The names were nothing if not eclectic. From actors to astrophysicists, future presidents to poets, and spies to scientists, the Nazis’ secret list of the nearly 3,000 prominent Britons they intended to round up had they invaded the UK was characteristically thorough.
The discovery of the so-called “Black Book” at the end of the war provoked a number of wry comments from some of those whose names it contained. “My dear, the people we should have been seen dead with,” wrote the author Rebecca West to playwright Noel Coward, while the cartoonist David Low quipped: “That is all right. I had them on my list too.”
But as academic Sybil Oldfield details in a recently published book “The Black Book: The Britons on the Nazi List,” there was nothing in the least bit comical about the Germans’ carefully laid plans to unleash terror had they crossed the English Channel. Armed with copies of the “most wanted” list, 20,000 SS troops were to sweep the country engaging in a deadly ideological and racial manhunt.
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Interpol has reportedly dropped an international warrant for the Jordanian terrorist who orchestrated the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 people.
In a letter dated March 8 published in Arabic-language media, Interpol said Ahlam Tamimi was no longer “subject to an Interpol notice,” without further elaborating. Tamimi also appeared to have been removed from the most wanted list on Interpol’s website.
The international police cooperation organization did not respond to a request for comment.
Tamimi has been living in Jordan after being freed from an Israeli jail as part of a prisoner swap.
Advocates for terror victims’ rights have long sought her extradition to the United States for her role in the murder of two US civilians in one of the most infamous suicide attacks of the Second Intifada: the attack on the Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem on Thursday, August 9, 2001.
Police and medics surround the scene of a suicide bombing inside Jerusalem’s Sbarro restaurant, Thursday, August 9, 2001. Fifteen people were killed, and 130 injured. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
Fifteen Israeli civilians — including seven children and a pregnant woman — were murdered in the Sbarro attack. Another 130 people were injured; one of them, Chana Nachenberg, remains hospitalized in a vegetative state.
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A senior lecturer at Ukraine’s oldest and most prestigious state university called on the government to rename the city of Uman for a Nazi collaborator in response to Israel’s complaints about honoring such individuals.
Bohdan Bilinsky, associate professor of Building Structures and Bridges at the 205-year-old Lviv Polytechnic National University, proposed the honor for Stepan Bandera in a Facebook post on Friday, the Focus news site reported. Uman, a major site for Jewish pilgrims, should be called “Bandera City,” he said.
Bilinsky said every Ukrainian city should “name stations, ports and planes after Stepan Bandera,” a nationalist who for a time collaborated with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. His troops are believed to have killed thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.
“Maybe this evil spirit will stop coming to us,” Bilinsky wrote about criticism of honors to Bandera and other Nazi collaborators.
His proposal follows controversy over the naming this month of a stadium in Ternopil for Roman Shukhevych, another Nazi-allied militia leader.
Israel’s ambassador to Ukraine, Joel Lion, protested the stadium naming on Twitter. But a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Twitter defended the country “preserving the national memory.” Oleg Nikolenko added this “remains one of the priorities of Ukraine’s state policy.”
It is “fully understandable” that Ternopil seeks to “honor those who fought against Soviet Communism,” wrote Efraim Zuroff, the Eastern Europe Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, but not those behind “the mass murder of innocent fellow citizens.”
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Lou Ottens, a Dutch engineer who invented the cassette tape and spent his wartime youth constructing a radio featuring directional antenna used to listen to banned BBC broadcasts jammed by the occupying Nazi army, has died at ninety-four.
Ottens displayed a talent for technology at a young age. After studying mechanical engineering at the university, the future activist went to work for Philips, becoming head of product development at the corporation. It was there that he had an idea that would transform the way the world listens to music "on the go."
Ottens invented the cassette tape to improve upon the design of the era's reel-to-reel players. While these outdated machines produced high quality sound, they were the opposite of the miniaturized music players people began to take for granted only years later. Bulky and impractical, Ottens grew frustrated with the reel-to-reel player's inadequate portability, and envisioned a cassette tape small enough to fit easily into a jacket pocket.
The cassette tape made its debut in 1963 at a Berlin electronics fair under the slogan: "Smaller than a pack of cigarettes."
Ottens was also later influential in Philips' development of the compact disc and other related technology.
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A Brooklyn man who fled to Israel in 2010 amid accusations of child molestation was extradited back to the Big Apple on Thursday, officials said.
Gershon Kranczer, 65, was arraigned at Brooklyn Supreme Court for the alleged sexual assault of two minor female relatives, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office.
The suspected predator is accused of molesting one relative several times from August 1996 — when she was 6-years-old — to February 2003, prosecutors said.
Kranczer, of Midwood, is also alleged to have sexually abused an 11-year-old child between March 2001 and September 2002.
In 2010, as Kranczer was under investigation, he fled to Israel in an alleged bid to escape the law, prosecutors and sources said.
The NYPD alerted Interpol of Kranczer’s departure. The department’s Intel Bureau International Liaison Unit then got involved, coordinating with Israel police in an attempt to track down the suspect, sources said.
After spending over a decade overseas under the disguise of an alias, Kranczer was caught by authorities in February 2020, sources said.
The US Marshals, the Brooklyn DA’s office, and the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs were also involved in catching Kranczer.
Kranczer fought extradition back to the states for over a year, sources said. After he lost his final appeal, he was extradited.
He is charged with sexual conduct against a child, criminal sexual act and sexual abuse, authorities said.
At his Thursday arraignment, he was ordered held without bail.
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The relief package includes direct-aid checks of $1,400 for adults earning up to $75,000 annually and couples clearing up to $150,000 per year.
It also extends a $300 weekly unemployment supplement through Sept. 6, and gives all but the wealthiest parents a new annual tax credit of $3,000-$3,600 per child, up from the current $2,000 per child.
Social media and the rallies that social media have brought about – have accomplished the near impossible – pressuring recalcitrant husbands into giving a get.
The case in point, Elizabeth K., a woman living in Brooklyn, who has been waiting four years to receive her get, got it earlier tonight. Instagram was particularly effective in this get – because there is a newly empowered group of Influencers on Instagram that arranged an impromptu rally.
The rally was held this morning at one venue and went to another.
“People came out of the woodworks,” remarked Avi David, who observed the rally.“The rally was actually planned, but many other women showed up because it went viral on Instagram and everyone’s Facebook page,” he continued.
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Following the drama on Thursday when Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was forced to cancel his scheduled trip to the United Arab Emirates due to a dispute with Jordan and his wife’s hospitalization, a Yisrael Hayom report said that the prime minister’s political rivals were involved in torpedoing his trip.
The report said that according to a senior Jordanian official, Yesh Atid chairman Yair Lapid and former Prime Minister Ehud Barak made extensive efforts to instigate Jordanian King Abdullah II into refusing Israel’s request to enters its airspace so as not to allow Netanyahu to visit the UAE prior to the March 23 election – calling attention to his diplomatic achievements.
“High-ranking Israeli political officials and former Israeli security officials cooperated with Amman to torpedo Netanyahu’s visit to the UAE, after Crown Prince Hussein’s visit to the Temple Mount was called off,” a senior government official in Amman told Yisrael Hayom.
The official added that “Jordan and Israel will need to find a way to lower the flames and end the diplomatic incident, which has embarrassed both sides. King Abdullah has taken many calls from Israeli officials, who argued that the instruction not to allow some of Prince Hussein’s armed security detail to cross Allenby Bridge came from the Prime Minister’s Office.”
Yisrael Hayom said that the Crown Prince was scheduled to meet with Lapid during his planned visit to Israel on Wednesday to visit the Temple Mount. Apparently, Netanyahu canceled the trip for this reason, using the extra security guards as an excuse.
Lapid’s office responded to the report by stating: “We have no idea on what this is talking about. No such meeting was ever scheduled.”
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A man who has allegedly kept his wife an Agunah for 17 years was arrested by the NYPD on Thursday afternoon.
A number of years ago, the man married a second woman while still refusing to give his first wife a Get. Earlier this week, protestors began to gather outside his home, with hundreds attending each night demanding that he give a Get.
Meanwhile, unbeknown to most people, the second wife and children were allegedly being severely abused. A voice note went viral on Thursday morning of the man violently abusing his wife and her children. Sources say that the NYPD’s Domestic Violence Unit interviewed the woman, who detailed the extensive violent abuse allegations to them.
Police arrived at the home, and after a few minutes, he was taken into custody.
Law enforcement sources say that the man is expected to he charged with assaulting his wife (such as her being allegedly strangled), as well as for assaulting a minor.
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Israel and Jordan were working to calm the waters on Thursday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's scheduled historic first visit to the United Arab Emirates was cancelled following a diplomatic incident between Israel and Jordan.
Netanyahu's scheduled visit to the United Arab Emirates was held up on Thursday morning when Jordan announced it would not allow Netanyahu's aircraft to cross its airspace en route to the United Arab Emirates,.
Officials think that the Jordanian decision, which was announced only shortly before the flight was scheduled to take off, was a response to Israel's decision to cancel a visit to the Temple Mount that had been scheduled for Jordanian Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah on Wednesday over disagreements about security protocols.
Israel Hayom has learned that the prince intended to visit the Temple Mount to pray prior to making the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Officials in the UAE told Israel Hayom on Thursday afternoon that it appeared that Netanyahu's visit would most likely not take place as originally scheduled.
A senior government official in Amman told Israel Hayom that "high-ranking Israeli political officials and former Israeli security officials cooperated with Amman to torpedo Netanyahu's visit to the UAE, after Prince Hussein's visit to the Temple Mount was called off."
The official added that "Jordan and Israel will need to find a way to lower the flames and end the diplomatic incident, which has embarrassed both sides. King Abdullah has taken many calls from Israeli officials, who argued that the instruction not to allow some of Prince Hussein's armed security detail to cross Allenby Bridge came from the Prime Minister's Office."
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Jerusalem antiquities dealer Moses Willhelm Shapira told the world of the discovery of 15 manuscript fragments, said to have been found in a cave near the Dead Sea
The Shapira Scroll, an ancient manuscript first discovered in 1883 and dismissed as fake is 'actually the oldest known Biblical script', an expert claims.
Jerusalem antiquities dealer Moses Willhelm Shapira told the world of the discovery of 15 manuscript fragments, said to have been found in a cave near the Dead Sea.
The paleo-Hebrew script on the pieces of manuscript were nearly illegible as they had been blackened with a pitchlike substance, but Shapira claimed they were the 'original' book of Deuteronomy - maybe even the copy owned by Moses.
This was disputed and after selling them to the British Museum for £1 million experts declared them fake - after which they were sold by the museum and disappeared.
In a new book Israeli-American scholar Idan Dershowitz claims to have both archival, linguistic and literary evidence that prove the pieces were a true ancient artefact.
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Holocaust survivors who were best friends in Germany were reunited more than 80 years after they last saw each other.
Betty Grebenschikoff from St. Petersburg, Florida, and Ana María Wahrenberg from Santiago, Chile, both 91, were reunited in November thanks to the work of a researcher at the USC Shoah Foundation — a nonprofit organization founded by Steven Spielberg, theWashington Post reported Tuesday. Both thought the other had perished.
The researcher, Ita Gordon, attended a webinar in which Wahrenberg recalled surviving the 1938 Kristallnacht pogroms in Germany and Austria. She searched for more information about Wahrenberg in the foundation’s archives.
That search led Gordon to the life story of Grebenschikoff, who attended the same Jewish day school as Wahrenberg. Gordon watched a 1997 filmed testimony by Grebenschikoff in which Grebenschikoff mentioned her friend Wahrenberg, and added she often wonders whether Wahrenberg had survived the Holocaust.
The women met at the age of 6, also went to the same synagogue, took ballet lessons and played dress-up, according to the Post article.
Although both women had changed their names after the Holocaust, Gordon was able to trace them and bring them in contact. They chat weekly over the phone.
“For 82 years, I thought my best friend from Germany was dead,” Grebenschikoff told the Post. “I’d been looking for her for all those years and I never found her.”
Grebenschikoff’s family fled to Shanghai, China, in 1939 and moved to the United States after 1948. Wahrenberg’s family settled in Chile.
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I sure hope that this letter was written as satire!
Dear Yeshiva World News,
I didn’t think that I would be writing this, but the meshigas has been going on now for almost two weeks now and no one else has written anything, so I have to!
I am a normal person who moved from Brooklyn to Toms River. I have a few children, some married, and some in seminary and yeshiva in Eretz Yisroel. We don’t do hotels for Pesach, but we do go to Florida every year as a family. This past year has been very hard for all of us. We were not together last year Pesach or summer because of COVID. We were moser nefesh to send our kids to E”Y this past year. My daughter had to give birth without her mother, husband or any other family in Yerushalayim. The seminary year for my daughter has been a far cry from the year we imagined. My son is shteiging in yeshiva, but locked up in plastic bubbles. Every other day there seems to be a lockdown. its been insane for everyone. We didn’t go to be oleh regel for sukkos as we normally do. Our kids didn’t come home for Chanukah and we and they missed many family simchas on both sides. Zoom is great but only goes that far.
When they announced that they were finally opening the skies to let people fly a few weeks ago, we were all thrilled! We have been looking forward to being together as a family for a whole year now! We booked tickets for everyone to come home for a well needed yom tov break. Then one ticket cancelled, and another rebooked. Its been two weeks of constant PCR tests, ever changing regulations, crazy schedules – imagine running to the airport, packing to fly, only to find out your flight is no more. Again and again. Everyone is blaming everyone else. The askonim are saying don’t leave, because otherwise you don’t know if or when you can go back.
It seems to have become a political game, and we are the pawns before elections. And the guilt that everyone is giving us that we don’t want the zechus for our children of being Eretz Hakodesh for Pesach, of why is everyone trying to run away from Israel? Let me tell you, we love E”Y as much as the next person, which by the way as a collective frum yidden in America pour a TON into the economy in Israel when we go. Does the government really think that after this massive failure we will be in a rush to come back and visit? Enough is enough already! And to all the people faking corona tests – stop it’s ruining it for everyone else! Yes, I know that priority should go to to medical cases and worse situations, but just open more flights – we also have a right want to spend time as a family together. To all the government people reading this now:
Dayenu! Let us go
Sorry. While you seem to be serious and well intentioned you come off as privileged and spoiled. Life can be hard but those in charge should not make their decisions based on what an occasional tourist wants. Their responsibility is the safety of their citizens and only that. They owe you nothing. Any interest in opening Israel to non citizens is a financial decision that has to be considered risk relative to benefit to their citizens. For the record, I hope I can call myself frum. My daughter was in Seminary and no, she did not have to go home to see mommy and Daddy during that year. My wife had our children in the USA without parents being present, it worked out BH. By the way, frum families do not add as much to the Israeli economy as you think. The new mode of using apartments instead of Hotels is part of that. Most Seminaries get some funding from the Israeli Government (yes, we still pay a lot!!!) and there are many that get monthly checks for each child born in Israel. Friends have found it is cheaper to support their married children in Israel than in the USA.
Am i the only one who has an issue with this letter? It starts off by saying “I am a normal person who moved from Brooklyn to Toms River.”
But then goes on to say: “but we do go to Florida every year as a family.” “We didn’t go to be oleh regel for sukkos as we normally do. Our kids didn’t come home for Chanukah”
What a normal family!! If these are the standards for normal then we have other issues, worse then no flights to Israel. If i remember correctly last year there was a massive push to convince the chassanim and kallos to have smaller chassunas, because who needs gashmiyus. So only gashmiyus for chassanim and kallos on the most momentums day of their lives needs to be cut. But family trips to Florida and “Oleh Regal” for Sukkas doesnt. The hypocrisy is disgusting!! Correct me if im wrong, but most people dont fly home for Chanukah. Your poor son and daughter in Israel, who went to grow there, are stuck learning in school instead of having camp in Israel. Terrible!! You should probably ask for a refund. Also, they left to Israel in middle of a pandemic. So you should’ve expected things to not be smooth sailing.
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Rav Gershon Edelstein, who just returned to delivering shiurim in person after a year of staying at home due to the pandemic, was accosted by an anti-vaxxer on Wednesday afternoon.
As the Rosh Yeshivah was returning to his home after delivering a shiur, a young man approached him and began screaming about coronavirus vaccines, the “decree” on army enlistment, and voting in the elections.
“The man was insane, he shamelessly screamed at the Rosh Yeshivah,” a witness to the scene told Kikar H’Shabbos. “We managed to overcome him only through a neis. At the last minute, we prevented him from physically attacking the Rosh Yeshivah.”
Someone called the police and officers quickly arrived at the scene. They arrested the man and he was taken to the police station for interrogation.
Just two weeks ago, a similar incident occurred at the home of Rav Chaim Kanievsky when a man with a knife tried to enter the Gadol’s home.
The man later told the police that “it bothers me that the Rav calls for people to be vaccinated against the coronavirus” and that the Rav “doesn’t support Binyamin Netanyahu in the elections,” and therefore, he came “to convey a message to him.”
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The Regavim Movement on Tuesday filed a petition in the Jerusalem District Court against the Jerusalem Municipality, which has been concealing the existence of an underground tunnel dug by the Church of the Dormition, one of the largest and most recognizable Catholic churches in Jerusalem.
The Dormition, located just outside the Zion Gate, on the highest point in ancient Jerusalem, is included in the historic preservation compound known as “The Sovev Homot [Jerusalem Ramparts] National Park.”
As a result of Regavim’s legal pressure over the past two years, the Jerusalem Municipality was forced to measure and document the tunnel, which encroaches on public property in an area dense with archaeological remains. Since the completion of the mapping project, the municipality has ignored Regavim’s continued requests for documentation of the tunnel and law enforcement at the site.
Mount Zion, one of the gateways to the Old City of Jerusalem, is well known for its unparalleled historic and archaeological importance to the three monotheistic faiths. The section of the mountain that is protected by the “Sovev Homot (Ancient Jerusalem Ramparts) National Park” contains numerous archaeological sites, including the site identified as King David’s tomb, the Hasmonean-era city walls, and the First Temple-era city wall.
Despite the national, religious, scientific and historical importance of the area as a whole, the Dormition Church dug an underground tunnel, more than 100 meters long, to connect the Church with “Beit Josef,” a dormitory/guest house it built nearby decades ago.
For years, the existence of the tunnel was nothing more than a rumor shared among local residents and Jewish institutions active on Mount Zion, until Regavim sent an official request to the Jerusalem Municipality in 2019 for confirmation of its existence and precise details of the tunnel’s location, in order to determine the extent to which it encroaches on public land as well as the extent to which priceless antiquities may have been harmed by the unsupervised digging.
Last year, as a result of Regavim’s demand and after the Jerusalem Municipality was forced to admit that the there is, in fact, an “old tunnel” at Beit Josef, official documentation was carried out on behalf of the Jerusalem Municipality; the illegal underground passage, measuring some 150 meters, was documented at last.
The investigation revealed that along the path of the tunnel there are underground rooms containing ancient artifacts, and the tunnel itself encroaches to a significant extent on public property. This illegal passageway was dug without a permit, violating existing planning codes and Israel’s Archeological Protection Law, without any oversight by engineers or archaeologists, as required by law, and may have damaged antiquities and other artifacts.
Despite its findings, the Municipality has not charged the Church municipal land taxes for the illegal tunnel, while all other residents of the city are expected to pay these and other taxes and tariffs or face heavy penalties.
“When the details began to come into focus, we demanded over and over that the Jerusalem Municipality publicize the documentation of its findings, as required by the Freedom of Information Law. We further demanded that oversight, inspection and law enforcement procedures be taken immediately, to restore the site to its previous condition either by sealing off or demolishing the tunnel,” said Attorneys Avi Segal and Yael Cinnamon of the Regavim Movement. “We filed this petition only when our repeated requests to the Jerusalem Municipality were not answered.”
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Aspirin is an established, safe, and low-cost medication in long-standing common use in the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases, and, in the past, pain relief and fever-reducing medication. The use of aspirin was very popular during the 1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic, several decades before in-vitro confirmation of its activity against RNA viruses. Studies showed that aspirin, in addition to its well-known anti-inflammatory effects, could modulate the innate and adaptive immune responses helping the human immune system battle some viral infections.
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Sorry. While you seem to be serious and well intentioned you come off as privileged and spoiled. Life can be hard but those in charge should not make their decisions based on what an occasional tourist wants. Their responsibility is the safety of their citizens and only that. They owe you nothing. Any interest in opening Israel to non citizens is a financial decision that has to be considered risk relative to benefit to their citizens.
For the record, I hope I can call myself frum. My daughter was in Seminary and no, she did not have to go home to see mommy and Daddy during that year. My wife had our children in the USA without parents being present, it worked out BH.
By the way, frum families do not add as much to the Israeli economy as you think. The new mode of using apartments instead of Hotels is part of that. Most Seminaries get some funding from the Israeli Government (yes, we still pay a lot!!!) and there are many that get monthly checks for each child born in Israel. Friends have found it is cheaper to support their married children in Israel than in the USA.