have chosen the harder, more complicated option granting him, all things considered, the lifespan of a healthy person,” said Mishali, whose team chose and executed the more complicated option.
Hamudi’s father told Israel Hayom, “The Israeli doctors brought him back to life, and I am happy to have met this country.”
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Jacob Ostreicher, Jewish contractor held in Bolivia since 2011, returns to U.S.
(JNS.org) American-Jewish contractor Jacob Ostreicher, held in Bolivia since 2011, has returned to the U.S.
Ostreicher, a 54-year-old Brooklyn native, traveled to Bolivia in December 2010 to oversee rice production and was arrested in June 2011 on suspicion of money laundering and criminal organization. No formal charges were ever been brought against him, but he spent 18 months in prison before being released on bail in December 2012, after which point he remained in Bolivia on house arrest.
“With happiness, we are informing the community of Israel that our dear uncle… has already left the iron curtain in Bolivia, and is now, with G-d’s great mercy, here in America,” Ostreicher’s nephew Moshe wrote in an email, The Algemeiner reported Monday.
Brooklyn Assemblyman Dov Hikind tweeted, “With thanks to G-d, I am *thrilled* that Jacob Ostreicher is finally home in America!” A source cited by The Algemeiner said an “operation” to return Ostreicher to his family took place Sunday night. The Lakewood Scoop website cited an Ostreicher family member who said he was kidnapped in Bolivia, and dropped off at an undisclosed location in the U.S. when a ransom was paid.
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‘Superman Sam’ 8-year-old Sam Sommer dies of leukemia
(JNS.org) Sam Sommer, the 8-year-old boy whose battle against leukemia was documented by his parents—both rabbis—in a widely followed blog, died Saturday. More than 1,000 mourners came to pay their respects Monday at the Am Shalom synagogue in Glencoe, Ill.
The blog, dubbed “Superman Sam,” was written by his mother, Rabbi Phyllis Sommer.
“Over his entire brief but meaningful life, Sammy has taught all of us about courage, struggle, strength, and wisdom,” read an announcement put out by Am Shalom.
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YU, Wiesenthal Center heads top list of highest-paid Jewish non-profit executives
(JNS.org) Yeshiva University President Richard Joel ($855,037) and Simon Wiesenthal Center Dean Rabbi Marvin Hier ($751,054) topped the Forward newspaper’s 2013 list of the highest-paid heads of American Jewish non-profits.
Rounding out the top five were Stephen Hoffman of the Jewish Community Federation of the Cleveland ($722,061), Frederick Lawrence of Brandeis University ($705,843), and Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League ($688,280).
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Ukraine’s Jews caught in the middle of escalating conflict
(JNS.org) Josef Zisels, the head of the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine, said in a speech Sunday at a Kiev rally that “men and women always desire one thing, independently of their race, ethnicity, or religion—they want happiness for their children.”
“Let each of us ask themselves the question: can we achieve this with the current government?” Zisels said.
Last week, an official statement signed by both prominent Ukrainians and Ukrainian Jews accused the Ukrainian special forces of engaging in “Nazi-like” activities among the peaceful demonstrators in Kiev on the night of Dec. 10.
“More than a dozen young individuals wearing helmets with swastikas and armed with armature rods were trying to break through to Maidan and stir up a fight with the police. Fortunately, the protesters prevented them just in time,” the statement said.
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Academic boycott of Israel endorsed by American Studies Association members
(JNS.org) The membership of the American Studies Association (ASA), the oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history, has voted to endorse the ASA’s participate in a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.
In a vote that attracted the largest number of participants in the 5,000-member organization’s history, more than 66 percent endorsed the resolution, while 31 percent were against it, according to an ASA announcement.
“This vote to boycott Israel, one of the most democratic and academically free nations on the globe, shows the Orwellian anti-Semitism and moral bankruptcy of the American Studies Association,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder.
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Alan Dershowitz, famed Harvard law professor and Israel supporter, to retire
(JNS.org) Alan Dershowitz, the famed law professor, vocal supporter of Israel, and civil liberties advocate, says that he is retiring from Harvard Law School.
“Yeah, I’m really retiring,” Dershowitz told the Boston Globe. “My retirement consists of reducing my schedule down to only about 10 things at any given time.”
A native of Brooklyn, Dershowitz, 75, first joined the Harvard law faculty in 1964 and quickly became the youngest full-time professor in the school’s history. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, Dershowitz is noted for his expert work in criminal and constitutional law, and made a household name for himself as a defense attorney for celebrities such as O.J. Simpson.
Dershowitz is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Case for Israel, and accused former U.S. president Jimmy Carter of anti-Israel bias for his controversial 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
Iraqi Catholic leader says ‘extremist political Islam’ is growing in Middle East
(JNS.org) Patriarch Louis Sako, head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, said “extremist political Islam is growing in the Middle East,” causing the death and destruction of the region’s Christian communities.
“We feel forgotten and isolated,” Sako said in a Dec. 14 speech in Rome, the National Catholic Register reported.
“We sometimes wonder, if they kill us all, what would be the reaction of Christians in the West? Would they do something then?” he said.
Sako called on moderate Muslims to embrace “a new reading of their religion” and to challenge the “sectarian and provocative” stances in Islam.
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ADL treatment of anti-Israel school texts criticized by Massachusetts Jewish paper
(JNS.org) The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was criticized by a Massachusetts Jewish newspaper for its treatment of anti-Israel teaching materials in the public high schools of Newton, a suburb of Boston.
After the activist group Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) ran advertisements in several newspapers calling out Newton school officials over the anti-Israel texts, ADL said its “careful review” of the situation showed that APT’s allegations were “without merit.” But ADL made conflicting statements on its review. New England Region Director Robert Trestan told The Jewish Advocate of Boston that no report of ADL’s investigation exists, while regional board chair Jeffrey Robbins said a report does exist, but wouldn’t be publicly shared because it “involves all kinds of proprietary research.”
In a Dec. 12 editorial, The Jewish Journal of the Massachusetts North Shore wrote that while the Newton schools affair should have been a “teachable moment,” ADL’s “unwillingness to publish investigative details and findings perpetuated the conflict and impeded progress.”
The Newton school system was forced to withdraw a textbook, The Arab World Studies Notebook, after parent complaints about the book’s assertion that the Israel Defense Forces murdered hundreds of Palestinian nurses in Israeli jails. Other study materials in Newton incorrectly identify Jerusalem as the capital of “Palestine” and intimated that Israelis intentionally killed American sailors during the 1967 Six-Day War.
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