72% of Israelis want public, not MKs, to elect president
(JNS.org) With Israel’s upcoming presidential election poised to have the highest-ever number of candidates, a survey conducted for Israel Hayom by the New Wave Research Institute found that 72 percent of Jewish Israelis favor holding a direct public vote for president over the current election system.
Just 20 percent of respondents said they would prefer to retain the current system, in which Members of Knesset elect the president. Asked whether Israel should abolish the office of the president—a mostly ceremonial role—63.8 percent said no and 26.5 percent said yes. Asked if they would like to see President Shimon Peres’s term in office extended, 53.6 percent said yes and 35.7 percent said no.
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Israeli universities thank U.S. counterparts for fighting academic boycott
(JNS.org) Israeli university presidents sent a letter Thursday to their colleagues in the United States, thanking them for fighting against the academic boycott against Israel.
Hillel Israel initiated the letter, which was sent to 150 leading universities and colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Columbia, and Duke.
“We are honored that you stand beside us in this unacceptable situation,” Hebrew University of Jerusalem President Professor Menachem Ben-Sasson wrote, according to Israel Hayom.
“We have been closely following our U.S. colleagues’ efforts to condemn the academic boycott,” Hillel Israel Director-General Alon Friedman said. “When we saw that these effort were bearing fruit, we saw fit to update the heads of universities in Israel.”
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Denmark bans kosher slaughter
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Decision by Denmark to ban kosher slaughter has stirred the ire of Jewish and Muslim organizations in that country and worldwide.
The Jewish population in Denmark stands at around 6,000, largely centered in Copenhagen. Finn Schwarz, the president of the Danish Jewish community, said the policy hurts minority groups who have little power to defend themselves.
Speaking to European Union officials, European Jewish Association Chairman Rabbi Menachem Margolin said the Danish government’s decision contravened EU laws protecting religious freedom to slaughter animals according to religious guidelines. Israeli Deputy Religious Services Minister Eli Ben-Dahan said, “Anti-Semitism is showing its real face throughout Europe and grows stronger among governing institutions.”
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Holocaust-mocking train announcement sparks police complaint in Belgium
(JNS.org) The Belgian rail company SNCB has filed a complaint with police over a January incident in which passengers aboard a Belgian train traveling between Namur and Brussels gained access to the public speakers on the train and announced that Jews should get off at Auschwitz and take a short shower.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are approaching Auschwitz. All Jews are requested to disembark and take a short shower,” the announcement reportedly stated, according to the British newspaper The Independent. Viviane Teitlebaum, a Belgian lawmaker, told Belgian broadcaster RTL that she believes the men took a set of keys from the conductor to access the PA system.
More than 1.1 million people were systematically killed at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, and more than 90 percent of them were Jewish.
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Jewish comedian Sid Caesar dies at 91
(JNS.org) Famed Jewish comedian Sid Caesar has died at the age of 91. Caesar, who was born Isaac Sidney Caesar in 1922 to parents from Russia and Poland, began his entertainment career as a saxophone player. Later he made a name for himself with his humor on iconic 1950s shows such as Your Show of Shows and Caesar’s Hour.” He also appeared in films such as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Airport 1975 (1974), and Grease (1978).
“Sid Caesar was a giant. If it weren’t for Sid Caesar there might not be television as we know it. He and his co-stars and writers revolutionized television comedy, and really comedy in general,” said biographer Eddy Friedfeld, a close friend of Caesar, according to CNN.
One of Caesar’s most iconic performances was a skit called the “The Hickenloopers,” in which he played a gibberish-singing opera singer. “If you want to find the urtexts of The Producers and Blazing Saddles, of Sleeper and Annie Hall, of All in the Family and M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live… check out the old kinescopes of Sid Caesar,” Former New York Times chief theater critic Frank Rich wrote in 1993.
Caesar was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1985. He is survived by a son, two daughters, and two grandsons. His wife Florence died in 2010.
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Vatican archbishop to Congress: ‘Flagrant’ persecution of Mideast Christians
(JNS.org) The Vatican’s top envoy to the United Nations said in a rare appearance at a U.S. congressional hearing that there is “flagrant and widespread persecution of Christians” in the Middle East.
“Flagrant and widespread persecution of Christians rages in the Middle East even as we meet,” Archbishop Francis A. Chillikatt said, Vatican Radio reported.
Chullikatt testified in front of the House subcommittee on global rights humans chaired by U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) as part of a hearing on persecution of Christians throughout the world.
“No Christian is exempt, whether or not he or she is Arab. Arab Christians, a small but significant community, find themselves the target of constant harassment for no reason other than their religious faith,” Chillikatt said.
Chullikatt served as the Vatican’s envoy to Iraq and Jordan in Baghdad from 2006 to 2010, a time that represented the height of violence and persecution of Christians there during the Iraq War.
The archbishop also described the emerging “tradition” of terrorists targeting Christian churches on holidays such as Christmas Eve. He lamented that these Christians, who are indigenous to the Middle East, are being driven out.
“This tragedy is all the more egregious when one pauses to consider that these men and women of faith are loyal sons and daughters of the countries in which they are full citizens and in which they have been living at peace with their neighbors and fellow citizens for untold generations,” he said.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org