Israel News Today

Approval is in response to British request to see the prisoners after reports that Israel is abusing the leaders of the October 7 massacre, amid a threat to withhold military aid; it was opposed by government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from ynet - News https://ift.tt/5PUGrdi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — As “Gaza solidarity encampments” sprouted up this week on campuses across the nation, and colleges called in police forces to arrest hundreds of students for trespassing and other violations, Brown University took a different tack. When Brown student protesters set up tents on the campus’ main green Wednesday morning, the Rhode Island university said there would not be arrests or suspensions. And, unlike Columbia and Harvard, which closed their campuses to anyone without a student or faculty ID, Brown’s main green remained open to the public on Thursday afternoon. “Encamping on the University’s historic and residential greens is a violation of University policy — and therefore the appropriate conduct steps will be taken,” wrote Brown’s president, Christina Paxson in an email sent to the university community on Wednesday, referring to internal university disciplinary proceedings. But she clarified that breaking this university rule would not prompt a call to police...

Political-Security Cabinet met on Thursday to deliberate new outlines to break the deadlock in negotiations, and amid the revelation of new Egyptian proposal a delegation from Cairo to arrive in Israel; This is the proposal's outline from ynet - News https://ift.tt/vqrG0lg

( JTA ) – A former athletic director of a Baltimore-area high school was arrested Thursday morning and charged with using artificial intelligence to fake antisemitic and racist comments supposedly made by the school’s principal. The case was part of a growing body of AI-generated impersonation incidents, which experts say is a newfound worry in a growing, barely regulated field of technology. This was an unusual instance of faking antisemitic comments in order to damage a public figure’s reputation. Baltimore County police charged Dazhon Darien, formerly of Pikesville High School, with disrupting school activities. Authorities said he had used the school’s network to access OpenAI software allowing him to fake a recording attributed to principal Eric Eiswert, according to the Baltimore Banner , a local nonprofit newsroom.  In the recording, a voice sounding like Eiswert says, “If I have to get one more complaint from one more Jew in this community, I’m going to join the other s...

Seventeen years after Ali-Reza Asgari vanished in Turkey, opposition channel Iran International reports he's now living in US under CIA witness protection program from ynet - News https://ift.tt/t4LYpEX

Hersh Goldberg Polin, an Israeli-American held hostage by Hamas, in a video released on April 24. Courtesy of Screenshot Hamas released a propaganda video Wednesday suggesting American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin is still alive. Goldberg-Polin is the 23-year-old Israeli-American who lost his hand when a grenade exploded in the bomb shelter where he and fellow attendees of the Nova music festival tried hiding during the Hamas-led attack on the rave near Gaza on Oct. 7. He was kidnapped and taken hostage with his hand severely injured. The three-minute video , released – and clearly scripted – by the terrorist group to coincide with Passover, shows a pale and at times distraught-looking Goldberg-Polin identifying himself, lifting up his left arm where his hand seems to have been surgically amputated, and saying he has been living in underground tunnels “without water, food or sun” and without “the treatment I need for so long.” Related ‘Everybody needs to be uncomforta...

In the past week, the protests roiling American college campuses since Oct. 7 have intensified, with students establishing encampments in the center of campuses — beginning with Columbia University — and college presidents, in several cases, calling in the police to arrest students. I spoke with Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel, the largest Jewish campus organization in the world, which maintains a presence at more than 700 American universities, about his thoughts during this fraught moment. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. What’s your take on the rise of anti-Israel activity on campuses in the past week, and universities’ tougher responses to those protests —  including calling in the police to arrest students at Columbia and Yale, among other campuses? Adam Lehman, CEO of Hillel Courtesy of Hillel These out-of-control encampments are hugely problematic. They are preventing students from taking advantage of the campus activities they’re supposed to be...

Sergeant first class ‏Salm Alkreshat fell during an operation with the Netzah Yehuda Brigade, leaving behind 12 children and a wife from ynet - News https://ift.tt/bYMVXPc

Acclaimed artist Frank Stella grew up in an Italian Catholic immigrant family in Malden, Massachusetts. But a number of his works have Jewish themes — including his colorful illustrations of “Had Gadya,” the beloved Passover song about a little goat.  An exhibition of Stella’s “Had Gadya” series just opened at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Stella’s work is featured alongside art from the Yiddish picture book that inspired him, illustrated by the Russian avant-garde artist El Lissitzky.  Stella made his own images after seeing Lissitzky’s 11 “Had Gadya” lithographs at the Tel Aviv Museum in 1981. Lissitzky’s pictures, published as a book in 1919, are highly stylized, incorporating elements of Russian folk art as well as cubism, futurism and constructivism. Yet Lissitzky’s images are still recognizable depictions of the goat, cat, dog and other characters from the “Had Gadya” story.  Stella’s versions, in contrast, make no pretense of incorporating litera...

In 2006, Rebecca Erbelding, an archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, was paging through a newly submitted photo album from an anonymous donor. The album contained images from Auschwitz, but they were not what she expected. “I was looking for things that I recognized,” said Erbelding, now the historian for the secondary education team at the museum. “I was looking for trains and prisoners and didn’t see any of that.” Instead she saw officers picnicking, hunting and celebrating Christmas. The third time she sorted through the dusty pile of pages — many with water damage — she recognized a figure in an SS uniform, laughing, his hand tucked into his jacket. It was Josef Mengele. The image was the first photographic evidence placing the doctor at the camp where he committed his horrific experiments on prisoners. Erbelding showed the pages to Judy Cohen, the director of the museum’s photographic collection. By the end of the day they had identified six or seven members...

PEN America, a free-speech advocacy watchdog that advocates for literary expression and human rights, has canceled its annual Literary Award ceremony in the aftermath of a months-long campaign objecting to the organization’s response to the war in Gaza. Last week , in the most recent and prominent protest, over two dozen authors and all but one author longlisted for the awards’ top honor, the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, withdrew from consideration for the prize.  “We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” Rosaz Shariyf, PEN America’s literary programming chief officer wrote in a Monday statement. “We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories.”  The statement reaffirmed that PEN is committed to freedom of expression and said the ...

Columbia University continued to convulse on Monday as classes were moved online after several days of upheaval over the Israel-Hamas war. Robert Kraft, a billionaire Jewish philanthropist and alumnus of Columbia, said he “no longer” recognized the school, and that he would stop supporting it “ until corrective action is taken .” The Jewish student center on campus is named after Kraft. Tensions were high near the Columbia’s gates at Broadway and 116th Street where around 100 pro-Palestinian activists gathered. Two yelled “Free Palestine” as they were handcuffed. Many more congregated on the campus inside the gate, which was locked to outsiders.  “The recent harassment and rhetoric is vile and abhorrent,” said New York Gov. Kathy Hochul who visited the school Monday morning. Four Democratic representatives, all of whom are Jewish, held a press conference outside the school Monday afternoon to voice their support. There are roughly 5,000 Jewish students at Columbia, comprising r...

( JTA ) — A Holocaust romance, sparked when a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau is forced to tattoo a number on another prisoner’s arm and they fall in love at first sight, sounds almost implausibly uplifting for a story set in a concentration camp. But “The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” a new television series , is based on two Slovakian Jewish prisoners — Lali Sokolov and Gita Furman — who really did meet at Auschwitz, survive, marry and move to Australia together after the war. The six-part drama premiering May 2 on Peacock and Sky draws from a 2018 novel of the same name by Heather Morris, who interviewed Sokolov over three years before his death in 2006. “It’s what drew me in, when I read the book a few years ago — that something like this could happen was so surprising,” Jonah Hauer-King , who plays young Lali at Auschwitz, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “Any kind of love at first sight is surprising, let alone in a context like this.” Alongside Hauer-King, known for his role as ...

( JTA ) — Israeli officials are decrying reports that the United States plans to sanction an Israeli military unit for human rights abuses, a step the State Department has never before taken.  The report of sanctions comes amid escalating violence in the West Bank. Last week, an Israeli teenager was murdered in what authorities said was a terror attack, and deadly riots by settlers followed. In recent days, an Israeli military raid resulted in the deaths of 14 Palestinians and injuries to 10 Israeli soldiers.  On Sunday, the news site Axios reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to announce sanctions on the Netzach Yehuda battalion, which was formed to integrate haredi Orthodox soldiers into the military . Soldiers in the unit have been arrested and jailed for a litany of abuses against Palestinians over the years, including torture and assault . The unit has faced condemnation within Israel. In 2022, due to its record of abuses, Israel’s then-Diasp...

According to the Wall Street Journal, President Biden and the entire US defense apparatus was on pins and needles to see how Iran's attack on Israel would play out, and whether it would lead to a regional war just six months before the elections from ynet - News https://ift.tt/Ku4i3P8

Jewish students concerned about their safety amid a new wave of anti-war protests at Columbia University, received mixed messages on Sunday about staying on campus during the holiday of Passover. Rabbi Elie Buechler, who leads the Orthodox Union’s Jewish Learning Initiative on Campus at Columbia and Barnard, advised over 290 students in a WhatsApp message to return home until it is safe for them to be on campus again. “It is not our job as Jews to ensure our own safety on campus,” Buechler wrote. “No one should have to endure this level of hatred, let alone at school.” However, the local chapter of Hillel International recommended that students stay put. Brian Cohen, the executive director of Hillel at Columbia and Barnard, said in a Facebook message that the university and the city of New York are responsible for ensuring the safety of all students. The organization designated the Kraft Center for Jewish Student Life, where Hillel is housed, for students looking for a quiet pl...

Humanitarian flotilla set to sail for Gaza from Turkey this week, and Israel is negotiating with Turkey to reroute the aid through Egypt to prevent repeat of deadly 2010 flotilla raid from ynet - News https://ift.tt/3uIOiHe

Axios reports U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says sanctions against Netzah Yehuda Battalion expected 'very soon'; Israeli officials criticize Biden administration from ynet - News https://ift.tt/rjOC8g6

The women behind the IDF's new weapon in Gaza say it combines mortar shelling with guided missile capabilities and draws international eyes following its initial success from ynet - News https://ift.tt/P7gkHwI

איבערגעזעצט פֿון העברעיִש פֿון אלי שאַרפֿשטיין וועגן פֿיר בנים דערציילט אונדז די תּורה. איך פֿאַרבעט אײַך זיך צו באַקענען מיט די פֿיר בנים, וואָס לעבן אין מיר. פֿיר בנים. אַמאָל העלפֿן זיי מיר אויפֿשטײַגן, און אַמאָל האַלטן זיי אָפּ מײַן פֿאָרויסגיין. נאָר אַלע פֿיר ווילן פֿאַר מיר דאָס בעסטע, און טוען אַלץ מיך צו פֿאַרהיטן. אַלע מאָל, ווען איך וויל אָנהייבן עפּעס א נײַע זאַך, אַ נײַעם פּראָיעקט, מאַכט דער רשע אַ געוואַלד: „טו ניט, דו ביסט נישט קיין מומחה, ס’איז נישט ווערט דײַן אַרבעט, אַ שאָד דײַנע כּוחות, דו ביסט שוין נישט אַזוי יונג.“ דער, וואָס ווייסט נישט וואָס צו פֿרעגן, ער רעדט מיט אויסרוף צײַכנס. זײַן לשון־אוצר איז פֿול מיט ווערטער ווי: „זיכער! אַוודאי! נישטאָ קיין ספֿק! מיר איז אַלץ קלאָר!“ ער מיינט, אַז ער מאַכט מיך שטאָלצער ווען ער וויל פֿאַרשטאַרקן מײַן „איך“, מײַן עגאָ. ער קריטיקירט, מישפּט און האָט קיין מאָל נישט קיין טעות. דעם תּם האָב איז זיך אויסגעלערנט ליב צו האָבן נאָר דאַן, ווען איך האָב אַוועקגעשיקט די ערשטע צוויי זיך אָפּרוען אַ ביסל. דער תּם האָט נישט מו...