The mother of Gilad Shalit makes a moving apology to her son, Gilad, to mark his fourth birthday in captivity Twitter campaign for Gilad Shalit A long-running legal battle between a prominent Sydney rabbi and his cash-strapped congregation has been settled by the London Beth Din. Rabbi Moshe Gutnick, of the Orthodox Bondi Mizrachi Synagogue, will receive AUS$952,000 (£484,700) when he leaves the congregation, which he has led for more than 21 years. The LBD ordered the shul to pay the rabbi a £121,224 lump sum when he departs, either by resignation or dismissal. He will then receive the rest of the money in monthly payments, starting in March 2012. Children's charity Barnardo’s is launching a range of Jewish greeting cards for the first time. The cards, which will feature Rosh Hashanah and Chanucah greetings, are part of a multi-faith collection and will be sold online and in 25 stores across the UK. The Jewish Book Council has announced that retailer Blackwell is to be the official bookseller for Jewish Book Week 2010. The literary festival is based in central London, draws over 12,000 each year and has hosted guests such as Harold Pinter and Martin Amis. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has issued county court proceedings against the British National Party and its leader Nick Griffin. The commission is challenging the BNP’s constitution and membership criteria as “discriminatory and racist”. A mother of four has spoken of her relief at being cleared of assaulting a neighbour during a row over a lost football. Petite Susannah Marmot, 42, endured a ten-month ordeal following a scuffle with stocky George Louka outside her home in Edgware, north west London. She was accused of actual bodily harm after Mr Louka fell and cut his head, requiring ten stitches, as she tried to retrieve her son’s ball. Dustman Mr Louka was described in court as an “Alf Garnett” figure who regularly shouted abuse at neighbours and called police to make complaints. A row has broken out over the inclusion of a UK law professor in a United Nations inquiry into the Gaza conflict. The monitoring group, UN Watch, claimed the LSE professor, Christine Chinkin, was biased against Israel and demanded that she should be removed from the UN’s fact-finding mission into alleged human rights violations, headed by the South African judge Richard Goldstone. But this week a spokesperson for the mission dismissed as “misplaced” the claims by UN Watch against Professor Chinkin. A property developer assaulted his neighbour with a samurai sword after a dispute about noise reached a climax, a court heard. Estate agent Simon Korn, of Marylebone, central London, opened his door in the early hours of October 26 last year to see pyjama-clad Simon Carson, 58, wielding an antique samurai sword. Mr Korn grabbed the sword, accidently slashing own his hand as he grappled Mr Carson to the ground, before Mr Carson’s wife, Freddie Booker-Carson, began slapping Mr Korn’s wife, Madeline, Southwark Crown Court heard. The BBC has confirmed that a trustee who says he has “complete confidence” in Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen will be allowed to chair an investigation into complaints against the correspondent. Richard Tait, head of the corporation’s Editorial Standards Committee, will lead the case considering allegations of inaccuracy and bias. A new website was launched this week with the aim of monitoring antisemitism on the Guardian newspaper’s Comment is Free blog. CiF Watch will function primarily as a blog which discusses content on Comment is Free that it considers to be anti-Jewish. The anonymous founder of the New York-based site, who insisted on only being known by the pseudonym “Hawkeye”, said the site aimed “to challenge the mainstream orthodoxy of the extreme left that the Jewish state is a racist endeavour — which is a recurrent theme in Comment is Free”. Plans to build Cambridge’s first mikveh were plunged into further confusion this week after a council rejected a rabbi’s planning application. Chabad’s Rabbi Reuven Leigh had asked for permission to convert a ground floor garage and kitchen into a ritual bath at his Castle Street home. But Cambridge Council planning committee turned down his request, despite the council’s own officials advising them to give the project the go-ahead. Rabbi Leigh, who is also rabbi of Cambridge Traditional Jewish Congregation, said he would appeal against the “bizarre” decision. A senior Hamas official looks set to fly to Cairo shortly to approve a deal that includes the release of Gilad Shalit. And the mother of the IDF soldier captured in June 2006, made a heartfelt plea for action with an apology to her son for “not being able to protect you”. The trip by Hamas Politburo chief Khaled Meshal will follow efforts by German intelligence who have sent an official to Cairo to help mediate. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is planning to discreetly demote his deputy, Moshe Yaalon, for two recent “right-wing” appearances. Mr Yaalon, a former IDF Chief of Staff, was fired by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in early 2005 for opposing the disengagement from Gaza. He joined the Likud late last year and was seen as one of the main figures in the effort to rehabilitate the party’s image in the eyes of Israeli voters. He was appointed minister for strategic affairs and deputy premier. The Bank of Israel has raised interest rates from 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent, becoming the first central bank in the developed world to push up interest rates since the credit crunch began. Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said he does not expect others to follow his lead. “Interest rates in the world’s leading economies will remain unchanged until the end of 2009 and maybe mid-2010. In contrast to Israel, those countries have low inflation.” A Twitter campaign "Tweet4Shalit" has been launched to mark the 23rd birthday of kidnapped Israeli solider Gilad Shalit. Organisers, including the Jewish Internet Defence Force, hope that by encouraging enough people to use the #GiladShalit hashtag at the end of every tweet they send on August 26, then Gilad Shalit will become a trending topic on the site. Binyamin Netanyahu is hardly looking forward to his visit to Britain next week. Relations between the two governments are going through a rocky period and Israel does not consider Gordon Brown a critical partner given his current political situation. The meetings at Downing Street and the Foreign Office will have little diplomatic value. They will consist mainly of lectures by the hosts on the evils of settlements and attempts by Mr Netanyahu — mostly unsuccessful —to move the debate on to the Iranian threat. It is not just the numbers — 12 civilians murdered in less than three weeks since the beginning of August, an abnormally high body count for crime in Israel. It is also the utter senselessness of most of the deaths. Amnesty International says it has withdrawn its support from a concert in Israel because it did not receive sufficiently widespread support from Israelis and Palestinians. Organisers of the Leonard Cohen concert, which sold out in a day and is due to take place in Tel Aviv next month, approached the US branch of the human rights charity to set up a fund which could distribute the profits of the concert to Israeli and Palestinian charities. A revolutionary halachic ruling that will allow religious homosexual men to marry women and have children with them is currently being discussed at one of the most prestigious Orthodox institutes in Israel. Rabbi Menachem Burstein is founder and head of the PUAH Institute, recognised in Orthodox circles as the leading organisation on matters of fertility and Jewish law. He confirmed this week that he has “been dealing with this subject for quite some time”. One of Israel’s top television stars, Dudu Topaz, has committed suicide in prison, the Israeli Prison Service has announced. Mr Topaz, 62, apparently hanged himself in the shower at the Nitzan Detention Centre in Ramla while awaiting trial for multiple charges of conspiracy to commit a crime, aggravated assault and obstruction of justice. Mr Topaz was on suicide watch but no security cameras could see him in the shower. Zion Amir, Mr Topaz's lawyer, blamed the media circus around his trial for driving his client to suicide. An academic who renounced his Israeli citizenship is the first man of Jewish descent to be elected to Fatah’s Revolutionary Council. Dr Uri Davis, 66, a lecturer at Al-Quds University, received Palestinian citizenship when he renounced his Israeli passport in the 1980s in protest of what he calls Israel’s “apartheid politics”. He was one of 700 Fatah members who were competing for 89 seats in the Council. Dr Davis, who is married to a Palestinian woman and lives in Ramallah, was elected on a ticket to represent “non-Arabs who support the Palestinian cause”. Eighteen months since it set out to change the face of pro-Israel advocacy in the American capital, J Street has succeeded in becoming a household name. The young organisation, which bills itself as a pro-peace lobby, was part of the exclusive club of Jewish groups invited to a White House meeting with President Obama last month, and boasts a constantly growing operation at a time when most organisations on the Middle East policy scene are downsizing. Hamas is facing an unprecedented challenge, this time from even more extreme elements within Islam and Gaza. It is responding by radicalising even further, imposing Islamic dress on schoolgirls, militarily crushing a breakaway mosque preacher and his followers, and undertaking a propaganda push in mosques and on the web. The source of the pressure on the Hamas leaders is the Jihadi-Salafi Muslims, who believe in returning Islam to what they see as its pure form that existed at the time of Mohammed and his companions, and in using holy war to achieve this. A Twitter campaign entitled “Tweet4Shalit” has been launched to mark the 23rd birthday of kidnapped Israeli solider Gilad Shalit. The man behind the initiative, David Appletree, said: “This appears to be the largest internet campaign of its kind for Gilad Shalit.” Have you heard the one about the Jewish woman suing her daughter-in-law for telling too many mother-in-law jokes? Comic Sunda Croonquist, who is a regular on the Hollywood comedy circuit, is being taken to court by her husband’s mother, Ruth Zafrin, for allegedly spreading false, defamatory and racist lies about her. Mrs Zafrin seeks damages and requests that Ms Croonquist remove any offensive statements from her website and routines. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will be presented with the original architectural plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, to keep at Yad Vashem, during his trip to Germany. Mr Netanyahu will attend a special ceremony in Berlin where the German newspaper Bild will present the plans to him, along with Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev and the director of the Yad Vashem archives, Haim Gertner. Jewish and Israeli leaders have paid tribute to US Senator Ted Kennedy, who died of brain cancer at the age of 77. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is currently in the UK called Senator Kennedy an "American patriot" said that he was "a great friend of Israel". Israeli President Shimon Peres expressed deep sorrow at the death of Senator Kennedy “He was a particularly respected leader with an interest in helping society. An Austrian right-wing party leader may face prosecution for calling a Jewish museum director a “Jew in exile from America”. Dieter Egger, head of the Freedom Party which is part of the coalition government in the country’s Vorarlberg province, was responding to criticism from Hanno Loewy, director of the Jewish museum in Hohenems. Mr Egger had previously said that he believed that all Austrians should be forced to leave the country if they did not agree with his policy to pay family benefits only to native Austrians. Bernie Madoff, who was sentenced to 150 years in prison for defrauding clients of $65 billion may be dying of cancer. The 71-year-old is serving his sentence in Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina. He told inmates he did not expect to live much longer, according to the New York Post. There had been speculation during his trial that he may be suffering from pancreatic cancer. An inmate said: “He's been taking about 20 pills a day for his cancer. He talks about it all the time. He's not doing very well." A Ben-Gurion University lecturer who called for an international boycott against Israel has been attacked by his own university. Dr. Neve Gordon told the Los Angeles Times that he thought Israel had reached a historic crossroads and only dramatic measures could ensure its survival. "It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organisations, unions and citizens to suspend co-operation with Israel," he wrote. A secret “peace conference” held in Switzerland earlier this month brought together senior establishment figures from Hamas, Fatah and Israel to discuss a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. The meeting was organised by London-based group the Next Century Foundation, which describes itself as a “second track” diplomatic foundation working towards conflict resolution. Its first objective is to provide a forum for Israelis and Palestinians.
BREAKING NEWS
Aviva Shalit: forgive us, my son
Kosher cards
Book week partner
BNP in court
5ft 2 woman in court for attacking 'stocky' neighbour
Dispute over 'biased' Gaza inquiry professor
Samurai assault on pair who challenged noisy neighbours
BBC backs Jeremy Bowen in bias probe
Guardian rejects anti-semitism accusation
Cambridge mikveh plans are rejected
Israel news
forgive us, my son
Likud right wing frightens Bibi
Israel’s economy recovering
Twitter campaign for Gilad Shalit
Analysis: Mr Netanyahu’s London visit could be a summer break he would prefer not to take
Fears over policing as crime surges in Israel
Amnesty stops its support for Cohen concert
Israeli rabbis back gay parenting
Dudu Topaz kills himself in prison
First Jewish man elected to Fatah Council
The dovish Israel lobby gains ground on Aipac
Hamas’s new enemy? Even more radical Islamist set
Shalit is Tweeted
Oy! You’re killing me. Laugh? I hardly started
Netanyahu to receive Auschwitz plans
Jewish tributes to Ted Kennedy
He said: "Kennedy was a clear friend of Israel the whole way, and in every place that he could help us, he did help.Austrian politician attacks Jewish museum director
Bernie Madoff's cancer scare
Israeli lecturer's boycott call attacked
Israelis and Hamas have secret talks in Switzerland
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