LLX News

By: Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

“The choice of Eilat will continue to strengthen its position as a leading international tourist city,” said the city’s mayor, Eli Lankri.

The 70th “Miss Universe” competition is slated to take place in the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat on Dec. 12, the first time the Jewish state has hosted the contest.

“The choice of Eilat will continue to strengthen its position as a leading international tourist city,” said Eilat Mayor Eli Lankri in an Israeli government press release.

Officials from the U.S.-based Miss Universe Organization visited Lankri in October, part of a series of planned meetings ahead of the event. They also supervised infrastructure and construction work related to the complex where the competition will be held.

The state-of-the-art venue measures 54-feet high and can hold more than 70 tons of equipment. The building is designed to accommodate TV filming and includes a stage of about 5,000 seats, including an imported arena from Portugal.

https://www.jns.org/israel-to-host-miss-universe-competition-for-first-time/

By: Emily Jones – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – The United States issued its harshest rebuke yet of Israel’s expansion of settlement communities in the contested West Bank – biblical Judea and Samaria. 

On Wednesday, Israel plans to advance the construction of 2,862 new Jewish homes in the West Bank, and recently published tenders for another 1,355 units to be built across seven different communities. 

“We strongly oppose the expansion of settlements, which is completely inconsistent with efforts to lower tensions and to ensure calm, and it damages the prospects for a two-state solution,” State Department Spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Tuesday.

“We also view plans for the retroactive legalization of illegal outposts as unacceptable. We continue to raise our views on this issue directly with senior Israeli officials in our private discussions,” he added.

When the matter was raised with Price last week, he issued a general statement urging Israel and the Palestinians to “refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tension and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution” to the conflict. 

Tuesday’s comments are Washington’s most severe critique of Israeli settlement communities since President Joe Biden took office in January. The UN, EU, Palestinians, and members of Israel’s government have also condemned the construction.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/october/us-strongly-condemns-expansion-of-israels-settlement-communities

By: Jonathan S. Tobin – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

A “New York Times” article raised questions about whether the actress was “neutral” enough to lead the TV institution. But the focus on her support for Israel raises more questions about the newspaper than Bialik.

It may turn out that a lot of Americans are devoting more thought to the question of who will ultimately succeed the late Alex Trebek as the host of “Jeopardy!” than they do about far weightier issues. When Trebek, who had been the face of the venerable quiz show for 36 years, died last year at the age of 80 it set off a much-ballyhooed search for a successor. The competition was intense and ultimately involved a broad range of celebrities who aspired to the job.

But now, after a series of twists and turns that was the stuff of soap operas, a tentative, if not permanent choice has been made—in the person of actress Mayim Bialik—some people seem to be asking whether it’s kosher for “Jeopardy!” to be led by someone so open about both her Jewish faith and her support for the Jewish state.

America in 2021 is a place where anti-Semitism is quite real. But it’s also a country where Jews have been accepted in just about every sector of culture, industry and government. Indeed, it may be that the only job titles that can be said to be off-limits to Jews are those like, say, Catholic Archbishop of New York, which are reserved for believers of a different faith.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/is-mayim-bialik-too-jewish-for-jeopardy/

By: AFP – The Times of Israel; timesofisrael.com

On TikTok, three hashtags linked to antisemitism were viewed more than 25 million times in six months, and on Instagram, there are ‘millions’ of antisemitic hashtags, survey finds

LONDON, United Kingdom — Antisemitism is being repackaged and disseminated to a younger generation of social media users through platforms like Instagram and TikTok, according to an analysis published on Wednesday.

Antisemitic tropes are “rife across every social media platform,” but companies are failing to act, UK group Hope Not Hate, Germany’s Amadeu Antonio Foundation and the Expo Foundation in Sweden said.

Hate speech remains more prolific and extreme on sites such as Parler and 4chan, but is being introduced to young users on mainstream platforms, the groups said in a joint report.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/antisemitism-is-reaching-younger-audiences-via-social-media-says-new-study/

By: Richard Goldberg and David May – Newsweek; newsweek.com

mployees at Google and Amazon launched a petition drive this week to persuade both companies to end their contracts with the world’s only Jewish state. Google and Amazon can send a powerful message in response by rejecting this anti-Semitic pressure campaign and incorporating the international working definition of anti-Semitism into its employee code of conduct instead.

This year’s explosion of anti-Semitism on corporate listservs and within diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) departments has sent a clear message to Jewish employees of America’s Big Tech firms: Safe spaces exist for everyone except Jews, and hate is condemned against all groups unless the hate is directed at Jewish supporters of the world’s only Jewish state. Hostility toward Jews and Israel isn’t restricted to activists chatting at the water cooler; it is institutionalized by key DEI officials.

In June, Google reassigned a high-ranking member of its diversity team following revelations he published a 2007 blog post entitled “If I Were a Jew,” in which he accused Jews of having an “insatiable appetite for vengeful violence.” A month later, Google stood by another DEI official who accused Israel of “settler-colonial apartheid” and referred a Jewish employee to books on the “boycott, divestment and sanctions” (BDS) campaign when a complaint was registered.

https://www.newsweek.com/does-big-tech-have-anti-semitism-problem-opinion-1638776

By: Emily Jones – CBN News; cbn.com

JERUSALEM, Israel – Jewish immigration to Israel has already increased by 31% this year, according to new figures from the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration and The Jewish Agency.

So far, more than 20,300 Jews have immigrated or “made Aliyah” in 2021 – a significant increase from just 15,598 this time last year.

The pandemic has done little to stem the flow of new immigrants who are arriving in Israel every day. It’s done the opposite. Israel says it has seen a dramatic increase in immigration during the pandemic despite limitations on international travel.

https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/israel/2021/october/jewish-immigration-to-israel-jumps-31-this-year-despite-pandemic

By: TOI Staff and Agencies – The Times of Israel; timesofisrael.com

Professor awarded prize for his work on unintended experiments; taught at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and at Harvard before his current position at MIT

Israeli-American Joshua Angrist, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is one of three winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics for their work on drawing conclusions from unintended experiments, or so-called “natural experiments,” it was announced Monday.

David Card of the University of California at Berkeley was awarded one half of the prize, while the other half was shared by Angrist and Guido Imbens from Stanford University.

Angrist is an expert on labor economics and the economics of education, and has also made contributions to the field of econometrics.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-american-joshua-angrist-among-trio-to-win-nobel-prize-in-economics/

By: Rossella Tercatin – The Jerusalem Post; jpost.com

Some 2,653 cases were identified on Sunday, with 2.83% of the almost 100,000 people screened testing positive.

The number of serious coronavirus patients and hospitalizations in Israel continued to drop on Monday according to the Health Ministry’s daily report which showed that both figures were at the lowest since the first half of August.

As a result, several medical centers began to close their corona wards.

Some 564 people were in serious conditions on Monday, out of 1097 hospitalized – about 844 of whom were in hospitals and the rest in geriatric facilities.

https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/covid-19-in-israel-2653-new-cases-564-in-serious-condition-680979

By: Melanie Phillips – Jewish News Syndicate; jns.org

The smear triggers emotions of deep anger and disgust among the shallow and ignorant, whose knowledge of the Jewish state is entirely drawn from malicious propaganda that misrepresents Israel’s defensive measures as racist aggression.

The campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel has recently moved into a higher gear with the increased use of one particularly vicious falsehood.

This is the claim that Israel is an apartheid state.

The claim is as fatuous as it is pernicious. Apartheid was the name given to South Africa’s systematic oppression of its black inhabitants, who were denied political, civic and human rights.

By contrast, Arab Israeli citizens have fully equal rights. They study in Israel’s universities; enjoy Israel’s beaches and parks; receive equal treatment as patients in Israel’s hospitals, and work there as doctors and other medical staff; serve as members of the armed forces and as judges; and are represented by members of Knesset who are currently lynch-pins in Israel’s governing coalition.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-false-accusation-of-israel-apartheid/

By: Jacob Magid – The Times of Israel; timesofisrael.com

Ice cream giant, parent company added to state’s list of companies that boycott Israel, which will likely see Texas divest $100 million in state pension funds within 90 days

Texas on Thursday officially added Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company Unilever to a list of companies that boycott Israel over the former’s decision to cease the sale of its products in West Bank settlements, a further step on the path to the state divesting some $100 million from the companies.

“Effective today, the Comptroller’s office has added Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company, Unilever, to the Texas list of companies that boycott Israel,” Texas’s comptroller Glenn Hegar’s office said in a statement.

“This action was undertaken pursuant to Texas Government Code Chapter 808, which defines ‘boycott Israel’ as ‘refusing to deal with, terminating business activities with, or otherwise taking any action that is intended to penalize, inflict economic harm on or limit commercial relations specifically with Israel or with a person or entity doing business in Israel or in an Israeli-controlled territory,” the statement adds.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/texas-takes-steps-to-divest-from-ben-jerrys-following-settlement-boycott/