23 Kislev, 5763
Jerusalem

Weekly Jewish Solidarity Update
(For the week of 21 - 28 November 2002)

MANIFESTATIONS OF SOLIDARITY

·         3,000 individuals participated in a fair held in Cincinnati, Ohio, to promote Israeli products. The Zionist Federation of Cincinnati organized the fair.

·         On 21 November, 200 angry protestors demonstrated in front of the PLO Mission in New York City, in reaction to the bombing of a Jerusalem bus in which 11 Israelis, among them four schoolchildren, were murdered.  Rabbi Avi Weiss, of AMCHA, the Coalition of Jewish Concerns, organized the protest demonstration.

·         A new web site www.Israelnowandforever.org enables visitors to become up to date on Israeli current events and to download tools, which will assist them in explaining Israel's position.

·         Neshama Carlebach, daughter of famed Jewish bard and spiritual leader, the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, arrived in Israel for a weeklong series of concert performances, some of which were held in Beit Shemesh. For additional information and her concert schedule please consult www.neshamacarlebach.com 

SOLIDARITY MISSIONS

A 300 strong solidarity mission from the USA and Canada, organized by the "Rally for Israel" association, visited Israel and held a walk through the old city of Jerusalem on 26 November. The group met with members of the Knesset, new immigrants and victims of terror.

VOLUNTARISM

There has been great interest, especially among students to come to Israel on volunteer programs coordinated by the Jewish Agency's Tnuat Aliyah Department. Well over 3,200 have applied to come to Israel, and over 736 volunteers have served or are presently serving in volunteer programs, which include Civil Guard, Magen David Adom, a special physicians program, Sarel, kibbutz and social welfare programs. A new track for groups of volunteers has been added: civilian work in the Civil Defense (IDF Homefront Command), helping to prepare protective kits.

SELECTED ANTI-SEMITIC INCIDENTS

·         15 November 2002. Paris, France. Three Jewish students were cursed and beaten. One required hospitalization.

·         15 November 2002. Melilla, Spain. Vandals desecrated a Jewish cemetery. Likewise three vehicles belonging to Jews were torched.

·         18 November 2002. Berlin, Germany. Bomb threats were received at the offices of the administration of Organization of Jewish Communities.

·         24 November 2002. Berlin, Germany. Dozens took part in a violent ant-Semitic demonstration on the occasion of a ceremony reinstituting the name "Street of the Jews"  to a Berlin street. Demonstrators shouted Juden Raus (the infamous "Jews get out" call of the Nazis). The demonstration was the latest in a long line of anti-Semitic incidents which took place in Germany; among them we may note the inscription of a Swastika in the visitors' book  of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, the drawing of Swastikas and burning of a monument to the memory of Jews in a city north of Berlin

Anti-Semitic incidents may be monitored on the official State of Israel-Jewish Agency website: www.antisemitism.org.il