Israel’s first computerized sign language lexicon goes online
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israel’s first online sign language lexicon launches Wednesday. In the lexicon—which is the fruit of two years of work by the Institute for the Advancement of Deaf Persons in Israel (IADPI)—users enter a word in Hebrew, English, Arabic, or Russian, and immediately, a video clip opens in which a presenter demonstrates the word in Israeli Sign Language.
The lexicon currently contains 3,000 five-second clips and will continue to be expanded. The purpose of the project is to facilitate communication between the deaf and the hearing in the workplace, in customer service situations, during medical consultations, and in other everyday situations.
IADPI Executive Director Yael Kakun said, “This is an innovative service that will connect the citizens of Israel, Jewish and Arab, with a single language, and help those who hear begin a dialogue with deaf and hearing-impaired people.”
Kakun added, “The lexicon and its accessibility will allow every citizen of Israel to provide minimal aid in real time and learn work-related terms in the language spoken by people who do not hear.”
Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein was scheduled to become the first user of the service on Wednesday. All other Knesset members will be invited to use the online tool, and it is scheduled to be permanently available in the Knesset for the use of legislators and visitors.
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Israel recognizes Jewish woman sexually assaulted by Arabs as terror victim
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) In a precedent-setting decision, the Israeli Defense Ministry has recognized a young Jewish woman who was sexually assaulted by four Arab teenagers in 2006 as a terror victim, making her eligible for financial assistance and benefits afforded by the state to those injured in terrorist attacks.
The woman was 14 years old when she was attacked and sexually assaulted in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood of Jerusalem by four Arab teens, all minors at the time, who followed her on their bicycles, touching her and pulling on her shirt while she walked toward a bus stop. When she was alone, they blocked her path, beat her and shoved her to the ground, where they assaulted her. She managed to escape after the attack and helped police catch the assailants.
“I feel a sense of relief and that the country is embracing me by recognizing that what happened to me was a terrorist attack,” the woman said after the decision was made, adding that she was attacked only because she is an Israeli Jew.
Her attorney, Roni Aloni-Sedovnik, said, “The Defense Ministry’s decision is significant because it essentially recognizes and accepts the international law that is based on a United Nations Security Council resolution from 2009 that determined that sexual assault carried out by a member of one nationality against that of another during a conflict between both groups constitutes a war crime.”
The Defense Ministry explained that the country’s Compensation Law defines a terrorist attack as “a violent attack with the intent to cause harm to a person based on their national or ethnic origin, particularly as it relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict.” The law indicates that a victim will be recognized as eligible for state assistance if there is reason to believe they were hurt in a terrorist attack.
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IDF thwarts terrorist infiltration in Samaria
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Israeli troops deployed near the Samaria community of Yitzhar thwarted a terrorist attack early Wednesday morning, apprehending a 15-year-old Palestinian girl trying to infiltrate into the community. The girl was found to be in possession of two knives, and it is believed she was planning to carry out a stabbing attack.
The incident took place around 5 a.m., when IDF lookouts monitoring the area spotted suspicious movements about 300 yards north of Yitzhar. An IDF patrol scrambled to the area, and carried out a suspect arrest procedure, shooting at the suspect and mildly wounding one of her hands. She received initial treatment for her wounds on site, and was then taken to a nearby hospital.
Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council, said the incident was “a disconcerting turn of events. We haven’t seen infiltration attempts in a long time.”
On Tuesday, in the last of four terrorist attacks in one day, security forces shot dead two Palestinian terrorists after they stabbed an IDF soldier. The two attackers approached a pair of IDF paratroopers positioned at Beit Hashalom in Hebron at around 9:30 p.m., stabbing one of them. The second soldier shot and killed both terrorists, saving the other soldier and himself from more serious injuries or even death.
According to Palestinian reports, the attackers were Mansour and Khayad al-Jabari. Following the attack, clashes broke out in Hebron between dozens of Palestinians and Israeli security forces. In response, the Palestinians announced a general strike in Hebron on Wednesday as well as a “Day of Rage” dedicated to the two attackers who were killed.
Earlier Tuesday, two men, including one soldier, were lightly injured in a ramming attack in Gush Etzion, when a terrorist drove his car onto the sidewalk and hit them. The attacker got out of the car wielding a knife, and a nearby soldier from the Kfir Brigade shot and killed him. Shortly afterward, an Israeli Border Police officer was lightly wounded from a Molotov cocktail thrown during clashes at Rachel’s Tomb.
Following another attack on Tuesday in which 55-year-old Jewish man Avraham Hasano was killed by a passing truck after being pelted by rocks in the same area, the Palestinian man driving the truck turned himself in to Palestinian security forces, saying it was an accident, after having fled the scene that morning. His truck was left in Dahariya in the South Hebron Hills.
Hasano is survived by his wife, Ruti, their seven children and nine grandchildren.
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UNESCO head criticizes proposal declaring Western Wall a Muslim holy site
(JNS.org) UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova criticized the Arab-led proposal that would declare the Western Wall in Jerusalem a Muslim holy site.
“We all have responsibility to UNESCO’s mandate, to take decisions that promote dialogue, tolerance and peace,” Bokova said in a statement. “This is especially important for young people, who should be nurtured and educated for peace.”
Bokova also appealed to the UNESCO Executive Board to “take decisions that do not further inflame tensions on the ground and that encourage respect for the sanctity of the Holy Sites.”
The proposal, which is expected to voted on by Oct. 21, is “an attempt to redraw history and blur the connection between the Jewish people and its holiest place and to create a false reality,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said.
Israeli Ambassador to UNESCO Carmel Shama-Hacohen called the resolution “a total Islamization” the Jewish holy site.
The Western Wall includes the remains of a retaining wall erected by King Herod from the Second Temple that was destroyed by the Romans during the First Century CE. While the Temple Mount is the holiest place in Judaism, restrictions against Jewish prayer at the site have led to the nearby Western Wall becoming a focal point for Jewish prayer.
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New report finds Mideast Christians may disappear in less than a generation
(JNS.org) A report from the United Kingdom-based Catholic charity group Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has found that Middle East Christians, especially in Iraq and Syria, are “on course for extinction” within a generation or sooner.
The report—titled “Persecuted and Forgotten? A report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2013-2015”— finds that the time period from October 2013 to July 2015 has been “catastrophic for many Christians in the regions where persecution is worst,” such as in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
The report blames “religio-ethnic cleansing” that is being powered by the “well-publicized threat of genocide” as the main factor behind the persecution of Christians.
“Be it in Syria, Iraq, Nigeria or parts of east Africa, the growing threat of militant Muslim groups—notably Daesh (Islamic State)—has prompted hundreds of thousands to flee” and that is “the primary cause of the contraction of Christians—changing from being a global faith to a regional one, with the faithful increasingly absent from ever-widening areas,” said the report.
“Christianity is on course for extinction in many of its biblical heartlands within a generation, if not before,” the report concluded.
Joop Koopman, communications manager for ACN, told JNS.org that the despite the report’s grim findings, “there has yet to be a popular outcry among Christians in the U.S or in Western Europe.”
“Part of the reason seems to be is that Christian beliefs—when it comes to marriage, gay marriage and such—are seen as oppressive in the West, which neutralizes the outrage that should be evident at the treatment of Christians in the Middle East,” Koopman said.
Koopman went on to urge “top Christian leadership in the U.S. to marshal their grassroots constituencies and force genuine political action—in the form of more military action on behalf of Christians in Iraq and Syria, as well as a recognition that Christians are victims of persecution at home and therefore eligible for asylum in the U.S.”
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Stephen Harper, staunchly pro-Israel Canadian PM, defeated in election
(JNS.org) Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, known for his staunch support of Israel, was voted out of office in the country’s election on Monday. Harper’s replacement will be Justin Trudeau of the Liberal party, which won 185 seats—a sufficient number to form a majority government.
Harper and his Conservative party government have frequently been outspoken in their support for Israel. Canada signed a “memorandum of understanding” with Israeli authorities earlier this year that commits to fighting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
In a January 2014 speech at the Israeli Knesset, Harper said Canada would stand by Israel ‘‘through fire and water.”
“Canada supports Israel because it is right to do so. This is a very Canadian trait, to do something for no reason other than it is right even when no immediate reward for, or threat to, ourselves is evident,” Harper said at the time, adding, “Support today for the Jewish state of Israel is more than a moral imperative. It is also of strategic importance, also a matter of our own long-term interest.”
During Harper’s tenure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israelis believe the Jewish state has “no better friend than Canada.”
“Canadians have chosen a Liberal government, a result that we accept without hesitation. I spoke with Mr. Trudeau and gave my blessing to him and the blessing of all of us to his successful campaign,” Harper said in his concession speech.
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Former BBC chairman criticizes network’s Israel coverage
(JNS.org) The former chairman of the BBC, Lord Michael Ian Grade, criticized the British news network for its coverage of the recent wave of terror attacks in Israel in a letter to the corporation’s director of news and current affairs, James Harding.
In the letter, Grade specifically criticized journalist Orla Guerin, whose report from Israel did not include the “wider context” of the attacks and equated “Israeli victims of terrorism and Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli security forces in the act of carrying out terror attacks,” according to the British advocacy group Conservatives Friends of Israel, which was the first entity to report on the letter.
“An emotional interview is conducted with the father of a dead Palestinian youth who had been killed committing a fatal terror attack. However, the report failed to show the emotional distress caused to Israelis by any of these recent attacks. This is inexcusable,” Grade wrote in the letter.
“Additionally, it was improper of the correspondent to claim that ‘there’s no sign of involvement by militant groups,’ before immediately showing footage of Palestinian Islamic Jihad banners at the home of a 19-year-old terrorist who carried out a deadly knife attack at Lions’ Gate in Jerusalem on Oct. 3. PIJ is a well-known Palestinian terror organization and it has since claimed responsibility for the attack and been praised by Hamas, another internationally proscribed terror organization. This directly misleads viewers,” he added.
The fact that Guerin did not show Palestinian rock-throwers in her report limited viewers’ “awareness and understanding of what is an undoubtedly a complex issue.”
“Regrettably, this is not the first time the standard of reporting and impartiality has been unsatisfactory in recent weeks” at the BBC, Grade wrote.
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