Jewy News

Israeli elections are coming up in early February, and according tothe International Herald Tribune, the Likud party is expected to make some stunning gains:

A poll published in the Haaretz daily on Thursday showed Likud garnering 34 seats in the 120-seat parliament, up from its current 12, followed by Kadima with 28. Kadima, the ruling party, currently has 29 seats…

A poll in the Yediot Ahronot daily had similar results…

Thursday’s polls also showed increased power for other hawkish parties, which would allow Netanyahu to easily form a right-wing coalition government. 

Within the past few weeks the 1st, 3rd, and 5th largest kosher meatpackers in the US have shut down, leading to shortages and higher prices for kosher beef all across the nation.

The remaining players in the kosher meat business are turning away customers even while they’re raising prices.

Which is why it’s puzzling that Sara Lee has decided to exit the kosher meat business, as the Chicago Tribune reports:

As part of its exit from the kosher meat business, Sara Lee said it will also discontinue distribution of products made under all its kosher meat brands, including Best’s Kosher, Sinai Kosher, Shofar and Wilno nameplates.

[T]the company said its long-term plan focuses on categories where it has a competitive advantage.

Isn’t having product to sell (when competitors have none) a competitive advantage?

Headline in Haaretz:

Vandals hang severed pig’s head outside entrance to Jewish cemetery in Germany

What can we say?  Old habits are hard to break.

Arab columnist Abd Al-Nasser Al-Najjar, writing for the the “Palestinian” daily Al-Ayyam (translation courtesy of MEMRI):

Christians are being persecuted not only in Iraq, but in most Arab countries, regardless of their numbers there. They are subjected to every possible kind of discrimination, as well as expulsion. The problem is that it is not only Arab officials who are remaining silent [in the face of these crimes] but, alarmingly, so are Arab intellectuals, the elites, non-government organizations, and leaders of the private sector…

“Furthermore, there has been an attempt to marginalize Christian culture in Palestine, even though it is rich and deeply rooted [there]. This began with [accusations] of unbelief [against Christians] – a move that ultimately harmed Palestinian society as a whole…

“Despite all the injustices [against the Christians], no one has seen or heard of any constructive action to curb it and to [defend] the Christians’ rights – whether by the elites, by any of the three branches (executive, legislative, and judiciary), by non-government organizations, or even by the political factions themselves. [Such action should have been forthcoming] not out of kindness and compassion, but [due to] regarding Palestinian Christians as indigenous to this land, and [therefore] no different from us, with the same rights and obligations [as Muslims]…

We continue to instill a horrific culture in our children, one that sees Christians as infidels… and as ‘the other.’ We need an injection of humanistic and national awakening; we must raise an outcry and stand up to restore the Christians’ rights

As the Snapshots blog put it, “If Arab Muslims can speak honestly these issues, then why can’t Christians in the West speak in the same forthright manner about these issues?”

From Newsday’s review of ‘NOVA: The Bible’s Buried Secrets,’ to be shown tonight on PBS:

This broadcast is pretty much a complete disavowal of biblical “minimalists,” so-called because they dismiss the Bible’s historical basis. Instead, this broadcast revels in the discoveries of major archaeologists specializing in Israel and the Near East; as presented here, their findings appear to resolve differences between the accounts of the Bible’s various authors, while establishing dates and provenance for some of the great events in human history.

Writing for the Jewish Journal (Los Angeles), Dean Rotbart offers an apology:

This is my public apology to John McCain, Sarah Palin, Republican voters, Christian evangelicals, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Mike Gallagher and everyone else in the non-Jewish universe who stands four-square behind the State of Israel. 

While you have written, spoken and, yes, even prayed in strong opposition to any retrofitting of American policy on behalf of the Jewish state, nearly eight out of every 10 American Jews failed to demonstrate similar resolve on Election Day… 

Who would have ever imagined that it would fall to our non-Jewish neighbors to take up the cause of Israel’s survival and the necessity to be ever vigilant against the gathering clouds of Holocaust II?

From SindhToday.net:

Aizawl, Nov 17 (IANS) About 200 Indians are set to emigrate to Israel in January after they were officially recognised as Jews, community leaders here said Monday.

Rabbinical leaders in Jerusalem said the Israeli government approved the request for emigration by 200 people from the states of Mizoram and Manipur in northeastern India.

‘The new batch would arrive in January by a special flight and would be received by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the Ben-Gurion Airport in Jerusalem,’ a communiqué from the Israeli prime minister’s office received by newly converted Jews here said…

Rabbinical leaders announced in 2006 that some 6,000 members of the Bnei Menashe tribe in India’s northeast were descendants of ancient Israelites or one of the Biblical 10 lost tribes.

The Life Sciences Magazine The Scientist has just published their 2008 rankings of the Best Places to Work in Academia. And Israeli institutions grabbed both of the top two spots, according to Ynetnews:

The Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem topped the list compiled by The Scientist magazine as the best places to work for academics outside the United States.

Surveying 2,300 academics at 73 institutions around the world, the bimonthly publication awarded points based on over 40 criteria fields, including pay, the state of the campus facilities, resources at the disposal of researchers.

From FOXNews.com:

NEW YORK —  Tumbling oil prices will force a weakened Iran to consider abandoning its nuclear ambitions, Israeli President Shimon Peres said in an interview with FOX News senior correspondent Eric Shawn.

“The minute a barrel of oil goes down to its real cost, the Iranians will have to make a choice either to provide bread and butter for their children or to provide enriched uranium for the prestige of their leaders,” Peres told FOX News in a wide-ranging interview Wednesday.

“Until now they had enough money to do the two things; no more.”

 

Thanks to a recent story in the San Francisco Chronicle, we’ve had the pleasure of learning about a very funny Israeli TV show called Arab Labor. Created by Arab-Israeli journalist Sayed Kashua (whom we’ve mentioned before), the show “takes a humorous look at a Kashua-like journalist and his Palestinian family as they navigate modern life in Israel.”

Now the show is coming to American TV. LinkTV has posted a preview, which unfortunately doesn’t begin to capture the humor in this show.

We’re including the preview here, but suggest you scroll down for a sneek-peak at the first episode:

Here’s what the Chronicle says about it:

Now American audiences can see what Israelis have been talking about for the past year – a series where Amjad (the Kashua figure) and his family are comfortably middle class, interact with Israeli Jews (Amjad’s closest colleague is Jewish), and have to confront stereotypes (from both Israelis and Palestinians) that plunge Amjad from one identity crisis to another. In an opening scene, for example, the family is stopped at an Israeli checkpoint, where Amjad wonders if his underarm deodorant helped prompt the pull-over. “Do we smell of fear?” he asks his wife and young daughter as he sniffs his shirt. “Do we look different? All the money I spend on fashionable clothes!”