Israeli Spy Satellites

02/13/2023

A. As part of the Israel-Germany Strategic Alliance program established in 2021 when German Prime Minister Angela Merkel visited Israel, the two countries greatly expanded their military intelligence sharing. As part of this effort, Germany agreed to launch three Israeli spy satellites into space, including the EROS C-3 satellite which was deployed last December.

B. The Israeli satellite was launched into space on a Falcon 9 rocket sent up by Elon Musk’s company, SpaceX. The rocket was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

C. The Israel Space Agency, known in Hebrew as Sokhnut heKhalal haYisraelit, launched the satellite from the Palmachim Airbase located on the Mediterranean coast near the city of Rishon LeZion.

D. The EROS C-3 satellite was sent into space by the United States Air Force, utilizing a rocket launched by Virgin Galactic, the space flight company founded by Richard Branson. The launch took place from Virgin Galactic’s Spaceport America base north of Las Cruces, New Mexico.

E. In an arrangement between the Israeli Defense Forces Air and Space Division and Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist Party, the satellite was raised into the heavens via Jacob’s ladder. In exchange for access to the ladder, the IDF promised the Religious Zionist Party that it would not take spy pictures on the Sabbath.

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Candy

02/06/2023

A. When Russian Jewish immigrant Morris Shorin’s company American Leaf Tobacco faltered during the Great Depression, his sons Abram, Ira, Philip, and Joseph took it over and changed the name to Topps Company, producing candy, collectibles, and chewing gum, including Bazooka bubble gum, which was packaged with a small comic on the wrapper. They later added spearmint-flavored Topps Chewing Gum to their product list. It is believed that they chose the name Topps, having been inspired by the Cole Porter song You’re The Top.

B. Romanian Jewish immigrant David Goldenberg arrived in Philadelphia in 1880. He opened a candy store and created the peanut and molasses candy which he marketed as Goldenberg’s Peanut-Chews. However, when Passover approached, he realized that he could not sell the product to the Jewish community, as peanuts were legumes, which are not kosher for Passover. So he switched to walnuts, and Goldenberg’s Walnut-Chews became a success. But when his children Sylvia and Harry took over the company during the Great Depression, they switched back to peanuts, as this was a cheaper nut to purchase.

C. Mike and Ike candies are another candy created by Just Born under Sam Born’s leadership. The candies were chewy and came in fruit flavors, including cherry, strawberry, and orange, though more recently the company produced other flavors such as Strawberries n’ Cream, Cherry Cola, and Cotton Candy. The source of the name Mike and Ike is not clear, though it is rumored to have been named after two dwarf brothers who had been Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz.

D. Tootsie Rolls were created in 1907 by Leo Hirshfield, the son of an Austrian Jewish candy maker. Leo Hirshfield immigrated to the United States and opened a candy store in New York. The candy was certified kosher, and Hirshfield specifically packaged the chocolate taffy in wax paper which was twisted shut at both ends, rather than a sealed package, so that the Orthodox Jewish community of which he was a member could open the candy on Shabbat, when tearing was not allowed.

E. Just Born also created Mike and Ike, which are fruit-flavored oblong chewy candies. In 2012 the company announced that Mike and Ike were splitting because of creative differences. Mike claimed that Ike was “spending way too much time on his graffiti art,” while Ike complained that Mike was “spending way too much time on his music.” The candies continued to be sold; however, the labels had either Mike’s or Ike’s name crossed out. Happily, a year later the couple reunited.

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Free Speech

01/30/2023

A. A rabbi who is a member of the Shas political party which has joined the new coalition government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has advocated for the expulsion of foreign journalists who write what he considers to be “anti-Israel propaganda under the guise of journalism.” He specifically named, among others, Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, Christiane Amanpour of CNN, and Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post.

B. A student at a university in New Orleans recently wrote an opinion piece stating that Ye (Kanye West) “did nothing wrong” in his recent comments about Jews. In her article she noted that “For the most part, Jewish people run Hollywood. That’s a fact.” As a result of her piece the student says she received death threats and calls for her expulsion from the university, leading her to decide to leave the campus and the state of Louisiana for at least a couple of weeks.

C. The Student Life Council of a university in Los Angeles withdrew funding from the campus Hillel organization after Hillel presented a program whose guest speakers, an Israeli Jew and and Israeli Palestinian, offered a perspective that the conflicting sides in the Middle East could and must find common ground for cooperation. The Student Life Council president said that the program was “an offense to the struggles of the Palestinian people under the apartheid regime of Israel,” and therefore a violation of their policy not to support any organization advocating “discrimination, hatred, or racism.”

D. The principal of a high school in Bucks County, Pennsylvania ordered the school librarian to remove a poster from the library wall which contained a quote by Elie Wiesel, reading “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” The principal said that the message was a violation of the school’s “neutrality” policy, banning signs which could advocate “any partisan, political, or social policy issue.”

E. A Jewish Community Center day camp in Chicago found itself in the middle of a huge controversy when a group of parents complained about the camp song, Once There Were Three Fishermen. The campers were accustomed to singing the song including the line “They all went down to Am-ster-SHHH.” But some parents objected to the censorship, saying that free speech was an important value that the children should learn at the camp. Those parents and their children held a protest march in front of the JCC, carrying signs and singing “Am-ster, Am-ster, Dam Dam Dam!”

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Greta Thunberg

01/22/2023

A. The pictures are appearing in workplace kitchens at offices including the Associated Press, Wix, and other companies, to shame workers who use disposable plastic flatware.

B. The pictures are appearing at Israeli beaches to shame beachgoers who are leaving their plastic and aluminum bottles and other garbage on the sand.

C. The pictures are appearing at hotels, inns, and tourist sites around Lake Kineret, which is polluted with record high levels of waste discharge from industrial and agricultural sources. The hope is to shame industrial farmers and manufacturers who have not done enough to reduce the environmental impact of their businesses.

D. The pictures are appearing outside bars and nightclubs in areas frequented by young Israelis, and also in religious neighborhoods. They are intended to shame smokers who toss their cigarette butts on the ground.

E. The pictures are appearing outside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s house and office to shame him for recycling into his government many politicians who are criminals, racists, homophobes, and theocrats (including Itamar Ben Gvir, Avi Maoz, and Bezalel Smotrich, though Aryeh Deri was moved from the recycling bin to the garbage can at the last moment under court order).

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