USA

Will a reelected Trump turn on Israel?

Only the naïve among us have ever believed that Donald Trump was personally committed to Israel and that his much heralded “deal of the century” would bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Skeptics saw through the charade and understood that his alleged commitment to Israel was primarily to get American evangelicals to vote for him. One was always left with the feeling that he didn’t care for Jews or the Jewish state. (To read more, please click on headline.)

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Middle East, USA

Cedars-Sinai hosts bat mitzvah for intensive care patient

Twelve year-old Numa Beron, a longtime Cedars-Sinai patient who has spent much of her life in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, recently celebrated her Bat Mitzvah, a coming of age party for Jewish girls, in the medical center chapel. Beron was born with lissencephaly, a degenerative brain malformation leaving her unable to stand or speak. (To read more, please click on the headline.)

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Jewish Religion, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Student complaint alleges anti-Semitism at UCLA

University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) student Shayna Lavi and the StandWithUs Saidoff Legal Department submitted a complaint against UCLA to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) on October 7. The complaint alleges that the university is in violation of its obligations under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, due to the administration’s inaction in response to antisemitism experienced by UCLA Jewish students. (To read more, please click on headline.)

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Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

The swastika in a U.S. military cemetery

Paul Eilert died of cancer in a Utah hospital in 1944. Eilert was a German POW. He is buried in a section reserved for POWs in Ft. Douglas, Utah. There are 20 other German WWII interments in the Utah U.S. military cemetery.  His is the only one with the Knights Cross and Oak Leaves, a very, very high military decoration for his actions against the enemy, clearly carved with a swastika into his tombstone.  Of the 800 German POW deaths in the U.S., from the lowest rank to generals, his unusual stone is the only one with the Knights Cross on his tombstone.  Research, so far, has found his name, nowhere.  Paul Eilert, the Swastika in the U.S. Military Cemetery, is a mystery. (To read more, please click on the headline)

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International, Jerry Klinger, USA

Impeachment unlikely to affect Democratic control of the House

Pundits are questioning if the impeachment inquiry conducted by the House of Representatives will cost Democrats their majority in the House. What they overlook is the prospect that some Republicans may lose their jobs – like Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick who represents Bucks County and a sliver of Montgomery County in southeastern Pennsylvania. (To read more, please click on the headline)

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Bruce Ticker, USA

Tuskegee Civil Rights Trail is dedicated

Friday, September 20, 2019, in the Tuskegee City Municipal Center, the 13-marker Tuskegee Civil Rights and Historic Trail was dedicated.  The Trail was the ten-year dream of Tuskegee University History professor and Archivist Dana Chandler.  The Trail will be included in the U.S. Park Service’s Civil Rights trails. The Trail came to be because of a biracial, multi-religious partnership in Tuskegee, Alabama.

It had been a long-frustrated dream because Dr. Chandler was unable to find funding to create the system.  Grant monies did not come through. State and local funding did not happen. Private funding seemed impossible, until, with indomitable persistence he spoke with the President of the Jewish American Society for Historic Preservation, Jerry Klinger, about his idea. (To read more, please click on headline.)

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Jerry Klinger, Jewish History, USA

StandWithUs launches petition against NSJP anti- Semitism

  LOS ANGELES — StandWithUs has launched a campaign calling out National Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP) for spreading antisemitism, supporting violence, and violating free speech. This builds on a similar effort in 2018. The campaign features a petition against the National SJP Conference at University of Minnesota (UMN) being held November 1-3, social

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Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Global Jewish population estimated at 14.8 million

As we prepare to welcome the Jewish year 5780, the number of Jews worldwide stands at 14.8 million, compared to 14.7 million in 5779. Of these, 8.1 million live outside Israel (including 5.7 million in the United States). In Israel, the number of Jews is 6.7 million (compared to 6.6 million in 5779). The updated estimates were published by Professor Sergio Della Pergola of Hebrew University in the American Jewish Year Book 2019. (To read more please click headline.)

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International, Judaism, Middle East, USA

Some results, but not enough, from U.N. Climate Action Summit

I could not possibly applaud enough the young men and women who flooded the streets in hundreds of cities around the world demanding from their government to take immediate and long-term action to combat climate change. By the same token, I could not condemn and denounce more vehemently Mr. Trump and many of his ilk, like Bolsonaro of Brazil, for their criminal disregard of the catastrophic peril that climate change represents. By denying the threat that climate change poses and its devastating harm to countless living creatures, they are systematically undermining any chance we still have of avoiding a terrible catastrophe, including a mass extinction of species the likes of which the modern world has never seen. (To read more, please click on headline)

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Alon Ben-Meir, International, Science, Medicine, & Education, The World We Share, USA

Susan Davis votes for Trump impeachment inquiry

As a bandwagon grew in Congress, Rep. Susan Davis on Tuesday joined fellow Democrats in the San Diego County delegation calling for an impeachment investigation of President Trump. Davis announced her support as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formally launched an impeachment inquiry in the wake of accusations that Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless that country investigated the son of former Vice President Joseph Biden, a candidate for the Democratic nomination. (Please click on headline to read more)

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Ken Stone, San Diego County, USA

Terrorist murderer of U.S. Navy sailor eludes extradition

Mohammad Ali Hammadi has been arrested by Greek police. It was only a short story in the Daily Mail of Britain — and barely in the American papers at all, except, naturally, Navy Times.

Think back.

U.S. Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem was aboard TWA Flight 847 on June 14, 1985, scheduled to fly from Cairo to San Diego with intermediate stops. It never made it. The plane was hijacked after a stop in Athens by Shi’ite Hezbollah terrorists who first looked for passengers with Israeli passports. Finding none, they brutally murdered Stethem on a stop in Beirut and threw his body out on the tarmac. (Please click headline to read more)

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International, Middle East, Shoshana Bryen, USA