Rolling Stones Tel Aviv concert changed to start after Shavuot ends
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) In a victory for observant Jews, the start time of the Rolling Stones June 4 concert in Tel Aviv has been pushed back by half an hour to allow those observing the Shavuot holiday to arrive at the event comfortably after the holiday ends that evening.
The Rolling Stones will take the stage at Hayarkon Park at 9:15 p.m.—a decision reached once the municipality of Tel Aviv agreed to make an exception to the noise pollution bylaws and to allow the concert to continue past 11 p.m.
Gates to the park will open at 5:45 p.m., and the opening act, Israeli rock singer Rami Fortis, will take the stage two hours later, at 7:45 p.m.
As opposed to the Diaspora, where Shavuot is celebrated for two days and ends the night of June 5, the holiday is celebrated for only one day in Israel.
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Israeli police nab Palestinian wearing explosives in Samaria
(JNS.org) Israeli Border Police officers apprehended a Palestinian man wearing a suicide belt at the Tapuach Junction near Nablus on Friday morning, thwarting a potential terror attack, Israel Hayom reported. Israeli forces cordoned off the area fearing the presence of additional explosive devices. Sappers were dispatched to the scene to defuse the device.
The incident began at 10 a.m., when Border Police officers stationed at the roadblock at Tapuach Junction identified a man wearing an oversized coat approaching them. The coat aroused officers’ suspicion since it was a particularly hot day. In keeping with routine protocol, they asked the man to remove his coat from a distance.
The man, a Nablus resident in his 20s, refused at first, but ultimately confessed to carrying explosives. The suspect was subdued and taken to Shin Bet security agency facilities for interrogation. No one was hurt in the incident.
According to experts, the device was made up of 12 pipe bombs strung together. The sappers also confiscated a mobile phone suspected to have been programmed to trigger the explosives.
The commander of the Border Police’s Alon Battalion, which handled the incident, said that it was “not yet clear what the suspect intended to do, or whether he was in fact a suicide bomber.”
Following the incident, Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch spoke with the officers who apprehended the suspect and congratulated them. “You prevented a terror attack and saved lives,” he said. “I am proud of you and your excellent work.”
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Shimon Peres, Mahmoud Abbas to visit Vatican on June 8
(JNS.org) Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas will visit the Vatican on June 8.
The two leaders are scheduled to attend a prayer meeting hosted by Pope Francis that will also include a rabbi and Muslim cleric, the Vatican confirmed.
“I offer my home in the Vatican as a place for this encounter of prayer. In this, the birthplace of the Prince of Peace I wish to invite you, President Mahmoud Abbas, together with President Shimon Peres, to join me in heartfelt prayer to God for the gift of peace,” Pope Francis said during his recent Mideast trip.
While the chances of a breakthrough in the peace process seem slim—with Peres’s position being largely ceremonial and the fact that he leaves office in July, and Abbas mainly focused on forming a unity government with the terrorist group Hamas—Pope Francis hopes to create new atmosphere between the leaders.
“It will be a prayer meeting. It’s not to do mediation or find solutions,” Francis told reporters on his flight home from the Holy Land on Monday. “We’ll meet just to pray, and then everyone will go home. But I think praying is important, praying together.”
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B’nai B’rith refuses to meet with anti-Israel Archbishop Desmond Tutu in Canada
(JNS.org) Frank Dimant, the CEO of B’nai B’rith Canada, said he is refusing to meet South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu during his visit to Canada this week due to Tutu’s anti-Israel views.
Tutu, 82, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his work against apartheid in South Africa, has become involved in the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. As part of his visit to Canada, Tutu will speak at a conference opposing the Oil Sands project and Keystone XL pipeline in the Canadian province of Alberta, and will address Native American rights in the region.
“One need only look at the record of Archbishop Desmond Tutu to see that he is clearly not a friend of Israel, or the Jewish people,” Dimant said in a statement.
Dimant added, “The Archbishop has, on numerous occasions, referred to Israel as apartheid and called for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against the Jewish State. Furthermore, his assertion that Zionism ‘has very many parallels with racism’ should not be acceptable to any rational person.”
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Israel raids publishing house printing pro-terrorist papers
(JNS.org) Israel’s Civil Administration division of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Unit raided a Palestinian publishing house in Ramallah that has been publishing newspapers supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“Israeli authorities informed the newspaper that it would not allow the printing and distribution of newspapers that allegedly incite against Israel, referring to the three newspapers—Falastin,Al-Resala, and Al-Istiqlal,” said the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, according to Israel Hayom.
The headquarters of the Al-Ayyam newspaper began publishing the three newspapers earlier this month after the Palestinian unity deal between Hamas and Fatah was reached. After the raid, the publishing house agreed to stop printing the newspapers.
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Turkey condemns Brussels Jewish museum shooting
(JNS.org) The Turkish government issued a statement condemning the May 24 shooting at the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels.
Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News reported that the country’s foreign ministry expressed its condolences to the families of the victims and promised to support the continued investigation of the attack.
“We want to hope that the attack was not launched with racist motivations and does not have anti-Semitic characteristics,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
“Otherwise, our concerns in the face of the fatal picture that has emerged in the European parliamentary elections will further increase,” Hurriyet quoted the ministry as saying.
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