Sites where Germans killed Jews are dedicated in Poland

With a busy schedule ahead of her, Merkel is expected to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa

German Chancellor Angela Merkel went to visit Yad Vashem, the official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, in Jerusalem on Thursday morning.
“Jews in Germany suffered from hatred and violence they had never known before,” Merkel somberly noted at Yad Vashem. “Since then, Germany is always responsible for remembering this crime and for fighting violence, xenophobia and hatred in general.”
Merkel was additionally given the honor of lighting the Eternal Flame and laying a wreath, part of a ceremony to commemorate those passed in the Holocaust, in the name of the German government.
Merkel landed in Israel on Wednesday evening, beginning a two-day visit to Israel. The government-to-government visit was delayed by a year and a half due to disagreements regarding Israel’s settlement policies and approach to the Palestinians.
With a busy schedule ahead of her, Merkel is expected to visit the Israel Museum, visit President Reuven Rivlin and receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa.
The article was published on JPost

Legislation claims the practice violates children’s human rights, places them at risk of infection and causes ‘severe pain’

Lawmakers from four political parties in Iceland introduced a bill in parliament that would ban the nonmedical circumcision of boys younger than 18 and impose imprisonment of up to six years on offenders.
Members of the ruling Left Green Movement, the Progressive Party, People’s Party and the Pirate Party submitted the bill to the Albingi on Tuesday, the RUV news site reported. Together, the parties account for 46 percent of the parliament’s 63 seats.
The measure cites the prohibition of female genital mutilation in 2005, arguing a similar prohibition is necessary for males. The report did not say when the bill would come to a vote.
Advocates of male circumcision, which many physicians believe reduces the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases and genital infections, have long objected to the comparison of the practice with female genital mutilation, a custom with no medical benefits that is universally viewed as detrimental to the ability to derive pleasure from intercourse.

The bill calls the circumcision of boys younger than 18 a violation of their human rights, according to the news site, and says it places them at an elevated risk of infection and causes “severe pain.”

Throughout Scandinavia, the nonmedical circumcision of boys under 18 is the subject of a debate on children’s rights and religious freedoms. The children’s ombudsmen of all Nordic countries — Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway — released a joint declaration in 2013 proposing a ban, though none of these countries has enacted one.
In the debate, circumcision is under attack from right-wing politicians who view it as a foreign import whose proliferation is often associated mostly with Muslim immigration. And it is also opposed by left-wing liberals and atheists who denounce it as a primitive form of child abuse.
In 2012, a German court in Cologne ruled that ritual circumcision of minors amounted to a criminal act. The ruling was overturned but triggered temporary bans in Austria and Switzerland.
A similar debate is taking place across Western Europe about the ritual slaughter of animals, which is illegal in several European Union member states.
Iceland, which is not a member of that bloc, has a population of approximately 300,000, including several dozen Jews and a few hundred Muslims.
The article was published on The Times of Israel

The EJA was proud and honoured to welcome European Parliament Vice-President Roberta Metsola to our Headquarters for a meeting.
Vice-President Metsola is responsible for Article 17 matters: Dialogue with churches, and religious and philosophical organisations, and is deeply committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of European Jewry, particularly in light of rising antisemitism due to the pandemic, but more recently the surge in antisemitic sentiment related to the recent Gaza conflict.
The EJA noted with appreciation the Vice-President’s fire and determination on combatting antisemtism and countering ignorance about Jewish life, practice and faith in Europe. In a political environment often marked by platitudes, such an approach was wonderfully refreshing. We agreed to pursue a number of projects and activities together in the months ahead and look forward very much to deepening our relationship with Mrs Metsola and her capable, efficient and dynamic offices.

Following the beginning of Israel’s operation names “Shield and Arrow” – which to date has resulted in the killing of three senior Islamic Jihad operatives in Gaza City and Rafah – we have attached the following points for your use.

1- This is an action that Israel has undertaken following months in which the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad has repeatedly fired unprovoked missiles at Israel.

2- The missiles that the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip fire are aimed only at the civilian population. In the past few days the terrorist organizations have fired over 100 missiles towards the southern population centres whilst parents were coming to pick up their children from school and kindergartens. Just imagine what would happen if a missile hit a school or kindergarten…

3- Israel had warned the terrorist organizations on numerous occasions and demanded that they stop firing missiles towards Israel. Despite these repeated warning, they continued to provoke and launch missiles and rockets.

4- For years the residents of the south of Israel have felt like hostages. Every few weeks the terrorists decide to fire rockets at civilian settlements. Thousands of families including small children flee to shelters.

5- Israel only targets terrorists: only those people who fire missiles towards Israel and only those who wage war against Israel and/or send other people to fire missiles and carry out acts of terrorism against Israel.

6- No other country in the world would put up with the firing missiles and rockets at population centres on its territory without responding.

7- Israel wants to live in peace and mutual respect with all its neighbors, including the Gaza Strip, but Hamas and the Islamic Jihad do not accept the existence of the State of Israel and call for its destruction together with Hezbollah and Iran.

8- Iran is the source and the head of the snake directing terrorism and arms to the terrorist organizations surrounding Israel.

9- Israel has nothing against the civilian population in the Gaza Strip and it does

everything in its power to avoid harming innocents and even brings thousands of workers from Gaza into its territory every day to work inside Israel. In addition Israel supplies Gaza with electricity and other civilian needs. This is at a time when the terrorists in Gaza are using the civilian population as human shields and even firing missiles towards Israel from population centres and, as we have seen many times, from schools and kindergartens.

10- There is no closure on Gaza and no blockade, Gaza has a border with the Egyptians and those who want to leave and come to Gaza, do so.

11- Instead of investing the hundreds of millions that Gaza receives as aid from many countries in the world, in education, the development of the city and infrastructure, the leaders of the Hamas terrorist organization that controls Gaza invest the money in the production of missiles and rockets, in the purchase of weapons and bombs and in the digging of offensive tunnels in order to harm the residents of Israel.