Popular filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen said during a visit to Israel that they do not agree with artists who boycott the Jewish state. Asked during a news conference about music and film artists who boycott Israel over its policies regarding the Palestinians, Ethan Coen said it was a mistake.
Jack Mandel, a leader in Jewish philanthropy in the United States and Israel, has died. Mandel died May 12; he was 99. He and his brothers, Morton and Joseph, started Premier Automotive Supply in a small storefront in Cleveland and built the business into one of the largest distributors of auto parts and electronic components in the United States.
Munich state prosecutors appealed a district court\’s decision to release convicted Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk from prison pending his appeal. Monday\’s appeal of Demjanjuk\’s release, following his conviction on war crimes on May 12, also appealed the five-year sentence handed down that day for being too lenient. The prosecutors\’ reasons will be presented in writing and only then released to the public, according to a spokesperson for the Munich District II court, which found Demjanjuk, 91, guilty as an accessory to nearly 28,000 murders in the Nazi death camp Sobibor in occupied Poland in 1943.
An influential Sephardic rabbi in Israel and the country\’s two chief rabbis have called on Israelis to delay Lag b\’Omer obervances by a day. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual head of the haredi Orthodox Shas Party, as well as Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, have issued rulings that the festival traditionally marked by bonfires should begin on Sunday night instead of as scheduled by the calendar on Saturday night.
A falafel ball weighing nearly 52.8 pounds created at a Jewish food festival in California has been certified as the world\’s largest. The falafel ball was certified on Sunday for submission to the Guinness Book of World Records at the Santa Clarita Valley Jewish Food and Cultural Festival, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. The ball, made of ground chickpeas and fava beans, also measured 12.5 inches high.
Clouds of tear gas hovered over hundreds of rioting Palestinian youths on the road to Jerusalem, where demonstrations marking the anniversary of Israel’s founding 63 years ago turned violent. “I want a third intifada,\” said Ala Barghouti, a 21-year-old accounting student, his nostrils stuffed with tissues to keep out the sting of the tear gas. \”I hope things do escalate today. A third intifada will help move the Palestinian Authority to improve our political situation.
Israel will resume the transfer of collected tax funds to the Palestinian Authority, its finance minister said. Yuval Steinitz, saying he was satisfied that none of the tax transfers would be given to the government\’s new partner Hamas or any other terrorist group, confirmed on Sunday night to reporters that his ministry would begin transferring the approximately $88 million in customs and other taxes that it collects for the Palestinians.
If a single phrase could capture the sentiment that motivated thousands of Arabs to try to cross Israel’s borders on Sunday to “retake Palestine” from the Jews, it would be this: Yes, we can. That can-do attitude had toppled regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and threatened dictators from Tripoli to Damascus. So why not apply it toward Israel? If Arab leaders weren’t willing to send their armies to storm the Zionist state, the Arab protesters figured, well then, they’d just do it themselves.
Israel filed a complaint with the United Nations Security Council against Syria and Lebanon over the breach of its border by protesters.
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