In the last two years, the upscale steakhouse with the modest name of Meat Kitchen has become a popular fixture in Tel Aviv’s kosher dining scene, thanks primarily to the quality aged beef the restaurant serves.
But another reason may well be that both the management and the talent in the kitchen never stop innovating. Meat Kitchen has occasionally introduced special menus, such as Big Sunday burgers and Steak and Wine Tuesdays, and has now taken to updating its regular menu four times a year.
The most recent iteration of the menu, which debuted for Winter 2018, represents a major overhaul.
Naturally, the classic cuts of steak remain unchanged; but most of the appetizers have been tweaked, while a number of creative main dishes are making an appearance for the first time.
Overwhelmingly, the bill of fare appeals to carnivores. Apart from two salads, there are no vegetarian options among the first courses, although when the weather is inclement there is a chance you will find a “soup of the day” written on the blackboard. There are two vegetarian pastas among the main courses, along with a few poultry and fish dishes.
New Hebrew menus are translated right away, so there are always English versions available.
But they go through a long process of corrections.
The bar’s specialty cocktails (NIS 38 to NIS 42) have also been completely revamped as part of the new menu. The Spice Peach – vodka, lemon, peach and cranberry, garnished with lime and mint; and the Mango Dream – spiced rum and mango, with lemon and mint – were tart and refreshing, although the former was a bit sweet as well.
Our first starter was the foie gras, served on a churro surrounded by a salty caramel mousse with pecan crumble and cinnamon (NIS 79).
The sweetness of the Mexican cruller cut the richness of the goose liver, while the caramel mousse – actually, the consistency of a coulis – added a welcome layer of complexity.
Next was red drum fish tartare in a cannelloni of razor-thin pineapple, perched on pineapple carpaccio, with passion fruit and champagne sorbet (NIS 64). The freshness of the raw fish was evident, enhanced by the combination of tart fruit with sweet sorbet. The tartare was also accompanied by a pineapple and lemongrass sauce, which was very nice but had to be drizzled with care lest it overwhelm the delicate fish.
Our intermediate course was a colorful leaf and root salad comprising Romaine lettuce, salanova, purple endive, radish, shallots, pomelo, carrot and walnuts, dressed with a pineapple vinaigrette (NIS 54). The assorted fresh vegetables with juicy citrus and crunchy nuts yielded a pleasant interplay of flavors and textures.
Our first choice of main course was lamb chops, with cubed potatoes and onion stuffed with slow-cooked lamb (NIS 195). The three large chops were superb – grilled perfectly, topped with chopped pistachio nuts and served with a piquant vinaigrette of lamb broth and shipka peppers.
The special of the day was a Denver cut (price may vary), a positively succulent steak served sliced on a bed of cubed potatoes.
It came with a beef stock and mustard sauce, which did more for the bland potatoes than the meat, which absolutely needed no condiments.
Meat Kitchen boasts an excellent wine list, with a reasonable number of vintages available by the glass (NIS 32 to NIS 52). We enjoyed the Tulip white franc, a crisp and fruity pink wine, and the Vitkin Israeli Journey, a full-bodied red blend.
All the desserts are also new. Our waitress practically insisted we try the pistachio parfait, a soupy parfait with coffee cookies, caramelized pistachio nuts, cocoa crumble, cocoa tuile, fresh berries and halva sorbet (NIS 54). This was a delicious dessert that was not overly sweet.
Finally, we ordered the lone chocolate option, the semifreddo chocolate mousse: two bars of light mousse drenched in dark chocolate ganache, accompanied by nougat truffles, chocolate sponge, olive oil cream, cocoa crumble, gold powder, cocoa and raspberry tuile and chocolate sorbet (NIS 64). With two of everything scattered about the plate, it was easy to share and as decadently good as if it contained dairy.
Israeli director Eran Riklis will start filming the international spy thriller Spider in the Web in Europe in the spring.
It will star Oscar-winner Sir Ben Kingsley as an aging espionage agent whose superiors think he is no longer up to the job. When he gets some key information about a Middle East dictatorship buying chemical weapons, he hopes to get back in the game by tracking Angela (Monica Bellucci), an enigmatic woman who may hold the key to the mystery. But he is shadowed by a younger agent, played by Itay Tiran, who has starred in the Israeli television series Hostages and Mossad 101, as well as the movies Lebanon and Afterthought.
Riklis directed the Shelter, which is currently in theaters, as well as a long list of Israeli and international films, including The Syrian Bride, Dancing Arabs and Lemon Tree.
Spider in the Web was written by Gidon Maron and Emmanuel Nakkache. Michael Sharfshtein of Topia Communications and Eran Riklis are producing the film, with Moshe and Leon Edery of United King Films, Jacqueline de Goeij for Cine Cri de Coeur, Sabine Brian and Ronald Versteeg for NL Films and Eyal Edery for Dragocom. Ira Riklis, Dana Lustig and Fabien Westerhoff are the executive producers.
“Spider is an intimate story, depicting the complexities of trust, loyalty and betrayal. It explores my central, universal motifs of self-discovery and identity, in a modern thriller that reflects current geopolitics,” Riklis says.
Anabe is a vibrant restaurant in a calm and peaceful setting. Arriving from the ever-noisy and bustling streets of central Tel Aviv, we were immediately struck by the serene surroundings of the restaurant in Modi’in. We went there for dinner, but the view of the Anabe Park and Esplanade would make a beautiful setting for breakfast or lunch on the patio.
The interior of the restaurant is pleasant and modern, familyfriendly but also a good spot for a romantic meal or a fun night out with friends.
The staff were very attentive, already offering us something to drink as we waited to be seated. We were soon led to a candlelit table for two. I ordered a glass of red Malbec wine (NIS 32), and my partner ordered a bottle of Leffe Blonde beer (NIS 32). While I was in the mood for wine that night, the barman appeared to be doing a good job of mixing temptinglooking cocktails behind the bar.
We began our meal with perfectly flame-grilled eggplant, topped with tahini, a boiled egg and a mild green pepper (NIS 40). In addition, we had fried cauliflower (NIS 42), which was nicely zesty due to the lemon seasoning, as well as tasty falafel made with quinoa, which gave it an original twist. The falafel balls were topped with delicious strips of crispy onion, served on a bed of fresh salad (NIS 44). Our starters were accompanied by warm house bread with a pesto dip and a tomato salsa (NIS 22).
For the main course, I opted for the Corvina fish (NIS 98). The fish was cooked satisfactorily and was served on artichoke and citrus zest puree, which was delightfully sweet and tangy. The fish was accompanied by spinach and zucchini.
My dining companion went for a steak with chimichurri (NIS 124), which he demolished with gusto, though he had no room left for his side of mashed potatoes topped with crispy onions.
Bursting at the seams by this point, we decided to share a dessert – vanilla ice cream served with a generous helping of halva strands, pistachio nuts and drizzled with raw tahini and date honey (NIS 32). It was the perfect dessert for the tahini-loving sweet tooth. The restaurant owner sent us a bonus dessert of pineapple ice cream (NIS 45), which was beautifully presented, served in the shell of half a pineapple on a bed of mintflavored crushed ice.
Dining at Anabe is an all-round enjoyable experience, and the waiters go above and beyond to make their customers feel happy and spoiled.
The writer was a guest of the restaurant.
Anabe Not kosher 1 Emek Zvulun, Modi’in Tel: 077-729-6363
Irish ambassador to Israel Alison Kelly said Wednesday that a recent bill in Ireland calling for a boycott of Israeli settlements in the West Bank was raised by independent representatives in the senate, and that the Irish government opposes it.
According to the Foreign Ministry, which summond her over the bill, she added that the legislation was not linked to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, that Ireland’s government does oppose BDS. The ambassador was summoned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify the legislative iniative.
Rodica Radian-Gordon, the ministry’s deputy director general for Western Europe, emphasized firm opposition to the legal initiative and said that any law to boycott settlements is BDS. She requested from the embassy to bring that message to Irish authorities.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned new legislation in Ireland that could forbid the import and sale of products from Israeli settlements, instructing the foreign ministry to summon Ireland’s ambassador to express disatisfaction and clarify the matter.
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Thank you,
The email address you have provided is already registered.
The Danish ambassador to Israel was also summoned to the Foreign Ministry on a similar matter this week. All told, three European ambassadors to Israel were summoned to the Foreign Ministry for clarifications this week: Those from Poland, Denmark and Ireland.
The Irish senate debated the bill on Tuesday. Beyond outlawing the import or sale of such products, it would also ban services originating from the occupied territories.
The senate decided that debates regarding the bill will be formally adjourned until July. “This will allow the Irish government five months to progress a diplomatic approach and action at European Union level. It also gives more time for improvements, amendments and changes to the bill,” people involved in the matter told Haaretz.
In his statement, Netanyahu said that the initiative gives backing to those who seek to boycott Israel and completely contravenes the guiding principles of free trade and justice.
Israelis voice support
A group of Israeli activists, among them former members of Knesset, legal experts, ex-ambassadors, artists and academics, sent a written petition to the Irish parliament, asking it to support a bill that forbids the sale and export of products from Israeli settlements.
“We, concerned citizens of Israel, … urge Ireland to support any legislation that will help enforce differentiation between Israel per se and the settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem,” read the letter, which was published in The Irish Times. “The Israeli occupation of the territories beyond the 1967 borders, ongoing for more than 50 years with no end in sight, is not only unjust but also stands in violation of numerous UN resolutions.”
The letter ends, “As people who care deeply for Israel’s future and long for our country to live in peace with its neighbors, we urge you to support the aforementioned Bill.”
Former lawmaker Uri Avnery topped the list of signatories, which included former ambassadors Elie Barnavi, Ilan Baruch and Alon Liel; former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair; former MKs Roman Bronfman, Avraham Burg, Naomi Chazan, Tzali Reshef and Yael Dayan; and artists Dani Karavan, Alex Levac, David Tartakover and Miki Kratsman.
The bill references the Fourth Geneva Convention and calls “to make it an offence for a person to import or sell goods or services originating in an occupied territory or to extract resources from an occupied territory in certain circumstances.”
The bill would not only apply to Israeli settlements, but to all illegal settlements around the world. It would therefore theoretically pertain to Western Sahara, northern Cyprus and Crimea.
BEIRUT – Lebanon vowed to protect its maritime borders from Israeli threats, Energy Minister Cesar Abi Khalil said on Wednesday.
“Lebanon will use all available methods to fend off the Israeli aggression that was announced today,” he said in televised comments.
Israel described as “very provocative” a Lebanese offshore oil and gas exploration tender in disputed territory on the countries’ maritime border, and urged international firms not to bid. Lebanese President Michel Aoun described the comments as “a threat.”
WASHINGTON – A train traveling from Washington to West Virginia carrying Republican members of the US House of Representatives on Wednesday collided with a garbage truck but only minor injuries were sustained on the train, according to a source on the train.
There were a “few bumps and bruises” sustained by passengers, said the source who asked not to be identified, and provided the information by email.
The train was taking lawmakers to an annual retreat being held this year in West Virginia.
BEIRUT – Lebanon’s Hezbollah pledged on Wednesday to confront any threats to the country’s “oil and gas rights” after Israeli comments urging firms not to bid on a Lebanese offshore energy tender.
“We confirm again our firm and honest position to decisively confront any assault on our oil and gas rights, and protect (Lebanon’s) wealth,” the Iran-backed Shi’ite political and military movement said in a statement.
Israel described as “very provocative” a Lebanese offshore oil and gas exploration tender in disputed territory on the countries’ maritime border. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said the comments were one of several “threatening messages” from Israel in recent days.
BERLIN – The German government’s human rights commissioner on Wednesday condemned Iran’s reported execution of a man who was 15 years old when he committed his crime, calling it a completely unacceptable violation of international law.
Baerbel Kofler criticized Tehran’s reported execution of Ali Kazemi, 22, on Monday, and said the man’s attorney had not even been informed of the pending execution.
Kazemi had been accused of fatally wounding another youth in a brawl involving several other people.
Kofler urged Tehran to halt the planned execution of another man, Hamid Ahmadi, 27, who was 17 at the time of his alleged crime, saying there were “significant doubts” about whether the rule of law was sufficiently applied in his trial.
Ahmadi was convicted and sentenced to death in 2009, with the sentence reaffirmed in a second trial in 2016. He was also accused of killing another youth with a knife during a group fight. His execution is expected at any time.
“This policy of executions must stop,” Kofler said in a statement. The executions were in direct violation of UN conventions on the rights of children and international treaties on civil and political rights signed by Iran, he said.
Germany remains committed to the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, but has been outspoken about Iran’s violation of human rights, its support for violence in the region and its continued development of long-range missiles.
A federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled on Wednesday that Twitter Inc is not liable to families of two U.S. government contractors killed in an Islamic State attack in Jordan for having failed to block that group from using its accounts and messaging services.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 3-0 that the families failed to show that the Nov. 9, 2015 shooting deaths of Lloyd Fields and James Creach at a police training center in Amman resulted from Twitter’s knowing material support of Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack.
Circuit Judge Milan Smith said no damages were justified under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act because the plaintiffs, who include the victims’ widows, did not show “at least some direct relationship” between their injuries and Twitter’s conduct.
He said the plaintiffs did not show any connection between Twitter and the shooter, Jordanian police officer Anwar Abu Zeid, or that the attack was helped by or resulted from Islamic State’s presence on Twitter. The gunman was later killed by local security forces.
“Communication services and equipment are highly interconnected in modern economic and social life, such that the provision of these services and equipment to terrorists could be expected to cause ripples of harm to flow far beyond the defendant’s misconduct,” Smith wrote. “Nothing in [the law] indicates that Congress intended to provide a remedy to every person reached by these ripples.”
Joshua Arisohn, a lawyer for the families, said in an email that his clients were “extremely disappointed” and were weighing their legal options.
“Requiring a more direct connection between the provision of material support to terrorists and the attacks that they carry out contravenes the central purpose of the Anti-Terrorism Act: holding enablers of terrorists accountable,” he said.
Twitter and its lawyer, Seth Waxman of WilmerHale, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
A diplomatic dispute between Poland and Israel over pending Polish legislation that would outlaw blaming Poland for the crimes of the Holocaust, has led to an outburst of anti-Semitic comments in Poland, including some in the government-controlled media.
Poland’s lower house of parliament gave its approval Friday to the “Death Camps Law,” which calls for penalties of up to three years in prison for anyone who “publicly and against the facts” accuses the Polish people of crimes committed by Nazi Germany during World War II. The bill was still on the agenda for the Polish Senate on Wednesady, but it was unclear if a vote would take place.
The harsh criticism of the proposed law in Israel has offended many in Poland, including those who oppose the law and any expressions of anti-Semitism. The Israeli media, politicians and Foreign Ministry have all come out strongly against the bill, which seems to have surprised the Polish government – and led to the latest outbreak of anti-Semitic expression, including on social networks and in the Polish media.
As a result, the Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that it was “following with concern the expressions of an anti-Semitic nature in the Polish media, and was considering an inquiry on the matter through the [Israeli] Embassy in Warsaw.”
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Thank you,
The email address you have provided is already registered.
Close
Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party says the law is meant to fight expressions like “Polish death camps” to refer to the wartime camps that Nazi Germany operated in occupied Poland. Poles were among those imprisoned, tortured and killed in the camps, and many today feel Poles are being unfairly depicted as perpetrators of the Holocaust.
As part of the same effort, the government launched a website on Tuesday in Polish, German and English with documentary evidence that death camps like Auschwitz were built and operated by Nazi Germany, which is the historically accurate account.
Germany occupied Poland in 1939, annexing part of it to Germany and directly governing the rest. Unlike other countries occupied by Germany at the time, there was no collaborationist government in Poland. The pre-war Polish government and military fled into exile, except for an underground resistance army that fought the Nazis inside the country.
The Israeli government in the past has supported the campaign against the phrase “Polish death camps,” but it has strongly criticized the new legislation, which still must be approved by the Senate and President Andrzej Duda, who both support it.
In one of his recent speeches, Duda said Poland has the right to fight the distortion of its history during the period of the Holocaust, just as Jews have the right to fight against anti-Semitism.
Israel, along with several international Holocaust organizations and many critics in Poland, argues that the law could have a chilling effect on debating history, harming freedom of expression and leading to a whitewashing of Poland’s wartime history, which also includes episodes of Poles killing Jews or denouncing them to the Germans.
Polish Holocaust and World War II scholars, as well as international organizations including the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center in Jerusalem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, are among groups who have criticized the law. Critics have said they fear the law could lead to self-censorship in academia and that the legislation — which also mentions “other crimes against peace and humanity” — is so broad that it could be used to fight any form of criticism against Poland by authorities – who already being accused of eroding democratic standards.
In a sign of the sensitivities on both sides, Knesset member Yair Lapid, head of Israel’s centrist Yesh Atid party and the son of a Holocaust survivor, insisted in a heated Twitter exchange with the Polish Embassy that “there were Polish death camps and no law can ever change that.” An Israeli journalist, Lahav Harkov, also wrote a tweet that consisted only of the phrase “Polish death camps” repeated 14 times.
Far-right groups have called a demonstration Wednesday in front of the Israeli Embassy in Warsaw to protest the “anti-Polish” sentiment they say is being propagated by Israel and some media.
And there has been an eruption of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish comments online and in the media, including in state media, which is tightly controlled by the right-wing ruling Law and Justice party.
The director of the state-run television station TVP 2, Marcin Wolski, even went so far as to say Monday on air that the Nazi death camps should actually be called Jewish. “Who managed the crematoria there?” he asked — a reference to the fact that death camp prisoners, usually Jews, were forced as slave laborers to help dispose of gas chamber victims.
Wolski was joined on his show by a right-wing commentator, Rafal Ziemkiewicz, who only a day earlier had used an extremely derogatory term to refer to Jews on Twitter. His comment was later removed.
And on another talk show Saturday, the day after the lower house of parliament approved the law, on Polish state TV, anti-Semitic messages posted by viewers on Twitter were shown at the bottom of the screen as one participant said that a Jewish guest was “not really Polish.” The state television director later apologized for the messages, blaming a technical glitch that caused them to go onto the screen unedited.
In another case, a Polish state radio commentator, Piotr Nisztor, suggested that Poles who support the Israeli position should consider relinquishing their citizenship.
“If somebody acts as a spokesman for Israeli interests, maybe they should think about giving up their Polish citizenship and accepting Israeli citizenship,” Nisztor said in a comment carried on the radio’s official Twitter account.
Some commentators in Poland, however, expressed dismay, saying it reminded them of an official state-sponsored anti-Semitic campaign carried out by Communist authorities in 1968.
“There has been a lot of hate speech against refugees and Muslims over the past two years in state media, but anti-Semitism was so far rare,” said Rafal Pankowski, who monitors anti-Semitism and other forms of extremism as head of the Never Again association. “But in the last couple of days it seems the floodgates have opened.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki agreed after speaking by phone Sunday night to try to resolve differences over the legislation by convening a group of history experts, though it was unclear how effective that will be given the strong support for the bill by the ruling Law and Justice party.
Morawiecki tweeted a story this week intended to exemplify the injustice done to Poland by those who say the country took part in carrying out the Holocaust. “A gang of professional thugs enters a two-family house. They kill the first family almost entirely. They kill the parents of the second, torturing the kids. They loot and raze the house. Could one, in good conscience, say that the second family is guilty for the murder of the first?” tweeted Morawiecki.
Before the outbreak of World War II, Jews had lived in Poland for centuries, thriving in some eras and even becoming the world’s largest Jewish population at one point. But anti-Semitism in the decades before the war had grown virulent, driving many Polish Jews to emigrate.
Relations between Jews and Poles had seen efforts of reconciliation since the fall of communism, but some fear the current controversy has set that back.
Agnieszka Markiewicz, director for AJC’s Warsaw Central Europe, a Jewish global advocacy group, called the language on state media “shocking.”
“It is hard to imagine that there is actually space in the Polish public sphere for such anti-Semitic language and discourse,” she said. “It’s unacceptable, I believe, not only for Polish Jews, but also for millions of Poles who know World War II history.”
The Polish Jewish community numbers only a few thousand people, and most of them live in Warsaw. The Polish government and president officially oppose any signs of anti-Semitism and have spoken out harshly against any expression of anti-Semitism. But occasionally anti-Semitic incidents have been documented in Poland, even though they are sporadic and usually carried out by individuals and not in an organized manner. Such acts are condemned by authorities and dealt with legally. For example, in 2015 a Pole set a doll depicting a Jew on fire during a demonstration in the city of Wroclaw and was sentenced to prison.
Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit said Wednesday that the criminal investigations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were close to completion. He emphasized that they have not been influenced by extraneous considerations, including political ones.
“We are absolutely in the final stretch. We will move on to hearing the legal opinions and making decisions,” he told an Israel Bar Association meeting of chief legal advisers in Tel Aviv.
“Let the Israel Police do their job. We are doing everything we can to clarify the suspicions. There is no basis for attributing alien considerations to the investigation or, heaven forbid, political ones. You need to remember that a criminal investigation is not a reality show. You can’t share every given moment with the public. If we did that, we would impair the search for the truth,” Mendelblit said.
“We will not be afraid to make difficult decisions,” the attorney general added. “Everything will be done by the book. I am aware of the burden of responsibility.”
Netanyahu is under police investigation in two cases. One dubbed Case 1000 involves valuable gifts that Netanyahu andhis family allegedly received from several leading business figures.
Avichai Mendelblit speaking at an Israel Bar Association meeting, January 31, 2018.Tomer Appelbaum
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Thank you,
The email address you have provided is already registered.
Close
The other, Case 2000, is an investigation of conversations between the prime minister and the publisher of the Yedioth Ahronoth daily, Arnon Mozes, in which there was allegedly discussion of Netanyahu pursuing government policy beneficial to Yedioth in return for favorable coverage in the newspaper.
The prime minister has said that he never intended to follow through on what was discussed with Mozes, and denies any wrongdoing in either case.
Mendelblit was critical of news coverage of the investigations that he claimed purported to reveal information about the investigations and the considerations involved in decision making in the cases.
“I would like to state clearly. Some of the reports are simply false,” he said. “And the same goes for things purportedly said by my associates or those around me. These comments do not reflect my worldview. No conclusions of any kind should be made or attempts to glean future outcomes from these statements.”
“When I want to convey a message to the public, I know how to do it and I do it myself,” the attorney general said. “I suggest that the public rely exclusively on official statements and be wary of unauthorized reports.”
In January, it was reported that police recommendations in Case 1000 would likely be delayed, in part due to the need to question the prime minister again, but that they would be submitted by early March.
When Elliot Vaisrub Glassenberg was growing up in suburban Chicago in the 1990s, his Jewish day school taught him that being Jewish meant standing up for the oppressed and being compassionate to others. The biblical injunction to love the stranger because you were once strangers in the land of Egypt was not a suggestion but a code of ethics, he says.
But Glassenberg says that when he immigrated to Israel in 2011, he was shocked by the disdain for the “stranger” he saw in the general Israeli attitude toward African asylum seekers – most of them from Sudan and Eritrea – who had made the difficult and often perilous journey overland to the Jewish state from Egypt.
It was not just the government’s policy of detaining the Africans and not recognizing them as refugees that took him aback. It was also the attitude of many of the Israelis he encountered, who seemed, he thought, content to accept the government’s labeling of the asylum seekers as “infiltrators” and possible demographic threats to the Jewish state.
Glassenberg, 34, attributes this to Israelis growing up with existential fears and a succession of wars that reinforced a fear of the “other.”
In contrast, he says, he and many of his Diaspora counterparts were “taught that diversity and pluralism is a good thing.” They also know what it means to be a minority and the feeling of vulnerability, but also the perspective that this can bring, he says. “But many of my Israeli peers – they were brought up not knowing people of color and not knowing people who are not Jewish,” adds Glassenberg, who now works as an envoy (shaliah) for the Jewish Agency in Chicago.
Thank you for signing up.
We’ve got more newsletters we think you’ll find interesting.
Click here
Oops. Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Thank you,
The email address you have provided is already registered.
Close
From his Illinois office, he has become involved in the growing organized efforts by North America’s Jewish community to lobby the Israeli government to reconsider its approach to the asylum seekers, who today number an estimated 38,000.
Many U.S. Jews are urging Israel to provide the asylum seekers with an opportunity to file applications for their status as refugees, so their backgrounds can be checked fairly and transparently – instead of being labeled en masse as economic migrants, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called them in a cabinet meeting on Sunday.
Approximately 60,000 African asylum seekers have come through Israel over the last decade or so, and some have subsequently accepted the government’s offer of a one-off payment of $3,500 to voluntarily be deported to those “third countries” or their homelands. But deportations have been followed by testimonies alleging they have been moved on or been robbed of their payments. There have also been stories that some faced human trafficking or even death as they sought to move on from Africa to Europe.
After the Israeli government stepped up its efforts to deport the asylum seekers in December, a letter from the heads of several major U.S. Jewish organizations was among the first calling for it to reverse its position. That has snowballed into petitions and letters by rabbis, Jewish professionals, the Reform movement and other concerned Jews overseas.
Most recently, a campaign was launched by Diaspora Jews called Let Us Help. Its social media-minded message is “Join Us. Tell Israel: #DontDeport #LetUsHelp.”
A petition signed by more than 850 rabbis, cantors, and rabbinical and cantorial students from Orthodox, Conservative Reconstructionist and Reform streams around the world implored Israel to reverse course, saying: “As a country founded by refugees, and whose early leaders helped to craft the 1951 International Convention on the Status of Refugees, Israel must not deport those seeking asylum within its borders. We Jews know far too well what happens when the world closes its doors to those forced to flee their homes.
“Our own experience of slavery and liberation, and our own experience as refugees, compel us to act with mercy and justice toward those seeking refuge among us. Please affirm these Jewish values, as well as Israel’s international commitments, by stopping the deportations,” the letter stated.
Among the growing number of Israelis on the ground mobilizing against the deportation – including prominent authors, filmmakers and doctors – are a significant number of Diaspora-born immigrants. Some of them were previously involved in the social activism of earlier eras, first for Soviet Jewry and, later, on behalf of Ethiopian Jews seeking immigration to Israel.
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, told Haaretz via email that the Israeli government position on African asylum seekers is “simply put, at odd odds with Jewish values.”
Israel at Heart founder Joey Low, fourth from left, who has become an advocate for African asylum seekers in Israel. “I cannot sit by and do nothing,” he says.courtesy of Joey Low
And in a statement last Friday, the Reform movement said: “We recognize that there are many in the world in need of assistance, and it is unreasonable to expect Israel to accept an indefinite number of newcomers. Still, Israel has the ability to assist and absorb the 37,885 asylum seekers already in the country,” it said, citing Population, Immigration and Border Authority data. “The real threat to its Jewish character is the refusal to provide shelter to the persecuted.”
For American Jews in particular, the issue of race is also impossible to ignore.
Even a prominent pro-Israel supporter like Alan Dershowitz is taking the Israeli government to task. “The whiff of racism can’t be avoided when you have a situation where 40,000 people of color are the ones who are being deported en masse, without being individualized and every single case considered on its merits,” the Harvard law professor told ILTV Daily recently. He said that Israel’s Law of Return, which grants citizenship to any person officially recognized as Jewish, “shouldn’t be a law that excludes others from being valuable citizens.”
Dershowitz added that, in terms of presenting Israel to the world in a positive light – given that “many now consider Israel an apartheid” state – “doing the right thing with regard to these 40,000 people is a test, a true test of Israel’s soul.” He then recounted the story of how 29 members of his own family came to the United States illegally in 1939.
Like many of his Diaspora counterparts, the stories of the African refugees felt personal and relatable to those of their own families fleeing persecution, whether from Nazi Germany, Czarist Russia or elsewhere.
The other ‘other’
But while many Diaspora Jews and Jewish organizations have come out strongly against Israel’s treatment of the African asylum seekers, some of these same people – Dershowitz arguably the most prominent among them – have historically been reluctant to speak out about Palestinian human rights.
Rabbi Ayelet S. Cohen, senior director in the New York/Tri-State Region at the New Israel Fund – an organization that has been outspoken on both Palestinian human rights and the asylum seekers (it helped organize the Jewish clergy letter) – suggests this is because the planned deportations are “so egregious that even people not accustomed to criticizing Israel feel compelled to speak out right now.”
Jacobs, meanwhile, notes that “this is a less complicated issue. There appears to be a ready solution to this situation of the asylum seekers – albeit one the government has decided against, but one around which those of us who seek a different outcome can coalesce. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex situation, regardless of the concern that we have, as do others, for the character of the Jewish state,” he wrote.
Joey Low is a New York-based investor and pro-Israel activist who spends several months a year in Israel. He founded and donated millions of dollars to the nonprofit Israel at Heart (which sends young Israelis abroad as ambassadors to help promote Israel’s image), but says he’s heartsick over the looming deportations.
A son of refugees who fled Nazi Europe, he says his latest mission is to exert pressure on Netanyahu’s government. “I was always raised knowing my dad was angry at the world for not doing more to help him. He was so vulnerable and no one helped,” Low says. “So now I cannot sit by and do nothing.”
Talking to: Orly Noy, 47, lives in Jerusalem; political activist, editor on the political website Sicha Mekomit (+972 Magazine), translator. Where: A Tel Aviv caf. When: Monday, 10 A.M.
TEL AVIV – The United States pledged continued support for Lebanon’s military on Wednesday, calling it a potential counterweight to Iranian-backed Hezbollah, even as Israel said the two forces were indistinguishable and fair game in any future war.
Such a public difference of opinion between two close allies was remarkable enough, but especially so as it was sounded by senior officials at the same event – an Israeli security conference.
The Lebanese Armed Forces took no part in the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, which killed around 1,200 people in Lebanon and 158 Israelis. It has received more than $1.5 billion in US military assistance since then and, in the last seven years, training and support from US special forces too.
With Hezbollah having helped sway the Syrian civil war in President Bashar Assad’s favor, Israel and the United States both worry that the Iranian-backed militia could now broaden its clout in its Lebanese heartland. They disagree on whether the Lebanese army would help or hinder Hezbollah’s expansion.
“We will sustain our efforts to support legitimate state security institutions in Lebanon, such as the Lebanese Armed Forces, which is the only legitimate force in Lebanon,” David Satterfield, acting assistant US secretary of state, told the conference organized by Tel Aviv University’s INSS think-tank.
Satterfield, a former US ambassador to Lebanon, added that the Lebanese army “could well serve as a counter-weight to Hezbollah’s desire to expand its own influence there, as well as Iran’s reach in Lebanon.”
But speaking three hours later on the same stage, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman reiterated his view that the Lebanese army was subordinate to the better-equipped Hezbollah.
“As far as I’m concerned, all of Lebanon – the Lebanese army, Lebanon and the Lebanese army – are no different from Hezbollah,” said Liberman, a far-rightist in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conservative coalition government.
“They are part of Hezbollah and they will all pay the full price” for any large-scale attack on Israel, Lieberman added.
The INSS conference coincided with heightened concern in Israel about what it describes as Iranian efforts to fit precision-guidance systems onto Hezbollah’s longer-range missiles – improvements that could potentially allow the fighters to knock out key Israeli infrastructure.
Israel’s public response has been to lobby Russia – which has some sway over Iran and Hezbollah because of their alliance in Syria. Israel has also issued explicit warnings that it would devastate Lebanon should Hezbollah launch another war. There was no immediate response from Hezbollah or the Lebanese military to Liberman’s comments. Neither Hezbollah nor Iran has responded to the Israeli allegations about missile conversions.
The Lebanese military has previously said it operates independently from Hezbollah, most recently during an operation against Islamic State at the Lebanese-Syrian border last year, during which the army said there was absolutely no coordination with Hezbollah fighters who attacked IS from the Syrian side.
Lieberman made similar remarks about the Lebanese military in October, marking a hard tack from more measured Israeli estimates that the Lebanese army maintained autonomy even if some of its troops cooperated with Hezbollah.
GENEVA – The United Nations human rights office said on Wednesday it had identified 206 companies so far doing business linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where it said violations against Palestinians are “pervasive and devastating.”
The report is politically sensitive because companies in the UN database could be targeted for boycotts or divestment aimed at stepping up pressure on Israel over its settlements, which many countries view as illegal.
“The majority of these companies are domiciled in Israel or the settlements (143), with the second largest group located in the United States (22). The remainder are domiciled in 19 other countries,” the UN human rights office said in a statement.
The report, which did not name the companies but said that 64 of them had been contacted to date, said that the work in producing the database “does not purport to constitute a judicial process of any kind.”
Its mandate was to identify businesses involved in the construction of settlements, surveillance, services including transport, and banking and financial operations such as loans for housing that may raise human rights concerns.
Human rights violations associated with the settlements are “pervasive and devastating, reaching every facet of Palestinian life,” the report said. It cited restrictions on freedom of religion, movement and education as well as lack of access to land, water and livelihoods.
Israel assailed the Human Rights Council in March 2016 for launching the initiative at the request of countries led by Pakistan, calling the database a “blacklist” and accusing the 47-member state forum of behaving “obsessively” against Israel.
Israel’s mission in Geneva said on Wednesday that it was preparing a statement responding to the UN report.
“We hope that our work in consolidating and communicating the information in the database will assist States and businesses in complying with their obligations and responsibilities under international law,” said UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein.
Zeid’s office deferred the report last February saying it needed more time to establish the database. It is to be debated at the main annual session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, being held in Geneva from Feb 26-March 23.
The United States government has designated Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh as a specially designated terrorist, becoming the first country outside of Israel to do so, Ambassador Nathan A. Sales, the Coordinator for Counterterrorism told The Jerusalem Post.
“Ismail Haniyeh has been involved in Hamas’ campaign of terrorism against Israel for years and even decades. The United States is not fooled by any attempt by Hamas to rebrand itself. We know it for what it is, a terror organization committed to the destruction of the State of Israel.”
Following the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital by US President Donald Trump on December 6, Haniyeh called for a violent uprising in response to the move that he vowed would continue until “Jerusalem’s liberation.”
According to Sales, the consequences of this designation under executive order 13224 which aims to impede terrorist funding, is “significant.”
“All assets belonging to Haniyeh under US jurisdiction will be frozen,” Sales told The Post.“This designation allows us to dry up the sources of funding and kick them out of the international financial system. We don’t want to only stop the bomber, but the person who buys the bombs.”
Israeli officials have accused Iran of growing involvement in funding terror groups such as Hamas to carry out attacks against the Jewish State, with IDF Chief of Staff stating that the Islamic Republic had increased its funding to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to the tune of $100 million in order to have more influence in the Gaza Strip.
According to Sales, while the increased ties between Hamas and Iran do play a role in the designation, the Trump’s administration’s top priority is to defeat terrorism “in all its forms” that threaten the United States and its allies.
“Israel is of course one of our closest allies, especially when it comes to counter terrorism. We have a strong interest in ensuring the continued security of Israel and so groups like Hamas and Hezbollah which threaten Israel on a daily basis, we will do what we can to put pressure to bear on those groups.”
While the United States is the first country outside Israel to designate Haniyeh, other Hamas members such as Yahya Sinwar and Muhammed Deif were designated in September 2015.
In addition to Haniyeh’s designation, the United States will also be designating Harkaat al-Sabareen, an Iranian-backed terror group in the Gaza Strip which broke from Islamic Jihad in May 2014.
“This group has launched rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip and has also planned deadly terror attacks,” Sales said, adding that the group is part of Iran’s network of terror organizations which it uses to spread its influence around the world.
“By designating this group we are signaling very clearly that Iran’s consistent support for terrorism is incompatible with the values of a civilized society and must stop.”
Two Egyptian terror groups will also be designated by the US government as Foreign Terror Organizations, Liwa al-Thura and Hazm, both offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood movement.
“These groups, in their relatively short history have compiled a truly bloody record of killing senior Egyptian government and military officials as well as innocent civilians. A stable Egypt is in the interest of the United States and in the interest of Israel, and this is why we are pursuing these two designations.”
Israeli NGO Shurat HaDin filed a suit in the Jerusalem’s Magistrate court this week against two New Zealand women for damages over a canceled Lorde concert.
In December, the New Zealand singer and songwriter announced she would be playing a show in Tel Aviv in June. Lorde immediately faced an online campaign aimed at getting her to cancel the gig, which ultimately proved successful just a week later.
The two women named in the lawsuit — Justine Sachs and Nadia Abu-Shanab — were among the most active voices in the campaign. The pair wrote an open letter to Lorde posted on the New Zealand site Spinoff calling on the artist to cancel her show since it would be seen as “giving support to the policies of the Israeli government, even if you make no comment on the political situation.”
In response to that letter, Lorde wrote on Twitter “Noted! Been speaking w many people about this and considering all options. Thank u for educating me i am learning all the time too.” Several days later, she canceled the show.
Shurat Hadin — Israel Law Center filed the lawsuit on Tuesday on behalf of three Israeli minors who had bought tickets and were hoping to attend the show. The suit requests NIS 45,000 in damages — NIS 15,000 for each of the complainants. Tickets went on sale for NIS 289 each, and were refunded upon cancellation of the show.
The lawsuit cites the controversial 2011 Israeli Anti-Boycott law, which allows for civil suits against entities who have called for a boycott of the state. The law has never been tested in court, according to the NGO.
Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president of Shurat Hadin and the attorney who filed Tuesday’s suit, said the defendants sought to harm Israeli citizens.
“The cancellation of performances in Israel due to the pressure of pro-Palestinian organizations over the years has hurt the feelings and identity of hundreds of thousands of Israelis,” Darshan-Leitner said in a released statement. “This is a precedent-setting suit aimed at deterring BDS activists from calling for a boycott of Israel. We hope the court will implement the new law and issue compensation in favor of the plaintiffs. That way the boycott activists will know that there is a price for every action against Israeli citizens.”
Sachs, the co-founder of Dayenu: New Zealand Jews Against Occupation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment via Twitter. In her posts, the activist originally thought news of the lawsuit was a joke, later writing: “Update: Lawsuit is … real… a stupid stunt but a real stupid stunt.” She then added: “Israel the only “democracy” in the Middle East where New Zealanders get sued for exercising their freedom of speech…..in New Zealand.”
The bill, formulated by MKs from the coalition and the opposition — Itzik Shmuly (Zionist Union), Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid), Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu), Nurit Koren (Likud) and Bezalel Smotrich (Bayit Yehudi) — seeks to amend the Law for Defense Against Holocaust Denial to state that denying or minimizing the involvement of the Nazi’s helpers and collaborators will also be a crime.
In addition, the amended law would provide legal aid to any Holocaust survivors and educators taking students to death camps who face foreign lawsuits because they recounted what happened in the Holocaust.
The 1986 Law for Defense Against Holocaust Denial states that anyone who publishes denial and minimization of the Holocaust or identification with with crimes against the Jewish People can get five years of jail time.
The Polish senate was expected Wednesday to approve a bill making use of the phrase “Polish death camps” or saying the Polish people were in any way culpable for the Nazis’ crimes against humanity, an offense that carries a three-year prison sentence. The vote was set to take place even though the Polish and Israeli governments plan to negotiate a version of the bill that would be agreeable to both sides.
MK Shmuly said “the Poles and others who may want to copy them should know that the historic truth of the Jewish People is not for sale.”
“Many Poles, and many others heard, knew and helped the Nazi extermination machine,” Shmuly added. “The Polish attempt to rewrite history and to shut Holocaust survivors’ mouths is audacious, shocking and despicable. We will not allow the collaborators to hide behind the Nazis and deny their historic responsibility.”
Lapid said the Polish attempt to avoid responsibility “only emphasizes the need to take action against these voices. We must use all the means we have, including the Knesset, against Holocaust denial.
“We won’t let anyone forget the Nazis or those who cooperated with them. That is our responsibility to the memory of the millions killed. The world must know — the Jews are not afraid and are not willing to be silent anymore, and are not afraid anymore,” Lapid stated.
Ilatov said that the numbers of living Holocaust survivors are dwindling, and therefore, “Israel has the moral responsibility to commemorate their bravery and promise that no one will try to hide, whitewash or cover up those who tell the stories of the horrible crimes and the shocking testimony about the crimes committed against the Jewish people. We won’t let anyone rewrite history.”
Nazi hunter and Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center Dr. Efraim Zuroff said that “Holocaust distortion” has been a problem for over 25 years, and until now Israel has done little to combat it.
Eastern European countries, Zuroff said, “have invested in trying to convince the world the Holocaust was only the work of Germany and maybe a few degenerates.
“Since the Soviet Union crumbled, people have been trying to say communism is the same as Nazism…They want communism to be considered genocide and [some countries] criminalized denying it. And then, if communism is genocide, and there were Jewish communists, then Jews committed genocide. This is their way of undermining the Shoa and their participation in it,” Zuroff explained.
The issue of Holocaust distortion exists “in practically ever country in post-communist Eastern Europe,” he stated. “Their new heroes are people who fought communists, some of whom killed Jews in the Shoa. They name streets and schools after them.”
Still, Zuroff said he did not think that legislation is the right way for Israel to deal with the problem. Rather, he said, Israel should use its influence in post-Soviet countries, many of which have defense ties with Israel, to convince the governments that “their behavior is unacceptable.”
“They love Israel, but hate the Jews,” Zuroff said.
