Birthright names 500,000th participant, launches ‘Tel Aviv Urban Experience’
(JNS.org) The Taglit-Birthright Israel program, which takes Jews ages 18-26 on free 10-day trips to Israel, on Wednesday named its 500,000th participant.
During an event at Tel Aviv’s Wohl Amphitheater on Wednesday, Birthright’s founders, philanthropists Michael Steinhardt and Charles Bronfman, met the milestone trip participant, 24-year-old Molly Dodd of New Jersey. Dodd presented the founders with framed letters from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from 1998, in which he gave his blessing for Birthright to begin.
“I am thrilled to discover Israel for the first time through Taglit-Birthright Israel, and excited to continue exploring my Jewish roots,” Dodd said. “I am deeply moved to be the 500,000th participant of the most successful organization in the Jewish world. I feel honored to meet its founders and be able to show my gratitude and respect for the incredible impact they have had over the years.”
The event was part of Birthright’s first Tel Aviv Urban Experience—three days of programming dedicated to showcasing the modern city of Tel Aviv’s role in in shaping modern Israeli society, as well as the city’s global influence in the high-tech, fashion, culinary, and music fields.
The visitors toured Tel Aviv landmarks, enjoying a culinary lecture with renowned chef Gil Hovav, a dance lesson on the central Rothschild Boulevard, a concert by popular band Hadag Nachash at the Tel Aviv port, and a falafel tasting.
Birthright expects to bring 45,000 trip participants to visit Israel this year.
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Hamas: Palestinian Authority is trying to topple us in Gaza
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Senior officials at a Hamas press conference on Wednesday accused the Palestinian Authority (PA) of planning recent bombings in Gaza as part of a far-reaching effort to topple Hamas’s rule by destabilizing local security in the coastal enclave.
Hamas members specifically blamed attempts to undermine their terrorist regime on the PA’s intelligence chief and on PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s senior advisers.
They further claimed that PA officials were intentionally inciting Salafist factions and Islamic State terror group supporters in Gaza to revolt against Hamas and to fire rockets into Israel, breaking the cease-fire agreement put in place after Operation Protective Edge last summer.
Both the PA and Salafist leaders denied Hamas’s accusations.
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French Islamists who targeted Jews go on trial
(JNS.org) French authorities on Monday began a trial of more than a dozen radical Islamists who planned attacks on several Jewish stores.
The leader of the group, Mohamed Achamlane, reportedly possessed a list of Jewish stores that were marked as “targets.” These stores include five supermarkets in the Hyper Cacher chain, the same store in which four Jewish shoppers were killed in a siege and shooting just days after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine in Paris.
The suspects belong to the radical “Forsane Alizza” (“The Horsemen of Pride” in Arabic) group and are charged with “criminal conspiracy related to a terrorist enterprise.” Some of the members are also charged with illegal weapons possession.
Several of the suspects allegedly also planned to kidnap Jewish judge Albert Levy and considered targeting other Jewish figures, Reuters reported.
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Israel’s Rivlin to U.S. general: ‘I was born in Jerusalem, and I am Israeli’
(JNS.org) Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said that he was born Jerusalem and is Israeli, in reference to the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Jerusalem should not be recognized as part of Israel on American passports unless that decision is made by the president.
Rivlin made the remark in a meeting with Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey in Jerusalem.
“We are proud to have you as a friend. We salute and appreciate you, and your friendship will be well remembered. I am a seventh generation Jerusalemite, and even though I was born nine years before the State of Israel was established, I was born in Jerusalem, and I am Israeli,” Rivlin said.
In the meeting, Rivlin also addressed the Syrian civil war, which he said “is a very real threat to the citizens of Israel—Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike.”
Dempsey said he was in Israel “to gain a better understanding with our counterparts in the IDF, of the threats and security challenges, and of what we can do to address them.”
“While this is my sixth time here, my Israeli counterpart has been to America eight times. And at a staff level we are interacting constantly, and this kind of interaction is necessary for us to face the security challenges that face not only Israel but the United States. You have our deep commitment to continue to build on that relationship, but you don’t have to thank me, this is something we are honored to be part of,” Dempsey said.
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Report: Israel-linked computer virus used to hack hotels hosting Iran talks
(JNS.org) An Israeli-linked computer virus was purportedly found on computers at three luxury European hotels that have hosted negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.
According to the report in the Wall Street Journal, the Russia-based cyber-security firm Kaspersky Lab ZAO discovered the spyware virus after it had also been hacked itself. Kaspersky said that the spyware virus is an improved version of Duqu, a virus first identified in 2011 and believed to be linked to Israeli intelligence gathering.
While there remains many questions about how the virus can be used, researchers at Kaspersky said that it could have been used to “eavesdrop on conversations and steal electronic files by commandeering the hotel systems that connect to computers, phones, elevators and alarms, allowing them to turn them on and off at will to collect information,” the report said.
U.S. intelligence officials said that while the new virus “bore no overt links to Israel,” it borrowed heavily from the original Duqu virus and “could not have been created by anyone without access to the original Duqu source code.”
A Wall Street Journal report in March claimed that Israel was spying on closed-door nuclear talks between Iran and world powers and was using the information it gathered to build a case against the emerging deal with the Islamic Republic, including sharing information with U.S. lawmakers who are also critical of the negotiations with Iran.
On Thursday, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely told Army Radio, “All the international reports on Israeli involvement in the [hacking] matter are baseless. What is much more important is preventing a bad deal. Otherwise, we’ll ultimately find ourselves with an Iranian nuclear umbrella.”
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Byzantine-era church discovered during Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road construction
(JNS.org) Road workers doing construction on a highway leading from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem have unearthed a large Byzantine-era road station and church.
According to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), the archaeological find was discovered outside of the town of Abu Gosh and is thought to be approximately 1,500 years old. The uncovered church is about 52 feet long, with a side chapel measuring 21 feet long and 11.5 feet wide that has a mosaic floor.
“Fragments of red-colored plaster found in the rubble strewn throughout the building showed that the church walls had been decorated with frescoes,” the IAA said. “To the west of the church were rooms that were probably used as dwelling quarters and for storage. One of them contained a large quantity of pottery tiles.”
Numerous different items—including oil lamps, coins, special glass vessels, marble fragments, and mother-of-pearl shells—were also found at the site, indicating that it was a busy area for travelers.
The church and road station were built along a Roman-era road that also linked Jerusalem with the coastal plain. The church fell into disuse towards the end of the Byzantine era, but the road itself has continued to be used through modern times.
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