ZOA Accuses Holocaust Museum of ‘Appalling’ Censorship of Palestinian Mufti Ties to Hitler and The ‘Mashtuba’ Market: The Deadly and Illegal Arab Vehicles on the Roads By Baruch Yedid and On Last Day of Hanukkah, Arab Caught With Ancient Hasmonean-Era Artifacts and Gut tweak can make anyone a ‘morning person,’ Israeli poop analysis suggests
Yehuda Lave is an author, journalist, psychologist, rabbi, spiritual teacher, and coach, with degrees in business, psychology and Jewish Law. He works with people from all walks of life and helps them in their search for greater happiness, meaning, business advice on saving money, and spiritual engagement.
On Last Day of Hanukkah, Arab Caught With Ancient Hasmonean-Era Artifacts
Photo Credit: Israel Police
Seized ancient coins. Dec. 5, 2021
Israeli police detectives located archeological items thousands of years old in the possession of an Arab resident of eastern Jerusalem, including a Hasmonean coin with the Temple Menorah embossed on it, on the last day of Hanukkah.
Detectives from the Jerusalem District searched on Sunday the home of a resident of the city in his 30s, during which dozens of ancient coins of great archaeological value from various historical periods were found.
The suspect was arrested for questioning and the items were seized and underwent an initial examination by representatives of the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Among the items seized were a Hasmonean coin dating from the time of Matityahu Antigonus in the first century BCE with an embossment of the Temple Menorah, a seal ring from the biblical period with an ancient Hebrew inscription, and an oil candle from the Hasmonean period.
The investigation is being conducted by the police in cooperation with the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Citizens committing antiquities-related offenses can face up to five years in prison under Israeli law.
The 'Mashtuba' Market: The Deadly and Illegal Arab Vehicles on the Roads
Halleli, Tov Roi, and Malachi Meudad, three Israeli children who were killed in a car accident in Samaria on Friday afternoon, were laid to rest on Saturday night together at the cemetary in Rehovot, as their two parents remain hospitalized in critical condition.
An Arab driver from the Palestinian Authority driving without a license, who was driving a "Mashtuba" car, a car that was not licensed and was supposed to be off the road, made a illegal U-turn at a point on the road near the Ofarim Junction, colliding with the Meudad family's car.
The father, Yaniv, and mother Hodaya, who was pregnant, are hospitalized in serious condition The father's condition stabilized slightly over the weekend but he is still on life support. The boy Tov Roi, 3, was killed immediately. His sister Halleli, 6, passed away on Saturday. Their brother, who died at birth on Saturday, was named Malachi.
Funeral for the Meudad family children. Dec. 4, 2021. Credit: Nadav Goldstein/TPS
The rabbi of Nof Ayalon, Gideon Binyamin, said during the funeral that "there are no words, nothing to say. Something that has no explanation. These children are now going to the heavens, will be under the Kisseh Hakavod (chair of honor), will learn, will give a lot of strength to the parents who, with God's help, will be healed."
The two Arabs in the illegal car were killed in the accident.
The "Mashtuba" (erased in Arabic) vehicle market is flourishing in the PA and the demand for illegal cars that have been taken off the road in Israel and deleted from the Licensing Office's databases is rising.
The "deleted" cars are also openly sold through Facebook pages, in lots and garages in Areas C and B and in the Jerusalem area.
Area C in Judea and Samaria is under full Israel, and Israel has security control in Area B.
The flourishing industry rolls in tens of millions of shekels and the growing demand for old cars is preventing the eradication of the phenomenon. The PA police estimate that more than 60% of the drivers with illegal vehicles that originate mainly in Israel are young people under the legal driving age or drivers without a license.
The official estimates in the PA are that the number of illegal vehicles ranges from 70,000 to 80,000 vehicles but other estimates claim that their number is 150,000 vehicles and even higher. The total number of vehicles authorized by the PA is 300,000 vehicles.
PA data show that in 2017, 40 PA Arabs were killed in road accidents involving "Mashtuba" cars while Palestinian Authority insurance companies estimate that more than 3% of all reported accidents were caused by these vehicles.
In the old car lots, vehicles can be purchased at ridiculous prices of NIS 500, a Palestinian source told TPS. A 1998 Hyundai car priced at $10,000 in the Palestinian market will be purchased by "Death Car Dealers" for only $500. The price of a Subaru Impreza in the junk market is $500 while an older Subaru is $10,000.
The demand for "Mashtuba" cars is enormous. Many of the illegal car owners are PA workers who leave for work in Israel in the early morning hours and return towards midnight to villages where there are no public transportation services.
Thousands of Arab workers in Israel own such vehicles and in the woods near the security fence or at the workers' crossings, parking lots can be found with hundreds of cars driven by the workers who made their way to Israel.
In one of the operations near Highway 443, the Palestinian Authority confiscated close to 600 vehicles, but the lot was filled within a month with 700 "new" Mashtuba cars. Palestinian car dealers testify that cars smuggled to them in the morning will be sold by night at prices ranging from NIS 500 to NIS 1,000.
The "Mashtuba" cars are even used by residents of villages to transport children to schools and a PA police source estimates that in the population concentrations in southern Mount Hebron, the Jordan Valley and northern Samaria, thousands of such vehicles move on dirt roads while drivers are careful not to get on asphalt roads or approach PA cities for fear of encountering PA police checkpoints.
A PA officer told TPS that the PA police are working against the phenomenon and are conducting operations to confiscate the illegal vehicles. The vehicles are crushed at police stations in major cities and sold through the Ministry of Finance to the iron industry and the spare parts shops.
Last year, the PA sold 6,700 such vehicles at auctions to spare parts dealers at a cost of NIS 3.5 million. 1,040 garages and 530 old car dealers are legally registered in the PA, but hundreds of unlicensed dealers and garages are partners in the "Mashtuba" industry.
However, the officer noted that the police have been failing for years and are unable to cope with the scale of the phenomenon. The PA has recently set up a team to examine the possibility of regulating the illegal car market.
PA police procedures prohibit police officers from chasing illegal vehicles for fear that they will end in the deaths of drivers. PA police officers say that the chase usually ends with the drivers throwing the vehicle on the side of the road and fleeing on foot, and they often prefer to buy another vehicle within a short time, because the fine, NIS 700, is more than the price of the vehicle itself.
The "Mashtuba" phenomenon is very disturbing to the Palestinian Authority and its residents because many who have been injured in road accidents involving these cars, find themselves without insurance. The insurance companies claim that although the residents are not insured, the companies paid a total of $10 million to the victims of the accidents.
The Palestinian Authority prohibits the transfer of used cars from Israel to its territories but allows the sale of spare parts, which, according to car dealers, allows many hundreds of cars to be transferred from Israel every day under documents stating that they are spare parts.
According to several testimonies, it is possible to order a vehicle that is composed entirely of spare parts and to attach to it yellow license plates from vehicles stolen in Israel or an old PA license plate.
The phenomenon is very common in the PA rural sector and especially in Area C, in places where the Palestinian Authority is present only in a very limited way and is mainly engaged in policing missions of a security nature. The phenomenon is also very common in the areas of the Jerusalem area where Israel is not present and the Palestinian Authority is not allowed to act.
The Palestinian Authority alleges that Israel encourages the transfer of illegal vehicles to the PA's territories in order to make room for the hundreds of thousands of new vehicles that hit Israeli roads. PA police say they cannot deal with gangs of car thieves in which Israelis and Palestinians are partners.
In the absence of a public transportation system, the dilapidated road infrastructure in the PA rural areas, the high prices of new cars in PA territories and the inability of the police to tackle the problem, the "Mashtuba" phenomenon will flourish in PA and thousands will continue to purchase particularly cheap vehicles, which cost the equivalent of one workday in Israel.
ZOA Accuses Holocaust Museum of 'Appalling' Censorship of Palestinian Mufti Ties to Hitler
This image was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive
By Joshua Klein(BREITBART NEWS) Following a published letter by the head of "Yad Vashem" — Israel's premiere Holocaust museum and research center — defending its refusal to display an infamous photograph of leading Palestinian "Mufti" [Islamic legal authority] Haj Amin al-Husseini meeting with Nazi leader Adolf Hitler during the Holocaust, Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) head Morton Klein slammed the museum and its head Dani Dayan for the "appalling" censorship of history.
Klein blasted Dayan on Friday, calling his defense of the infamous image's absence "abominable" and criticizing his denials of its removal, while urging him to "reinstate" the picture.
This image was provided to Wikimedia Commons by the German Federal Archive
After years of pressure and a recent op-ed by a longtime tour guide at the site attacking the museum's stance, Dayan addressed the issue on Thursday, claiming the notorious Mufti's role in the Holocaust was "marginal," his meeting with Hitler having "a negligible practical effect on Nazi policy," and thus the famous image depicting him with Hitler "was never displayed" in the museum.
Dayan said the museum would not fall prey "to any political agenda," while warning that demands to expand focus on the Mufti are tantamount to forcing the museum to "partake in a debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," and may even "legitimize Holocaust distortion" by others.
Speaking with Breitbart News on Friday, Klein, who has headed the nation's oldest pro-Israel organization for nearly two decades, called out the museum for attempting to "appease" Palestinians.
"As a child of Holocaust survivors born in the displaced persons camp in Germany who lost most of my family to Hitler, I find it really appalling for Dani Dayan to actually be censoring out a part of Holocaust history at the major Holocaust museum in an attempt to appease the Palestinian Arabs," Klein said.
He also accused the museum of seeking to placate "a Palestinian Authority that pays Arabs to murder Jews, names school streets and sports teams after Jew killers, promotes hatred and violence in every aspect of their culture, and has refused offers of statehood, clearly showing the issue is not land, but Israel's destruction."
"Appeasement always fails, and it's obviously failed with the Palestinian Authority who won't even sit and negotiate [with Israel], let alone act in a civilized manner," he said. "This is just an atrocious mistake."
During the Holocaust, Al-Husseini, dubbed the "father of the Palestinian people" by both former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat as well as current Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, met with Hitler, SS officer Heinrich Himmler, and other Nazi leaders in an effort to persuade them to extend the Nazis' anti-Jewish program to the Arab world.
Calling the Muftis' part in Holocaust history "critical," Klein blasted the museum's "intolerable" censorship of the associated events.
"To blot out and censor a critical part of Holocaust history: that the religious leader of the Palestinian Arabs met with and encouraged Hitler is simply intolerable," he said.
"The Holocaust Museum and Dani Dayan should be ashamed," he added.
History of the Image in the Museum
Despite Dayan's denials that the photograph had ever been featured in the museum, Klein was insistent that it was "very prominently displayed" during his previous visits.
"I've been in the museum," he said. "That's a famous picture of the Mufti with Hitler."
"I can vouch and state as a matter of fact that I, Morton Klein, personally saw that picture on Yad Vashem's wall when I was there," he asserted.
Though photography is forbidden in the museum itself, the author of the recent op-ed attacking the museum gathered twenty signed testimonies of veteran guides over the last month attesting to the photo's original presence, before it was allegedly removed and never returned during renovations in 2005.
Former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem David Cassuto, a longtime member on the museum's council, told Breitbart News on Sunday that the photograph was absolutely part of the museum's previous exhibition.
"I remember it; I saw it there," Cassuto said, as he expressed his bafflement as to why it was ever removed.
"They have to bring it back and out it in a prominent point in the exhibition," he added.
Cassuto, who met with Dayan over the issue last month, disregarded Dayan's denials.
"[Dayan] has no idea because he was not there at the time."
Ephraim Kaye, who served as the director of international seminars for educators from abroad at the museum for over 25 years, also confirmed the prior display of the photograph and its subsequent removal.
"Everyone remembers the picture of the Mufti and Hitler, it was towards the end of the museum — it was there," Kaye told Breitbart News. "It was up until 2005 when we closed the old museum and opened the new one."
Kaye, who stressed that he trusted those who decided to remove it, believed Dayan's denials were "an honest mistake."
"Dani Dayan just got to Yad Vashem 5 minutes ago," he said. "His knowledge of what existed and what was where — even people that surround him haven't been there for long either."
In addition, Professor Robert G. Kaufman, a political scientist specializing in American foreign policy, dedicated an entire essay to lament the playing down of the once "extensive exhibit" on the Palestinian Mufti's role in the Holocaust, calling the missing "iconic photo" of his meeting with Hitler a "glaring omission" from the little that remains documenting the affair in the museum.
However, Klein argued that even if the picture had never been displayed, its significance would still warrant its display.
"Even if in fact it wasn't on the wall — which it was — it should be put up there," he said. "People should see who supported Hitler publicly and openly to massacre and murder millions of Jews."
"Any important leader that supported Hitler should be up there on that wall," he added.
Though a photograph of the Mufti with Himmler is still on display, Klein noted that its place in the museum is obscure.
"The Himmler picture is a tiny picture hidden in a corner," he said. "You can't even find it."
The earlier op-ed also described the size and location of the Himmler photo as insignificant.
"In the new museum, instead of the Husseini – Hitler photo there is a far smaller one of Husseini and Himmler, in a dark corner that no one sees," it claims.
The Mufti's Significance
Klein noted the Mufti's "significant" role during the Holocaust, particularly his plans to construct a concentration camp while claiming that painting his "historic" role in the Holocaust as "marginal" is "turning a blind eye to the truth of history."
"The Mufti helped train the SS Waffen [Nazi military] battalion to kill Jews, and he and Himmler were planning a concentration camp in Samaria [the West Bank]," he said. "It didn't happen because Germany lost the war, but he was planning with him."
"It's all history," he added. "It's not a secret."
Calling the Mufti "one of the monsters in Jewish history," Klein reiterated that having "one of the leading figures in the Arab world praising Hitler and urging him to kill Jews" is "not a minimal, trivial part of Holocaust history."
"One of the leaders of the Arab world was working with and promoting Hitler," he said. "He was so close to Hitler and his plans to murder Jews that [SS officer Heinrich] Himmler made the Mufti an honorary SS general."
"That's not trivial," he added. "That's part of history."
He also noted the Mufti's involvement in "training Bosnian forces to kill Jews."
"He was involved in that training," he said. "I am horrified that he would refer to this as 'marginal.'"
Klein claimed that a leading figure "meeting with a monster and giving honor to Nazi troops that were going to murder Jews" set "a tone of support" and provided "comfort" to Nazis and Hitler, noting that "any support that Hitler got from prominent figures only emboldened, encouraged and gave him strength."
"If the Pope had met with Hitler, would that be of marginal significance?" he asked. "It would have legitimized his monstrous program to the Christian world."
"The Mufti meeting with him gave Hitler's plans credibility to the whole Muslim world, and knowing that a Muslim leader supported him gave him strength," he added. "That's not marginal."
Klein specifically blasted Dayan and other museum figures for "whitewash[ing]" the Mufti's role during the Holocaust.
"For Dani Dayan and the leaders of the Holocaust museum to try and whitewash this important part of Holocaust history of the religious and other leadership of the Arabs supporting Hitler and urging him to murder Jews is inexplicable and intolerable," he said.
"Even before there was an Israel, Palestinians were promoting murdering Jews and that has nothing to do with land or statehood because there was no Israeli state when [the Mufti] was meeting with Hitler," he added.
He also highlighted the significance of displaying the picture as "almost every world leader — one of the first things they do when they come to Israel for meetings is to go to Yad Vashem — the Holocaust museum."
"How important would it be for those leaders to understand that the Arabs have had murderous hostility toward Jews even before there was a state?" he added. "Because this is before there was an Israel, [it shows] the Arab war against Israel is about a murderous hatred of Jews and the destruction of the Jewish state."
Accusations of Political Agendas
In response to Dayan's claim that the museum needs to remain apolitical, Klein expressed bewilderment over the assumption that the push to display the photo was political.
"This has nothing to do with politics," Klein argued. "This has to do with Holocaust history."
"Every part of Holocaust history should be in that museum," he added.
Emphasizing its historical significance, Klein claimed the picture's significance should remain regardless of Israel's current standing with the Palestinians.
"If Israel and the Palestinian Authority had a peace deal and they were at peace now, that picture should still be there because that was part of history," he said. "That a leader of the Arab world was working with the Hitler, Himmler, and the Nazis to kill Jews is hardly unimportant to the history of the Holocaust."
"This is censoring an important part of history, showing the brutal hatred of the Arabs towards the Jews even during the Holocaust," he added. "And for him to whitewash an important part of Holocaust history where the lead religious and other leaders of the Arab world were embracing Hitler and encouraging him is an abomination."
Klein also accused Dayan, who became the museum's chairman in August having served as the consul general in New York to Israel prior, of being "very interested in appeasing the left of center Jewish leaders — since they are the source of the main power in the Jewish world in America — even as they were pressuring Israel to establish a Palestinian state and unilaterally give away land."
Speaking with the Jewish Week last month, Dayan stated he would continue to lead the museum "apolitically" by creating "a virtual firewall" between him and political issues.
Scientists say that analyzing Israelis' excrement has taught them how to wipe out our snooze-button habit, and make us all early birds.
In peer-reviewed research, they identified very different bacteria patterns in the guts of early risers and late sleepers, and say it opens the door to fixes that give everyone their desired sleep pattern.
The scientists from Haifa advertised for Israelis to take part in a "poop by post" program, which involved them catching a stool in a box and mailing it to their labs.
Top UAE adviser makes rare trip to Iran, seeking to boost strained ties
They waded through their malodorous mailbag, examined around 90 samples, and identified different "signatures" in gut bacteria that determine whether we are larks or owls, finding that the two have elevated levels of either alistipes or lachnospiraceae bacteria, respectively.
There has been some work to date suggesting a link between gut bacteria and sleep tendencies, but this study makes the clearest correlation, Dr. Naama Geva-Zatorsky of the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, one of the researchers, told The Times of Israel.
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The team behind the study, drawn from the Technion and the University of Haifa and led by Prof. Eran Tauber, wrote in a newly published journal article that its findings "may represent the first step toward developing dietary interventions."
Illustration of the human microbiome (Design Cells via iStock by Getty Images)
"This research raises the possibility of changing our sleep tendencies by altering the microbiome, using probiotics, special molecules, or by changing diet. This could become a way to help larks or owls tune their bodies to change their sleep patterns," Geva-Zatorsky said.
"It's largely owls, who are frustrated at not being able to get up in the morning, who would change their patterns and this could potentially help them."
Advertisement Dr. Naama Geva-Zatorsky (Julien Chatelin, CAPA Pictures)
She acknowledged it is possible that the microbiome differences result from sleep patterns and not vice versa, and said this will be checked in the next stage of research.
The research will also throw more light on connections between diet and microbiome. At this stage the data suggests a correlation between fatty foods and nocturnal tendencies and one between high-fiber diets and early rising. But Geva-Zatorsky cautioned against jumping to the conclusion that changing diets will alter sleep patterns.
She noted that night owls with high lachnospiraceae tend to eat more fatty foods while early risers with high alistipes tend to eat lower fat diets and more fiber. But she stressed that it's unclear whether this causes the microbiome patterns and/or sleep patterns, or whether it's a byproduct of a late-night lifestyle and/or the microbiome that goes with it.
A range of experiments now getting underway on mice will clarify the correlations, and will also allow the scientists to see exactly how changing the microbiome impacts sleep. "All of this brings closer the possibility that we can alter the inside of the gut to help people sleep and rise as they want," said Geva-Zatorsky.
See you tomorrow bli neder when I am back in Shul after two days of being home sick
