Around the Jewish World

SA JEWISH REPORT STAFF

Burger King coming back to Israel

JERUSALEM – Fast food brand Burger King is coming back to Israel. A group of investors, the main one being French businessman Pierre Besnainou, who has holdings in a number of real estate and communications businesses and is a partner in Carmel Winery and the Chefa Meals & Service catering company, has obtained the Israeli franchise for the brand.

Burger King’s new activity in Israel will be built from the ground up. The international chain prefers that its new investor should begin anew, without using the foundations left from the previous franchise period.

Fifty branches around the country are planned within five years, at an initial investment of $12 million. The first branch will be launched next August, with five more branches getting underway by December. – Globes

Former envoy Oren says ‘likely’ US won’t veto Security Council

WASHINGTON-Former Israeli envoy to Washington, Michael Oren, said the United States was “likely” not to veto an expected UN Security Council resolution calling for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Oren’s remarks were made at the New York launch of his new book Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide.

Responding to a question from the audience about Israel’s public diplomacy on the Palestinian issue, Oren brought up the expected upcoming move at the UN and stated emphatically that “the United States is likely not to cast a veto”. – The Algemeiner

The dangerous good deeds of Gal Lusky

JERUSALEM – Israeli Flying Aid brings undercover rescue volunteers to countries that don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel or will not accept foreign disaster relief.

Gal Lusky chose Frank Sinatra’s classic “Fly Me to the Moon” as her mobile phone’s ringtone.

“The moon is just about the only place I know that’s peaceful right now,” quips the founder and CEO of Israeli Flying Aid, a nonprofit volunteer organisation that provides lifesaving aid in areas of natural disaster or conflict.

Lusky was one of seven female and seven male Israelis chosen to light torches at the 67th Independence Day ceremony on Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl.

Her inclusion in this illustrious group is all the more remarkable considering that many of her missions are to nations normally off limits to Israelis, such as Pakistan, Sudan, Indonesia, Iraq and other places she is not at liberty to identify.

That the Ministry of Culture and Sport approved her nomination for the honour is a testament to Israel’s democratic principles, says Lusky. “The government knows how strongly I love my country.”

Lusky tells Israel21c she established Israeli Flying Aid because no other Israeli NGO was dealing with disasters in hostile territories. “I believe Israel does amazing work where it’s invited to do so, but I wanted to compensate the other parts of the world.”

She prefers to stay under the radar even when working with emergency responders in friendly countries such as the United States, Haiti and Nepal.

“I don’t want to compete in the media with formal Israeli missions; I want people to see Israeli soldiers helping people all over the world,” says Lusky. – Israel 21c

Measures to protect Golders Green community ahead of neo-Nazi march

LONDON – A group of MPs have called for “every measure” to be taken to protect the Golders Green community ahead of a planned neo-Nazi demonstration next week. Led by Hampstead and Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq, they have signed an early day motion in Parliament praising the efforts of campaigners to ban the July 4 protest in the heart of the north-west London Jewish community.

Siddiq’s motion is sponsored by fellow Labour MPs Sadiq Khan, Wes Streeting and Ruth Smeeth. They also called on Home Secretary Theresa May to take further action to stop offensive protests and demonstrations.

The motion states: “That this House notes with concern the planned neo-Nazi demonstration in Golders Green on 4 July; highlights that this rally is due to take place on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath, in an area in which 40 per cent of the population is Jewish; praises the public activism in opposition to the rally – and particularly the change.org petition to ban it, and the work of Hope Not Hate and the London Jewish Forum, under the umbrella of the Golders Green Together campaign, to promote solidarity and celebrate diversity in the local area; believes that every measure should be taken to protect Golders Green’s vibrant community from provocation and abuse, and calls on the Home Secretary to consider what further actions the government could take to isolate the politics of hate and division on our streets.”

 Siddiq’s constituency borders the Golders Green area.

The motion was also sponsored by Conservative MP Peter Bottomley. – Jewish Chronicle, London

Burial of deceased infant refused

JERUSALEM – The Jerusalem Burial Society recently refused to bury a deceased infant and returned his body to the family in a cardboard box, the family said last week.

Born over a month premature, a son to the Bornstein family died at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital in Ein Kerem at four days old.

Although standard procedures stipulate that hospitals co-ordinate the burial of infants with cemeteries in accordance with halacha, Joseph Bornstein told Walla News that he and his wife wanted to take care of the arrangements themselves.

Bornstein said that after the hospital gave him the body of his infant son he went to the burial society at Jerusalem’s Sanhedria cemetery, where he was refused permission to bury his son.

The Chevrah Kadisha, insisted that it was following Jewish law, which stipulates that a baby who dies in the first month of his life is treated as a stillborn, and the parents are typically not allowed to participate in the burial or even be told the grave’s location.

Bornstein said that after some negotiating, he and a Burial Society representative reached an agreement that the parents would be told the location of the grave, but not attend the funeral.

The next day however, Bornstein said the organisation reneged on the agreement, and he was told to pick up his son’s body from its office at the cemetery.

“He was in a cardboard box just sitting on a bench in office – I couldn’t believe it,” Bornstein said. “So I took it to the car and turned on my air-conditioning to try and keep the body cold while we figured out what to do.”

Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the chairman of Zaka, Israel’s voluntary emergency response and rescue service, intervened on the parents’ behalf and arranged for the infant to be buried at the Mount of Olives cemetery. – Times of Israel

Melbourne Jewish community on alert

MELBOURNE – The Community Security Group (CSG) has announced that there is new and current intelligence which indicated that a radicalised person may attack the Melbourne Jewish community.

“No particular facility or organisation has been identified and no particular timeframe has been specified,” CSG said in a letter to key communal organisations.

The letter said that CSG enacted its internal escalation plan last week and that the information had been conveyed to Victoria Police and other Australian security agencies.

CSG “is working in collaboration with those organisations to verify its authenticity and respond accordingly”.

CSG is calling on the community to take their own safety measures and to report any form of suspicious activity to the 24/7 CSG hotline. – Australian Jewish News