The next time that the "experts" reassure us that creating a Palestinian Arab state in Judea & Samaria will bring Israel peace and security, just remember this video. pic.twitter.com/1Rm9uD8uQm
— Im Tirtzu (@IMTIzionism) August 16, 2021
“I don’t speak because I have the power to speak; I speak because I don’t have the power to remain silent.” Rav Kook z"l
The next time that the "experts" reassure us that creating a Palestinian Arab state in Judea & Samaria will bring Israel peace and security, just remember this video. pic.twitter.com/1Rm9uD8uQm
— Im Tirtzu (@IMTIzionism) August 16, 2021
They're chanting CNN's slogan, but they seem friendly at the same time. https://t.co/5M6B8oHzHd
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) August 16, 2021
The owner of Ben & Jerry’s is angling to block an Israeli ice-cream distributor from knocking off its brand in the West Bank — the latest back-and-forth since the company’s controversial move last month to withdraw from the region, The Post has learned.
London-based Unilever — whose Ben & Jerry’s subsidiary announced on July 19 it would stop selling ice cream in “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” saying it’s “inconsistent with our values” — is now threatening legal action against a group that said it plans to roll out “Judea and Samaria’s Ben & Jerry’s” ice cream to the West Bank.
A legal gambit to move in on the Chunky Monkey maker’s business was devised by the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center, a Zionist advocacy group that claimed Ben & Jerry’s plan to stop selling ice cream in the region amounted to “abandonment” of its trademark there.
Proposed packaging for the ersatz frozen snacks includes the familiar Ben & Jerry’s logo, with the same cow grazing in a pasture under a blue, cloud-dotted sky. It also, however, prominently features a portrait of Theodor Herzl, the bushy-bearded founder of the modern Zionist movement, with the slogan “Frozen Chosen People.”
“Your allegation that Unilever has in any manner abandoned its trademark rights for Ben & Jerry’s is flawed on multiple grounds,” Unilever’s general counsel, Natalia Cavaliere, wrote in an Aug. 12 letter to the legal advocacy group, a copy of which was obtained by The Post.
“Ben & Jerry’s intends to continue to distribute and sell its products in all of Israel, except for the small geographic region of the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” the letter added, noting that Unliever considers any use of its trade name a “violation of our intellectual property rights.”
In response, Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center president Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told The Post, “We hope to have the opportunity to square off against them in a courtroom,” insisting that her organization intends to “seize their trademarks and utilize their name and manufacture our own ice cream in every Israeli region they have withdrawn from.”
The Law Center said it had registered the name “Judea and Samaria’s Ben & Jerry’s” with the Israeli government’s Registry of Corporations. But the agency denied its application on the grounds that there is an “existing registered trademark of Ben and Jerry’s in Israel and therefore it is restrained from registering a new company under that name,” Darshan-Leitner told The Post in an email. The Law Center plans to appeal the decision, she said.
Unilever, which bought the quirky brand in 2000, has been forced to defend its policies despite the intense global backlash, which has included threats by the Israeli Prime Minister and by US legislators.
In a New York Times op-ed on July 28, the iconic ice-cream entrepreneurs Bennett Cohen and Jerry Greenfield defended the company’s move, writing, “In our view, ending the sales of ice cream in the occupied territories is one of the most important decisions the company has made in its 43-year history … Even though it undoubtedly knew that the response would be swift and powerful, Ben & Jerry’s took the step to align its business and operations with its progressive values.”
Trademark experts told The Post that at least on legal ground Unilever appears to be on solid footing with its trademark in Israel.
“You don’t have to use the mark in every town and region to be covered by a trademark,” intellectual property attorney, Brad D. Rose of Pryor Cashman LLP told The Post. “It doesn’t mean that [Unilever’s] trademark is exposed because it isn’t selling in one region.”
Broadway’s powerful Shubert Organization has sold two precious Eighth Avenue parcels to Gary Barnett’s Extell Development, giving Extell control of a whole Midtown blockfront.
Extell paid $39.1 million, according to public records, for 738 and 740 Eighth Ave, which are the sites of a small parking lot and a larger vacant lot respectively.
The deal gives Extell ownership of the entire east side of the avenue between West 45th and 46th streets. There is another vacant lot at the block’s south end and several low-rise buildings stand in the middle.
One building is home to Playwright Celtic Pub, a popular, four-story Irish restaurant and bar with a roof deck that’s been at the location since 2000. It’s now in the development crosshairs, but Extell’s plans are unknown. Barnett didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The empty lot at the West 45th Street corner extends all the way to the long-standing Pergola des Artistes restaurant, which abuts the Imperial Theater.
The assemblage appears to be large enough for a new building of up to 1 million square feet — perhaps more if Barnett, who is a magician with air-rights transfers, is able to transfer some from neighboring properties.
The block has been the focus of much inaccurate rumor and speculation over the years. Related Companies and Boston Properties once owned parts of it but they never went ahead with a new project.
The Biden administration removed information about the Palestinian Authority’s incitement to terror from a mandatory compliance report submitted to Congress in July, a move that may have been illegal according to a legal watchdog group, Washington Free Beacon reported.
The America First Legal Foundation (AFLF) sent a letter to the State Department Inspector General last week requesting that it investigate the Biden administration’s omission of references to the PA’s call for terror and violence as it simultaneously committed to provide it with millions of dollars in US aid.
The references to the PA’s incitement to terror were included in the outgoing Trump administration’s October 2020 version of the report but were subsequently removed by the Biden administration.
The AFLF also submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the State Department for all internal records on the decision to omit the information, including the names of any Biden administration officials who had a part in the decision.
The Biden administration “unlawfully [concealed] multiple material derogatory facts regarding the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing economic, political, and ideological support for terrorism; economic warfare against Israel; and opposition to regional peace,” Reed Rubinstein, AFLF’s senior counselor, wrote to acting State Department Inspector General Diana Shaw.
“It seems these derogatory facts were deleted, expunged, and concealed not because circumstances on the ground had changed, but rather because officials in the Department’s Bureau of Near East Affairs and in the Biden White House decided to cover them up, at least in part to facilitate the planned transfer of hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority in potential violation of U.S. law.”
The AFLF letter emphasized that if the information was removed in order to hide the PA’s wrongdoings from Congress, it may be a violation of US law and the State Department must “immediately open an investigation” into any decision by officials “to conceal and cover up material derogatory facts regarding the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority from the Congress.”
“We are concerned by attempts to conceal material facts regarding the PLO’s support for terrorism, commitment to the destruction of the State of Israel and the concomitant murder and/or expulsion of the Jews now resident there, and ongoing efforts to block peace treaties between Israel and the Arab states from Congress,” the FOIA request states, according to a copy obtained by the Free Beacon.
The State Department also removed details of incitement to terror in Palestinian schools and media outlets.
LAUGHING ABOUT NOT WEARING MASKS AT AN ILLEGAL ENGAGEMENT PARTY IN MELBOURNE. TWO HAVE SINCE TURNED POSITIVE, EXPECT 50+ CASES AND LOCKDOWN TO EXTEND BECAUSE OF THESE FERALS. pic.twitter.com/odYjphIydE
— 👻 (@eughisitover) August 15, 2021
Video from a packed engagement party is roiling the Jewish community of Melbourne, Australia, amid a growing outbreak of COVID-19 that has extended yet another stringent lockdown there.
Compliance with local rules has been spotty across Melbourne during the latest lockdown, which comes after a year and a half of intense restrictions meant to stop the spread of the coronavirus there.
But the local Jewish community is again emerging as a hotspot. Local authorities are planning to set up vaccination and testing sites in the heavily Orthodox suburb of St. Kilda East after a mother and son there tested positive, and sites in other Orthodox areas, including Caulfield and Balaclava, have landed on the growing list of locations with known exposures. In Melbourne, 25 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the engagement party video has offered what many say is hard proof that some Orthodox Jews are not taking the pandemic seriously. The video, which is circulating online, shows a groom speaking to a crowded room of unmasked guests, at one point joking, “Clearly this is legal, because this is a group therapy session.” Laughter follows.
Victoria Prime Minister Daniel Andrews lashed out at the engagement party, stating that the families involved had made s***ty choices.”
I also think that it's time to reassess the crazy idiotic "Yurzeit" excursions ASAP. No Jew, especially children of survivors should step on that dirty bloody Polish soil. The "dead" rebbes will forgive you if you don't spend a penny in those murderous countries and instead would pray on your behalf if you donated that money to Israeli poor.
Take those kids to Yad Ve'Shem instead and teach them how Poles helped the Nazis murder Jews.
Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński announced Monday that Poland would reassess the educational visits of Israeli youth to Poland as the diplomatic spat between the country's over Poland's Holocaust restitution law continues.
Jabłoński said that the "educational trips from Israel to Poland do not take place in a proper manner [and are conducted] in a way that hatred of Poland sometimes seeps into the minds of young people. We will examine the issue in depth because it is clear that the way these tours take place is not the right way."
The Polish parliament on Wednesday approved a law restricting claims on Jewish property looted from Polish Jewry during the Holocaust. The bill was signed into law by Polish President Andrzej Duda on Saturday.
The bill prevents the restitution of Jewish property, or compensation for it, to Holocaust survivors and their descendants. The proposed legislation, which will apply in retrospect, will make it almost impossible to appeal decisions made on the subject of stolen property more than 30 years ago.
The law would affect about 90 percent of restitution claims.
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid downgraded ties with Poland over the law's passage, calling the law "anti-Semitic" and "unethical."
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki criticized Lapid's response to the law, saying: “The decision of Israel to downgrade its diplomatic representation in Warsaw lacks justification and any sense of responsibility. The words spoken by [Israeli Foreign Minister] Yair Lapid enrage every upstanding person.
“I strongly object to all attacks on Poland’s ambassador, Marek Magierowski,” he added. “The result of such aggressive actions on the part of Israel’s government are an increase in hatred of Poland and its citizens.
Maureen Dowd branded Obama 'Barack Antoinette' - a reference to the out-of-touch renaissance queen - and likened him to Jay Gatsby, the shallow people-pleaser from F Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby in her scathing piece, published Saturday.
She highlighted how the former president cut his ex-chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and former campaign strategist David Axelrod from the original 600-person guest list, despite both helping him secure his presidential victory.
Dowd was also scathing of Obama's decision to disinvite Caroline Kennedy - a key member of the political dynasty whose endorsement in the run up to the 2008 presidency was seen as critical to his eventual choice as the party's nominee.
Those who did make the cut after surging COVID rates forced Obama to slash his guest list included Beyoncé, John Legend, Steven Spielberg and Bradley Cooper - none of whom knew Obama before he ascended to the presidency.
A six-year-old Israeli boy who was the only survivor of a cable car tragedy is now the centre of a bitter custody battle between the families of his two aunts - one of whom accuses the other of 'kidnapping' him.
Eitan Biran miraculously survived the tragedy in the Alps on May 23, but his mother, father, younger brother and great-grandparents all lost their lives.
The cable car was carrying the passengers up a mountain overlooking Lake Maggiore when it dropped 1,000ft away from the station shortly after 12pm.
The crash had killed his mother Tal, 26, father Amit, 30, two-year-old brother Tom and great-grandparents Itshak and Barbara Cohen, 82 and 70.
Eitan has been living with paternal aunt Aya Biran-Nirko, a mother of two and doctor who lives near Pavia, north Italy, since he was released from a hospital in Turin in June.
But last week his maternal aunt Gali Peleg revealed her family would be taking legal action so he could have a 'normal' life in Israel, The Times reports.
Mrs Peleg said: 'He was abducted by relatives who don't know him at all. [Biran-Nirko] was not close to him in any way. The family there won't take him to a park or out to eat, things we have done so he feels he has a family.'
She claimed her sister Tal Peleg-Biran, 26, valued Jewish and Israeli identity and this would be eroded while in Italy.
Mrs Peleg added: 'In a few years he'll look back and see where he grew up and who his parents were, and it's important to me that he sees that we were always there for him. He already lost one family and does not need to lose another.'
She added that her family had only been allowed to see the child briefly, claiming he 'breaks into tears' when she leaves.
Biran-Nirko's lawyers called the allegations 'surreal', adding: 'We sincerely cannot understand the reason for such acrimony and falsehood.'
Reports had earlier revealed that doctors believe the boy was suffering from post traumatic amnesia after tests ruled out any neurological damage.
In a statement translated from Italian, doctors said: 'Eitan's conditions are significantly improving both from the point of view of thoracic trauma and from the point of view of abdominal trauma.'
His aunt Aya, 41, and his grandmother both travelled from Israel to sit at his bedside after the crash on May 23 and remained with him in hospital.
Eight people have died at Kabul airport where thousands of desperate Afghans have clambered onto moving military planes and U.S. troops have fired warning shots into the air amid a chaotic scramble to flee the Taliban.
Three stowaways are believed to have plunged to their deaths, with footage showing bodies falling from the underside of a hulking USAF transport jet as it climbed into the skies over the fallen city on Monday. Further images later showed mutilated corpses strewn across a rooftop.
Earlier US soldiers fired warning shots to deter people from forcing their way onto a plane as video showed hundreds chasing after a transport plane, darting beneath its wheels and clinging to the fuselage as it hurtled down the runway at Hamid Karzai International Airport.
'The crowd was out of control,' a U.S. official told Reuters. 'The firing was only done to defuse the chaos.'
It is unclear whether the five who died at the airport had been shot or killed in a stampede.
Joe Biden's calamitous surrender of Afghanistan and his 'shameful' silence since Kabul fell has been widely condemned by all sides of the media in the US and the UK.
The President has failed to speak publicly on the chaos but issued a statement on Saturday which ridiculously blamed Donald Trump for an earlier deal which he says handed too much power to the Taliban.
Eliyahu Bash, the manager of the Metzuda winery in Givat Ye’arim that went up in flames on Sunday due to the massive blaze – set apparently by arsonists – in the Jerusalem hills, told Galei Tzahal on Monday morning that “the winery is gone. It’s dust and ashes. Nothing is left. Around 150 barrels were burned. Last Thursday, we received a consignment of 30,000 new bottles that we were going to fill yesterday. It happened in the most tragic manner possible,” he said.
The fire – which is still burning as of this writing on Monday morning – is being called one of the largest blazes ever recorded in the wider Jerusalem area. It appears to have been set near the town of Beit Meir, an area targeted by arsonists in the past. Due to the strong westerly winds prevailing on Sunday, it spread rapidly to nearby communities which were swiftly evacuated – some 10,000 people were directly affected.
The Metzuda winery is a haredi-owned vineyard that was founded around a decade ago in the small town of Givat Ye’arim, around twenty minutes’ drive from Jerusalem, producing around 40,000 bottles of wine per year. On Sunday evening, Bash described the events of that terrible day to Kikar Hashabbat.
“It was going to be a day of harvesting the grapes,” Bash related. “We started work indoors that morning, and suddenly, the world seemed to be going dark outside. The skies looked strange, but we didn’t realize the reason why, and we went back to work.”
“After around a quarter of an hour, the electricity went down, and we started to get worried. We went outside and then we saw the flames – they were already approaching – and there was an acrid smell of smoke. Then we realized what was going on. All of us – all the winery workers – ran for our cars and fled for our lives.
“A quarter hour later or so, I tried to see what was going on at the winery from a distant vantage point, and I saw it going up in flames and I could actually hear the sounds of explosions as the bottles of wine shattered.”
Bash then related the extent of his losses: “The winery wasn’t insured, and we’re talking about damages amounting to around seven or eight million shekels,” he said. “When I realized the extent of what was happening, I strengthened my faith in the Al-mighty and reminded my friend that ‘We are obligated to bless G-d for the bad just as we bless for the good.’ I believe that everything is from G-d,” he stressed.
“Really, I don’t know yet how we will recover,” he added. “But my faith has become stronger as a result of this. I also heard from local residents that because of the winery, the fire was stopped in that area, which saved other houses in the town from going up in flames, and that thought gives me some solace.”
Bash noted that the blaze occurred in the Jewish month of Elul, during which Jews examine themselves for their misdeeds and return wholeheartedly to G-d, to follow His commandments with love and awe: “As we stood and watched the winery going up in flames, I was reminded of the prayers we recite on the High Holidays: Who by fire… who will be at ease; and who will be troubled… And I realized that the moment that G-d decided that the winery was going to be burned, that was it – there was nothing anyone could do about it – not the planes, not the fire fighters – because this was G-d’s will. And that thought comforted me.”
Only hours after Minnesota GOP operative Anton Lazarro posted online DNA evidence that allegedly shows Rep. Ilhan Omar was once married to her brother, the FBI busted him.
The test results stated there is a 99.999998 percent chance that Omar and her second husband, Ahmed Elmi, now her ex-husband, are siblings, according to an analysis by British company Endeavor DNA Laboratories. But before Minnesota Republican strategist Anton Lazarro could share the results with the media, he was arrested Thursday on underage sex-trafficking charges and jailed pending a court hearing Monday.
His Web site, IlhanOmarDNA.com, containing the DNA test results, was online briefly before it was taken down Wednesday.
Lazarro and a group of conservative donors had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on three continents hiring private investigators to track down Elmi Omar’s ex-husband in the UK and procure his DNA from a drinking straw. Omar’s DNA, Lazarro’s Web site claimed, was extracted from saliva on a cigarette butt she was photographed smoking.
Omar previously has denied Elmi is her brother, calling the claim “absolutely false,” “absurd” and “offensive.”
Special Agent Joy Hess, from the FBI’s Twin Cities field office, which investigated allegations that Omar married her brother Elmi to get around US immigration laws, says the “statute of limitations” had run out on the case. In a recorded conversation with an associate of Lazarro, posted on his Web site Wednesday, Hess also said that the FBI could not pursue the case because Omar’s ex-husband Elmi had moved overseas.
“The statute of limitations is over,” she said. “According to the US Attorney’s office The Statute of Limitations is not something we can overcome in that matter . . . The individual in question left the country so there’s nothing to [do],” she said.
Asked if the new DNA evidence would be considered, she said: “All I can just say is that according to the United States Attorney’s Office the Statute of Limitations limits what we can do in this matter.”
There is no statute of limitations for immigration fraud, but there also appears to be no appetite in Democratic-run Minneapolis to investigate the claim that has dogged the Democratic Squad member Omar for years.
It is shoddy that private citizens felt compelled to do the FBI’s job. Why didn’t the FBI do their own DNA tests and clear up the cloud hanging over Omar’s head?
The FBI did not respond to questions.
Gunfire could be heard at Kabul International Airport on Monday morning as Afghan citizens flooded the tarmac, some clinging to the jet bridge of a plane, as they desperately tried to flee Taliban. |
Afghanistan’s embattled president left the country Sunday, joining thousands of his fellow citizens and foreigners in a stampede fleeing the advancing Taliban and signaling the end of a 20-year Western experiment aimed at remaking the country.
The Taliban fanned out across the capital, and an official with the militant group said it would soon announce the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan from the presidential palace in Kabul. That was the name of the country under Taliban rule before the militants were ousted by U.S.-led forces after the 9/11 attacks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
The Al-Jazeera news network later aired footage showing a group of Taliban fighters inside the presidential palace.
The city was gripped by panic, with helicopters racing overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents, and the American flag was lowered. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out.
The Chinese state-owned news agency Xinhua published a caricature of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken with appalling anti-Semitic imagery.
The caricature, which accompanied a report about a meeting between Blinken and WHO head Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in Kuwait last month, depicts Blinken with a grossly enlarged nose, devil horns and an American flag cape symbolizing his “power over the world” holding a “COVID origin” report.
“This anti-Semitic tweet from Chinese state media is despicable,” the American Jewish Committee (AJC) stated.
“Xinhua’s depiction of [Blinken], a Jew and stepson of a Holocaust survivor, utilizes overt tropes of anti-Semitism, including a large nose, devil horns, and accusations of global control. What a shameful display.”
“Throughout history, anti-Semites have used ‘Jewish features,’ like enlarged noses, in cartoons or propaganda to sway the public against the Jewish people.”
In this week's Ami Magazine issued on August 11, a broken mother tells a horror story of how a popular Rosh Yeshivah lied and manipulated her, her husband and her 15 year old son.
In Chassidishe Yeshivos this would never have happened, since the bochrum who graduate elementary school continue their learning in the same Yeshiva for High School. If a Chassidishe parent feels that the yeshiva is not a good fit for his child he will try to find him another unaffiliated place, but he can rest assured that his child has a place in the yeshiva he attended, if he wishes to continue.
If you are not Chassidish, but you are more or less Yeshivash, you are up the creek without a paddle.
You have to start searching for a Mesivta or a yeshiva gedoilah that would take your child in, and it's a bloody nightmare, especially if you have no money and no connections.
Greenwald Caterers opened his large catering commissary in Lakewood, and he took Rabbi Gornish from Brooklyn, New York, as he was an established Hashgocha for some large caterers in the Metro New York area.
BMG’s KCL started a vicious campaign against Greenwald caterers to take the KCL. The Lakewood Roshei Yeshiva told Isaac Greenwald, “we know we told you that you don’t have to take the KCL for your hashgocha for your commissary, we changed our mind and you have to take the KCL, otherwise we will publicize that we will not eat from your catering establishment“.
Greenwald Caterers was forced to succumb to the threats and took the KCL and dropped Rabbi Gornish’s Hashgocha.
What is puzzling: at every affair, wedding, convention, etc. the Roshei Yeshiva attend and eat without even knowing if the caterer or Hashgocha are reliable; Yet by Greenwald, they will publicize that they don’t trust him because he does not use the KCL. A wake-up call?
Recently, at a Shabbos simcha catered by Greenwald, BMG’s KCL did not even send a mashgiach (Note: their mashgichim, often are not qualified). The host complained to one of the KCL Rabbonim, how come KCL did not have a mashgiach at my Shabbos affair? The KCL Rabbi got very upset on the host “one more complaint about the KCL the greatest Hashgocha, and we will remove our Hashgocha from Greenwald caterers”.
By the way, BMG’s KCL will never remove their hashgocha from anyplace, as long as they pay their fees and the additional “baksheesh”. BMG’s KCL has been milking heavy fees from Greenwald caterers among other certified establishments for the longest period of time. Isaac Greenwald is deathly afraid to get rid of BMG’s KCL, as the Lakewood Roshei Yeshiva will force him to close up.
Related: Is KCL Really Kosher??
Posted by Yudel Shain- kashrusy@aol.com – I had shimush in Kashrus and Halacha by Reb Moshe Feinstein, Reb Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rav Neuschloss, The Debreciner Rav, Rav Pam, Rav Eliyashev, Reb Shlomo Zalman, Rav Shmuel Wosner, Z”L. I was appointed by Reb Shnuer Kotler as the kitchen Mashgiach in Bais Medrash Govoha (BMG).
A dozen future lone soldiers were among the olim who landed in Israel this week as part of a Nefesh B'Nefesh flight, in cooperation with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, The Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael, JNF-USA and Tzofim-Garin Tzabar.
Some 160 lone soldiers from North America are making aliyah this summer, with approximately 300 expected to arrive by the end of 2021, the organization said.
"It is remarkable to see, that despite the obstacles and challenges over the last year and a half, these young men and women bravely pick up their lives and leave their families in order to contribute to the Jewish State," said Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, executive director of Nefesh B'Nefesh. "These future Lone Soldiers instill in all of us a huge sense of pride and embody the essence of Zionism by choosing to protect and serve the State of Israel."