WATCH: Jews from all over the world sing 'Hatikvah'

As part of Israel's 70th year celebrations, Jews from 50 nations around the world came together to sing Israel's national anthem "Hatikvah" for a moving video. Thousands of Jews took part in the World Jewish Congress project, including schoolchildren, members of Jewish centers, and Jews who came together in distant communities across the globe.

Hundreds of videos of the anthem were filmed and submitted to the World Jewish Congress, which then put them together to what it called "a first of its kind historic video" created out of the desire to express solidarity, "appreciation and commitment to the State of Israel."

Hatikvah sang by Jews from around the world

Among the many countries to take part were Albania, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Britain, South Africa, Russia, Paraguay, Mexico, the Ivory Coast, New Zealand and Myanmar. The World Jewish Congress said the "Jewish Tikvah" ("Jewish Hope") is part of a series of projects planned for Israel's 70th Independence Day, including "a unique declaration by Diaspora Jews to the State of Israel signed by 91 Jewish community presidents from around the world; a delegation to Jerusalem of senior Jewish leaders from around the world; a delegation of youth Jewish leaders to Israel; and another delegation of Jewish community leaders that will arrive next month."

"Israel is an integral part of the Jewish identity and will always be our home," said Ronald Lauder, the President of the World Jewish Congress. "It doesn't matter where we live. For 2,000 years, the lives of Jews in exile were characterized by the hope and the dream that one day we will return to Israel as a free people. It is the same hope that strengthens Israel today." The Chief Executive Officer of the World Jewish Congress, Robert Singer, added that "in times like these, the connection to the State of Israel is more important than ever."

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NYC parents outraged at minute's silence for Gaza deaths

Parents of Jewish schoolchildren in New York are irate at a local area high school, which held a minute's silence for the memory of the 61 Palestinians killed in clashes with the IDF on the Gaza Strip's border last Monday. "Mourning Hamas terrorists? It's disgraceful," said one parent.

The minute's silence, an initiative of one of the high school's students a day following the highest single-day death toll since 2014, amazed some of the other students and angered their parents, who wondered why the school had decided to insert itself into an issue as contentious as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a manner that was perceived by them to be so vehemently anti-Israeli.

Riots on the Gaza border last week

"I am extremely upset because I did not send my child to a New York City public school to pray for Hamas operatives," one of the Jewish parents was quoted by the New York Post as saying.

A Palestinian rioter on the Gaza border. Students in New York City's Beacon School observed a moment of silence for the Palestinians killed near the border Monday (Photo: EPA)

Demonstrations were held almost every day last week as part of Hamas's "March of Return" campaign with Monday's toll—coinciding with the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem—being the highest in the weeks' long campaign.

Senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil told Palestinian media Wednesday that 50 of the Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip border riots Monday belonged to the terror group's ranks. He spoke in an interview to Baladna TV, a private Palestinian news outlet.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. A senior Hamas official said that 50 of Monday's 61 Palestinian casualties belonged to the terror group (Photo: EPA)

In New York, the parents were incensed with the school playing at politics. "I just don't think any school should be promoting a moment of silence for terrorists. What if it was terrorists in (the Islamic State)?" another parent inquired. "No school would be having that over the loudspeaker." The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) sent a letter to the school demanding an apology for holding the controversial event. "It is disgraceful to mourn the deaths of Hamas terrorists," ZOA president Morton Klein said. The school where the Gaza deaths were commemorated, the Beacon School, is located in the city's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, and is known to be politically left-leaning. After US President Donald Trump's election win in November of 2016, for instance, some of the school's students staged a walkout—partly approved by the faculty. Principal Ruth Lacey declined the New York Post's request for comment.

(Photo: MCT)

Sophie Steinberg, a Beacon School student who resides in Brooklyn, said, "As a Jewish student, I could see a lot of my Jewish friends get very weird when the moment of silence started. They don't know how to feel. They don't know how to fit into all of this." Another student added that she had hoped the moment of silence could have been followed by some kind of discussion. "I wish there was that conversation afterwards," said Fortune Ndombo of Manhattan. "There was no follow-up."

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Dutch researchers uncover dirty jokes in Anne Frank's diary

AMSTERDAM -- Researchers using digital technology deciphered the writing on two pages of Anne Frank's diary that she had covered over with brown masking paper, discovering four risqué jokes and a candid explanation of sex, contraception and prostitution.

 

"Anyone who reads the passages that have now been discovered will be unable to suppress a smile," said Frank van Vree, director of the Netherlands Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. "The 'dirty' jokes are classics among growing children. They make it clear that Anne, with all her gifts, was above all also an ordinary girl."

 

Frank's diary (Photo: AP)

Anne, age 13 at the time, wrote the two pages on September 28, 1942, less than three months after she, her family and another Jewish family went into hiding from the Nazis in a secret annex behind a canal-side house in Amsterdam. Later on, possibly fearing prying eyes or no longer liking what she had written, she covered them over with brown paper, and their content remained a tantalizing mystery for decades.

Anne Frank

It turns out the pages contained four jokes about sex that Anne herself described as "dirty" and an explanation of women's sexual development, sex, contraception and prostitution. "They bring us even closer to the girl and the writer Anne Frank," Ronald Leopold, executive director of the Anne Frank House museum, said Tuesday. Experts on Anne's diary said the newly discovered text, when studied together with the rest of her diary, reveals more about Anne's development as a writer than it does about her interest in sex. Leopold said the words are similar to other passages dealing with sex that already have been published in the multimillion-selling diary.

(Photo: AP)

However, he said it provides an early example of how Anne "creates a fictional situation that makes it easier for her to address the sensitive topics that she writes about." In her diary, for example, she addressed entries to a fictional friend named Kitty. The deciphering was done by researchers from the Anne Frank museum, the Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Huygens Institute of Netherlands History. They photographed the pages, backlit by a flash, and then used image-processing software to decipher the words, which were hard read because they were jumbled up with the writing on the reverse sides of the pages.

Ane Frank house (Photo: Reuters)

In the passage on sex, Anne described how a young woman gets her period around age 14, saying that it is "a sign that she is ripe to have relations with a man, but one doesn't do that of course before one is married." On prostitution, she wrote: "All men, if they are normal, go with women, women like that accost them on the street, and then they go together. In Paris they have big houses for that. Papa has been there." Anne wrote her diary while she and her family hid for more than two years during World War II. The family went into hiding in July 1942 and remained there, provided with food and other essentials by a close-knit group of helpers, until August 4, 1944, when they were discovered and ultimately deported to Auschwitz.

Only Anne's father, Otto Frank, survived the war. Anne and her sister died in Bergen-Belsen camp. Anne was 15.

After the war, Otto Frank had his daughter's diary published, and it went on to become a symbol of hope and resilience that has been translated into dozens of languages.

The house where the Franks hid was turned into a museum that is one of Amsterdam's most popular tourist attractions.

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The Jewish-Romani connection: Are Gypsies descendants of tribe of Simeon?

Hundreds of Gypsies have been flocking to Israel for conferences following an Israeli scholar’s discovery of a biblical connection between Jews and Gypsies. According to Shmuel Avukia of the community of Kokhav Yaakov, one of the organizers of these conferences, the Romani people are the lost descendants of the Israelite tribe of Simeon. “A few years ago, I began studying the biblical texts thoroughly,” says Avukia, who has been researching the Jewish-Gypsy connection for several years now. “Not just on the surface, what we read in the Torah portion every week, but really thoroughly. And that’s where I stumbled upon the Romani issue.

Jewish-Gypsy meeting. ‘There was a huge response’

“I discovered very interesting things about their connection to the Jewish people. It was really big, and I started talking about it a bit on Facebook and on the Internet and there was a huge response. I received many reactions and I decided to take it one step further and create the Jewish-Gypsy Forum.”

The forum convened in Jerusalem for the first time in early December 2017. About 60 Romani tourists from France arrived in Israel for a series of meetings with Avukia and other forum members. Together, they created a symbol combining a Star of David and the spoked wheel featured in the Romani flag.

Jewish-Gypsy meeting in Israel (Video: ATSIGANA)    (צילום: ATSIGANA )

During the gathering, Avukia presented the findings of his research, which concluded that the Romani people are descendants of the tribe of Simeon. “The Gypsies know that they are of Jewish descent, but they have no proof. I believe that together with my research and things we’ll learn about the Romani community, its traditions and its sources, we’ll be able to piece things together.”

‘I am in touch with representatives of Romani communities from France, Finland, Spain, Russia and even the United States’

In a lecture to the Romani delegation, Avukia said the first verse he found pointing to Jewish-Gypsy connection is from the Book of Genesis: “Esau said, ‘Then let me leave some of my men with you.’” According to Avukia, deeper interpretations of the verse, and mainly of the world “leave,” might be a reference to other things apart from the literal meaning.

Since publishing his findings, Avukia has been contacted by thousands of members of the Romani community, and hundreds of them have already visited Israel for additional gatherings.

“I am in touch with several representatives of Romani communities from France, Finland, Spain, Russia and even the United States,” he says.

What drove you to search for a Jewish connection that has never been proven?

“We see a historical connection between the people. The Nazis, for example, sought to annihilate only two people—the Jews and the Gypsies. And there are other historical contexts too. I think if we have proof that we have found a lost tribe, we can’t ignore it.”

‘We see a historical connection between the people’

Has any rabbinical authority confirmed your research?

“I’m currently working on a video and on a book that will present all the evidence and the full research. Afterwards, we’ll present it to the rabbis and to halachic authorities.”

I assume they won’t accept it.

“Clearly, most people will try and toss it away, but I’m following Jewish logic—it’s only that which seems impossible that happens in the end, like the establishment of the State of Israel. It was a dream that seemed imaginary, but here we are.

“It’s clearly a process, and we’re only at the beginning of the road and we have to do it smartly and slowly. But if it’s the truth, it will materialize in the end.”

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Germany's far-right AfD accused of helping make anti-Semitism 'presentable'

Felix Klein, who holds a newly created government post tasked with fighting anti-Semitism, said in remarks to online newsite watson.de on Thursday that the AfD tolerated party members calling for a new "culture of remembrance", making anti-Semitism "presentable" again in Germany.

"I don't want to say the AfD is anti-Semitic, per se, but it tolerates representatives who are demanding a new policy of remembrance," he said. "They initiated this discussion about drawing a line (under the Holocaust) and that is very dangerous because it helps make anti-

Semitism presentable again."

AfD calls on new 'culture of remembrance' (Photo: EPA)

The AfD had no immediate comment on Klein's comments. The party has denied being anti-Semitic or racist but has drawn sharp criticism for not sanctioning a key party figure after he called for a "180 degree turnaround" in the way Germany seeks to atone for Nazi crimes. The AfD swept into the lower house of parliament for the first time after September elections, tapping into widespread frustration about Chancellor Angela Merkel's 2015 decision to open the borders to over 1 million mostly Muslim migrants. Klein's post was created by Merkel's conservatives and the centre-left Social Democrats as part of their coalition pact amid reports from Germany's small Jewish community about what they see as rising levels of prejudice and hatred. Anti-Semitism is a highly sensitive issue in Germany, whose 1933-45 Nazi regime murdered 6 million Jews in the Holocaust.

Klein said last month anti-Semitism was still rooted largely in extreme right-wing ideology and was not only being driven by Germany's growing Muslim population.

German schools have long taught about the Holocaust, but rights groups say the rise of the AfD and other far-right parties has frayed taboos against anti-Semitic utterances and other hate speech.

AfD co-leader Alexander Gauland (Photo: Reuters)

 

Klein has also called for a national database to record anti-Semitic incidents, including by Muslims, that are not included in crime statistics.

He told watson.de that he would raise the issue with the German Conference on Islam, and encourage Muslim groups across Germany to take on the fight against anti-Semitism.

"This would not only send an important signal, but would allow Muslim groups to ask for solidarity when a mosque or a woman wearing a head covering are attacked," he said.

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30 wounded in London Lag B'Omer bonfire explosion

Some 30 Jews were wounded Wednesday night in the northeastern London neighborhood of Stamford Hill after an explosion occurred during a Lag B'Omer bonfire celebration. Ten people wounded in the blast were taken to a local hospital. The bonfire was lit by the local congregation's rabbi in front of the local Beth Hamedrash Biala synagogue, and when a lit torch touched its base, a large fireball erupted and appeared to engulf those standing in close proximity.

Footage of the explosion (courtesy @Hatzola)    (קרדיט: הצלה לונדון @ Hatzola טוויטר)

While it was initially reported the fire was created by a smart phone exploding, the Jewish news site Yeshiva World News reported that the explosion was caused by fuel combusting, even though "multiple smart phones (were) placed inside the pile to be burned."

The fireball erupting in the north London Lag B'Omer celebration (Photo: Yeshiva World News)

According to eyewitnesses who spoke with the Jewish site, the community's rabbi spoke about the dangerous and corrupting effects of smart phones on the relgigion, and said he would burn one, echoing his Lag B'Omer speech from last year.

The condition of casualties was not immediately clear.

Fuel being poured on the bonfire (Photo: Yeshiva World News)

In Israel, many bonfires were lit for Lag B'Omer despite multiple warnings to refrain from doing so issued by the Israel Fire and Rescue Services, the Health Ministry and even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Lag B'Omer, a Jewish holiday celebrated by most with bonfires and barbecues, marks the day in which the Book of (Zohar) Splendor, a landmark text of Jewish mysticism, was first published by Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai.

A firefighter putting out a blaze in Elad (Photo: Roi Rubinstein)

The customary bonfires, though, come this year at a time of high temperatures, dry weather and strong easterly winds, prompting many Israeli officials to urge against them for fear that larger fires may be kindled.

Fears were eventually proven to have been warranted, after several blazes erupted throughout the country, kicking Israel's fire services into action.

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Anti-Semitic items sold on Amazon, eBay

Israeli online shoppers recently spotted anti-Semitic products, including a costume of a rabbi counting money, that was being sold on the popular online commerce websites, Amazon and eBay.

  

Two Israelis told Ynet about several items that contained strong anti-Semitic elements displayed on the online giants' websites in April, including a yellow Star of David and a costume of a rabbi counting money. After the browsers registered their complaints, the two offensive items were removed.

A rabbi costume was presented with the model counting money (Photo: Amazon Germany)

The rabbi's costume which was available in several versions was put up for sale—with the price ranging from five to 13 euros—on Amazon's website in Germany.

Amazon used a model wearing the costume which appeared to predict an avaricious Jew redolent of traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes. The Israeli citizen who reported the item, which was not available in Israel, found it through the Facebook group "Israelis in Berlin". 

On the same day that the item went on the site, one of Amazon's browsers commented on it saying: "Is this some sort of a joke that the rabbi is counting money? Amazon, I demand you remove this anti-Semitic picture. It's such a disgrace. "

Possibly out of concern that his Amazon account would be blocked, or that matters could be taken further, the seller replaced the original photo of the costume with another one. Nevertheless, he continues selling items on Amazon in Germany.

The costume remained up for sale, but the photo was replaced (Photo: Amazon Germany)

Several weeks ago another Israeli citizen living in Berlin informed Ynet that a yellow Star of David was being offered for sale on eBay. According to the site, the seller resides in Thailand and goes by the user name virginshop_9.

The seller has been advertising the yellow Star of David, which contains the word "Jude", for several weeks. The star was used in Nazi Germany to mark Jews in the country and in Europe as their persecution intensified. 

According to the seller, the star that came to symbolize Jewish persecution "looks perfect on jeans, jackets, clothes, vests, hats and bags."

A yellow badge was put up for sale on eBay (Photo: eBay)

After contacting the seller, the Israeli was told that she would be given a discount if she purchased a large quantity of the stars.

When Ynet contacted him and asked for his e-mail address or phone number, the seller refused to identify himself and said he is willing to communicate only through the eBay website.

A few days later, the item was removed from the site, but the seller's account remains active and he continues selling a variety of patches bearing other symbols.

eBay told Ynet that the offensive item was removed after it had been brought to the attention of the US eBay team. eBay also noted that while the seller's account had not been disabled, he was warned for violating the website's terms and conditions which are available on the site and which prohibit advertising offensive materials.    

The badge was removed, but the seller continued selling similar items (Photo: eBay)

When asked why the man's account was not shut down after he had been caught selling offensive items, eBay said that in such cases the items are removed from the website, but the seller's account is not automatically closed. Nevertheless, the site assured that such an incident would not recur in the future.

After reviewing eBay's policy regarding selling Nazi-related items, Ynet discovered that such items are still being sold on the website.

According to eBay's policy, the site says it "acknowledges the historic importance of WWII and the fact that many people across the world invest their time in collecting military-related paraphernalia.

"We authorize the sale of some of the historical items, but ban those who include Nazi propaganda, or items that offend the victims," the policy explains.

Among Nazi-related items approved for sale by eBay are stamps, letters and envelopes with Nazi postmarks, money issued by the Nazi government, kits containing Nazi symbols and other religious and historic items that were manufactured prior to 1933, including swastikas.

A phone case sold on Amazon (Photo: Amazon.com)

The items forbidden for sale include prison uniforms and personal belongings of concentration camps inmates, Nazi uniforms, symbols related to Jewish persecution such as the yellow Star of David, photos from the Holocaust showing dead bodies, executions and other violent and degrading scenes, books written by Nazi leaders and swastikas manufactured after 1933. 

A year ago, the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem staff found anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying books put up for sale on Amazon. After contacting Amazon about the matter, the site immediately removed the items. Among the offensive content that was removed was the book "Did six million Jews really die?"

The Holocaust denying book 'Did six million Jews really die?' is being sold on Amazon (Photo: Amazon)

Another case was reported three years ago in which several different items with an imprint of the Israeli flag splattered with blood were offered for sale on the website. Israelis contacted Amazon to complain about the anti-Semitic items, which led to their removal. 

The websites urged users to flag offensive or anti-Semitic items, thereby helping Amazon to track down their sellers during computerized scans and manual searches.

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