Weekly roundup of world briefs

US Rep. Torres calls to probe NYC’s ‘failure’ to prosecute hate crimes

(JNS) — New York Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) sent a letter on Friday to the U.S. Department of Justice asking it to investigate what he called New York City’s failure to prosecute anti-Semitic hate crimes.

“I am respectfully asking the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department to consider investigating New York’s systematic failure to police and prosecute hate crimes and to issue recommendations for reform,” Torres wrote to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. 

“The federal government can no longer stand by passively as anti-Semitic violence goes unchecked and unpunished in America’s largest city,” the congressman continued.

In his letter, the Bronx native addressed the rising number of anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City, saying, “Just as alarming as the violence itself has been the government’s deafening inaction.”

The letter referenced a report highlighting that 118 adults have been arrested for anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City since 2018, but only one perpetrator has been convicted and imprisoned.

Israel’s GDP up at 6.8% rate in Q2

(JNS) — The Israeli economy, as measured by GDP, grew at a healthy rate of 6.8 percent on an annualized basis in the second quarter of 2022, the Central Bureau of Statistics) said on Sunday.

That followed a 2.7 percent drop in GDP year on year in the first quarter

The Israeli economy has grown faster since the second quarter of 2021 than any other OECD member county that has reported results to date.

During that 12-month span, Israel’s GDP increased by 7.4 percent, compared to 7.1 percent in Portugal, 6.3 percent in Spain, 6.2 percent in Austria, 5.4 percent in the Netherlands, 4.1 percent in Sweden, 3 percent in South Korea, and barely 1.7 percent in Germany and the United States.

“The return to routine in the second quarter led to the rise in GDP,” said the CBS, adding that hospitality and air-travel services, as well as tourism from other countries, contributed to the rise in GDP in the April-June period.

Japan to deploy Israeli, US drones

(JNS) — The Japanese Defense Ministry plans to deploy Israeli- and U.S.-made attack drones in 2023 to defend isolated islands.

The American-made Switchblade and the Israel Aerospace Industries’ Harop drone are expected to be deployed.

Both are loitering munition weapons (also known as suicide drones or kamikaze drones) that wait passively around the target area and attack once a target is located.

The ministry intends to have in place several hundred attack drones beginning in 2025, including drones manufactured in Japan, to bolster its deterrence capabilities, reported The Japan News, citing government sources.

The report noted that the Ukrainian military has used attack drones against Russian forces, achieving substantial results while limiting deaths.

The government intends to use drones mostly on the Ryukyu Islands (aka the Nansei Islands). It anticipates them being employed in an emergency to strike hostile naval vessels approaching the islands and enemy forces attempting to land. Drones will also be employed for surveillance.

The Harop is around 2.5 meters (8.2 -feet) long and can fly for nine hours, whereas the Switchblade is about 36 centimeters (14 inches) long and is easy to carry, but can only fly for 15 minutes.

Iranian president casts doubt on the reality of the Holocaust

(JNS) — Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, in an interview aired on Sunday, called Israel a “false regime” and suggested that there were only “some signs” the Holocaust had occurred and that research into the validity of them should go forward.

Asked during the interview with CBS‘s 60 Minutes program whether he believed that six million Jews were murdered in the Shoah, Raisi said, “Historical events should be investigated by researchers and historians.”

In response to the comments, Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid posted graphic images from the Holocaust to his official Twitter account.

Asked about Israel’s right to exist, the Iranian president said, “You see, the people of Palestine are the reality. This is the right of the people of Palestine who were forced to leave their houses and motherland. The Americans are supporting this false regime there to take root and to be established there.”

Raisi added that Iran would make no concessions on the deadlocked nuclear negotiations with world powers, aimed at reviving the 2015 deal.

“Yes, they can create restrictions and problems for us and difficulties. But there’s a number of countries that are being sanctioned. By doing this, they are bringing them closer together, making them more united. And this will render American sanctions ineffective,” he said.

Israel warns travelers that Iran continues to target Israelis overseas

(JNS) — The National Security Council Counter-Terrorism Bureau of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office announced on Monday its assessment and travel warnings ahead of the upcoming Jewish high holidays.

Among its conclusions was that Iran and its proxies have intensified their attempts to attack Israelis overseas during the last two years. Several of these attempts were foiled in 2021-2022, including a terrorist plot in Turkey in June 2022.

“We believe that Iran will continue its efforts to attack Israeli targets around the world, in countries that are close to Iran and in Western Europe,” stated the NSC.

“Global jihad and radical Islamic organizations, especially Islamic State, and their supporters, continue to be highly motivated in their efforts to carry out attacks, including against Jewish and Israeli targets, in various countries,” it said.

The NSC added, “This is backed up by open declarations by the organizations’ leaders calling for attacks on Israelis and Jews. These organizations have infrastructure and are active in the Middle East (especially northern Sinai), Africa and Asia. This is in addition to their irregular activity in other countries.”

First digital translation of Mishneh Torah interconnected with other Jewish texts goes online

(JNS) — A complete English translation of the Mishneh Torah interconnected with other Jewish texts is being digitally offered for the first time ever by the nonprofit organization Sefaria, which digitizes and shares Jewish texts for free in Hebrew along with translations and commentaries.

“We are so excited for learners to dive into this rich text and share their reflections with each other and the world,” said Sara Wolkenfeld, Sefaria’s chief learning officer. “For the Jewish people, our texts are our collective inheritance. They belong to everyone and we want them to be available to everyone, in the public domain or with creative commons licenses.”

The Mishneh Torah, authored by the medieval Torah scholar Maimonides, commonly known as the Rambam, between 1170 and 1180, while he lived in Egypt, consists of 14 books and is a major code of Jewish religious law. Users can access it on Sefaria’s website and through the Sefaria app.

The translation provided by Sefaria was completed between 1986 and 2007 by Rabbi Eliyahu Touger. The text on the Sefaria website comes with Hebrew commentaries; interlinking to other religious texts, to help readers understand the work; and topic tagging so they can research related ideas that interest them.

The Sefaria website also allows users to create shareable source sheets that incorporate religious texts from Sefaria’s catalogue with their own commentary.

Sefaria is used by more than 500,000 people each month, including students, educators and scholars.

Hamas leaders in Moscow: We are entitled ‘to resist by every means’

(JNS) — Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s political bureau, his deputy Saleh al-Arouri and bureau members Moussa Abu Marzouq and Maher Salah paid an official visit to Moscow last week at the invitation of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

The Hamas men met with several Russian officials, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his deputy Mikhail Bogdanov. The delegation members emphasized their support for Moscow’s positions on several issues, while Russian officials expressed their support for Hamas, according to a report by MEMRI.

Russia has not classified Hamas as a terrorist group, and officials in the foreign ministry, such as Bogdanov, continue to maintain contact with the movement. In fact, this is not the first time a high-level Hamas delegation has visited Russia; Lavrov also met with Haniyeh in Moscow in 2020.

Bogdanov, a former ambassador to Israel and to Egypt, is also the special representative of the president of Russia for the Middle East and deputy chairman of the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last February, Hamas officials have repeatedly asserted that the war and global events signal that the United States is losing its “hegemonial” status and that the multipolar world order that is taking shape will aid the Palestinian cause, noted the report.

Hamas issued a statement saying that its delegation stressed to Russian officials the Palestinians’ right to “resist the occupation by every possible means, until liberation and return [are achieved].”

They also emphasized the Palestinian people’s right to all its natural resources, “especially the natural gas,” an allusion to the gas field off the Gaza shore. The Hamas delegation decried “the robbing of the Palestinian and Lebanese resources by the [Israeli] enemy.”

101-year-old is oldest to make aliyah from U.S. in five years

(JNS) — A 101-year-old woman who made aliyah from New Jersey last week is the oldest immigrant to move to the Jewish state from the U.S. in the last five years.

Stella Rockoff was born in Jerusalem in 1921, during the British Mandate of Palestine. Her family immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, when she was five and she moved to Pennsylvania after she married Rabbi Herman Rockoff in 1940. She later lived again in New York with her husband and four children, where she worked as executive secretary of the Rabbinical Council of America.

She lived in Clifton, New Jersey, before moving back to Israel last week with a daughter and son-in-law as part of a group of nearly 60 olim from North America. The group arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on an El Al flight organized by Nefesh B’Nefesh in coordination with the Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael and JNF-USA.

“All my life I dreamed of returning to my native country,” said Rockoff. “This is a day of celebration for me. My family left at a time when ‘the Jewish State’ was just an idea, an idea that has since become the State of Israel, now a strong nation and a leader in innovation, and I am proud to finally call it home. I can’t wait to be reunited with my many grandchildren, 22 great-grandchildren, and two more great-great-grandchildren in my old-new home.”

Elaine and Michael Reinheimer, Rockoff’s daughter and son-in-law who made aliyah with her, said, “The idea that she will be reunited with the family in Israel makes mom very happy. The grandchildren and great-grandchildren can’t wait for her to arrive. America has been very good to us, but now it’s time to go home.”

Rabbi Yehoshua Fass, co-founder and executive director of Nefesh B’Nefesh, said Rockoff’s move to Israel proves “that it is never too late to return home.”

American Jew detained in Lebanon on suspicion of espionage after having visited Israel

(JNS) — An American Jew was released from custody in Lebanon after being detained for several days on suspicion of espionage for having booked his hotel reservation in Beirut from Israel, Kan News reported on Monday.

According to the report, the man in his 20s had recently studied at a yeshiva in Jerusalem and then traveled to Lebanon after visiting Cyprus. He intended to go from Beirut to the Kurdish region in Iraq, said the report.

Officials told Kan News that upon arrival at the hotel in the Lebanese capital, he was arrested by authorities because they had discovered he made the reservation while in the Jewish state.

His passport also reportedly indicated that he had been to Israel.

The man was released on Thursday or Friday amid behind-the-scenes diplomatic pressure from U.S. officials and members of Congress, according to the report.

The incident comes as U.S.-brokered talks to resolve a longstanding maritime border dispute between Israel and Lebanon are reportedly making progress.

Israel appoints new ambassador to Turkey

(JNS) — The Israeli Foreign Ministry on Monday announced the appointment of Irit Lillian as ambassador to Turkey, in the latest evidence of rapprochement between the nations following a decade-long-plus rift.

Lillian, who for the last two years has been in charge of the embassy in Ankara, is the first person to hold the post since 2018, when Turkey expelled Israel’s envoy and withdrew its own ambassador from Jerusalem amid fighting between the IDF and Palestinians along the Gaza border.

Once warm relations between Jerusalem and Ankara deteriorated rapidly following the rise to power of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a supporter of Hamas who has been a fierce critic of Israel’s policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians.

Ties reached a nadir in the wake of the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, in which nine Turkish nationals were killed after they attacked Israel Navy commandos boarding the ship, which was sent by an Islamist organization deemed close to Erdoğan and was attempting to break the blockade of Gaza.

In a sign of thawing relations, Israeli President Isaac Herzog visited Turkey in March to meet with Erdogan.

In August, the two countries announced the restoration of full diplomatic relations, with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid saying, “Upgrading relations will contribute to deepening ties between the two peoples, expanding economic, trade and cultural ties, and strengthening regional stability.”

Lapid is scheduled to meet with Erdogan this week on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

IDF chief at Auschwitz: You need only to be human to understand the Nazi genocide

(JNS) — Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on Monday visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp in Poland, where he warned that Iranian Holocaust denial is an “additional reminder that such people must not be allowed to possess any sort of capability to develop lethal weapons.”

Accompanied by a delegation of commanders and officers from all Israeli military branches, Kochavi located the names of his relatives who were murdered during the Nazi era genocide, before taking part in a ceremony dedicated to Jewish heroism.

Referring to comments this week by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi that cast doubt on the veracity of the systematic murder of six million Jews, Kochavi said: “You do not need to be a historian or a researcher in order to understand the atrocities of the Holocaust. You need to be a human being. The pits full of skeletons and corpses and the crematoria cry out from the forests and the extermination camps.

“Any person who lies and denies the truth of this devastating and agonizing history is a person who easily lies today and will continue to do so in the future with no hesitation,” he added.

Iranian Holocaust denial “is an additional reminder” that Tehran cannot be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, said Kochavi.

Israel’s population nears 10 million

(JNS) — The population of Israel is just over 9.5 million people ahead of the Jewish New Year, according to data issued by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics on Tuesday.

The country has a population of 9.593 million people, according to the CBS. 7.069 million (74 percent) identify as Jewish, 2.026 million (21 percent) as Arab and 498,000 (5 percent) as neither.

The bureau states that the Israeli population will reach 10 million by 2024, 15 million by 2048 and 20 million by the end of 2065.

Jews in Israel who are at least 20-years-old are identified as 45.3 percent secular, 19.2 percent traditional, 13.9 percent traditional-religious, 10.7 percent religious and 10.5 percent Haredi.

Average life expectancy for Israeli men is 80.5 years compared to 84.6 years for women.

According to the data, 177,000 babies were born in Israel this year; 49,000 people made aliyah; and 2,000 Israelis returned to Israel after living abroad.