Your Daily Spiel is The CJN‘s daily roundup of trending stories in the Jewish world
Canada: The CJN‘s look at AIDS in the Jewish community continues through the perspective of a volunteer and advocate for HIV awareness who’s lived with the disease for decades, non-profit PEN Canada is being questioned over its invite to notorious anti-Israel speaker Max Blumenthal (left-wing group Independent Jewish Voices – Canada has since denounced The CJN‘s article as part of a smear campaign), Canada is reportedly considering renewing funding to UNRWA after the Conservative government cut funding in 2009, and, once it was exposed that McGill students would again vote on a BDS measure, pro-Israel students have launched a coalition to fend off activists once and for all. Use the hashtag #EnoughisEnough to show your solidarity.
U.S.: Two Jewish professors are suing Wheelock College over anti-Semitic discrimination, residents of the kibbutz where U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders once volunteered are having a tough time remembering who he is, and in an exclusive interview, the proud Israeli owner of the Ohio eatery attacked by a machete-wielding man said it’s no coincidence that his restaurant was chosen. “It was a random attack [insofar] that I was one of the Israelis [picked] between all of the Israelis that are around here. It was a terrorist attack,” he said.
Israel: A Washington Post reporter was briefly detained in Jerusalem over ‘incitement’ today, a Palestinian man on the 83rd day of a hunger strike is refusing to transfer hospitals, Israel’s ‘rabbi to celebrities’ Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto is starting his one-year sentence for bribery, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that most moderate Arab states see Israel as their ally, not enemy, a Palestinian official claimed the P.A. will “never” negotiate with Israel again, U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power accused the world body of harbouring an anti-Israel bias, and Honest Reporting brings us the latest round of headline fails following a day of Palestinian attacks on Israelis:
A Jerusalem initiative is seeking to calm tensions by uniting Jews and Arabs through song, while supermodel Naomi Campbell has confirmed her upcoming trip to Israel for International Women’s Day.
World: The U.K. is reportedly mulling legislation that will bar public institutions from endorsing an Israel boycott, Brazilian Jews are making aliyah in record numbers, France introduced a plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians (which Benjamin Netanyahu called “baffling” and destined for failure), Italy has released classified documents related to fascist and Nazi war crimes, and an Oxford student leader has resigned from his post after a measure supporting Israel Apartheid Week was passed. “A large proportion of the student Left in Oxford more generally have some kind of problem with Jews,” he said.
The Auschwitz Museum has launched a “Polish death camps” text corrector so Nazi death camps aren’t referred to as Polish, academics are rallying behind a Holocaust scholar who may be stripped of a national honour from Poland because he said Poles were complicit in Nazi war crimes, and Jewish groups in the U.K. have slammed reality star David McIntosh for comparing religious Jewish women to witches.
Business: An Israeli medical marijuana company predicts that the legal cannabis industry will outgrow both the US film and organic food industries within five years, the first “Startup School” for Arab high-tech entrepreneurs in Israel is set to open up this month, Israeli researchers have created genetically modified flowers, an Israeli-developed video messaging app is coming to smartphones, Nissan’s driving app has (purposefully?) omitted Israel from its map, and one of the founders of JDate has developed yet another Jewish dating app to enter the fray, Jfiix, which he says is the Jewish answer to Tinder. Umm, have you not heard of JSwipe?
Sports: The NBA All-Star weekend went down with a hitch (save for Nelly Furtado’s weird rendition of O’Canada), and offered a variety of fun moments, including Drake rapping over a beat provided by Shaq:
A former martial arts champion has traded in her boxing gloves for a green uniform, joining the IDF’s Border Police unit.
Culture: Valentine’s Day has come and passed, but these five Jewish romance films will last a lifetime, Jackie Mason says Hollywood should blacklist celebrities that boycott Israel, Orthodox rapper Nissim Baruch Black (who appears on that awesome remix of Gad Elbaz’s HaShem Melech) discusses making aliyah, Bruce Springsteen, who hasn’t even confirmed his performance in Israel yet, is already being trolled by BDS activists, and The CJN looks at how Broad City (one of the most hilarious shows on the air) has empowered the Jewish mother.
Actor Daniel Radcliffe is set to star in Jungle, an adaptation of Israeli cult classic Back from Tuichi, the memoirs of Israeli Yossi Ghinsberg on surviving the Amazon rainforest after being stranded, the Eagles of Death Metal are returning to Paris for the first time since their Nov. 13 performance where some 90 people were killed, and William Shatner opened up about his falling out with friend and colleague Leonard Nimoy.
In Grammy talk, Beyonce won over the crowds after showing up in this Israeli-designed gown:
Beyoncé presenting Record Of The Year at the 2016 GRAMMYs ? pic.twitter.com/31pR0QdfHe
— THE BEYHIVÉ (@TheBeyHiveTeam) February 16, 2016
For more on Jews and fashion at the Grammys, click here.
Anyone else notice that trending rapper and Kendrick Lamar affiliate Anderson .Paak samples the Israeli national anthem, HaTikvah, on his new critically-acclaimed album, Malibu? Listen:
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