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Approaching its 160th anniversary, the lessons of Gettysburg are more relevant than ever.
By Salena Zito
GETTYSBURG — The Confederate soldier blinked back tears as he examined the features of the man the other side of the stone wall. This was the famous Bloody Angle where Confederate Gen. George Pickett lost over 3,000 men from a force of 6,000. The elderly Southerner told reporters that he had been shot there — and would have died were it not for a Union solider who came to his rescue.
That Union soldier was now standing directly across from him — looking back at the man he had saved 50 years earlier. For what seemed like an eternity, the Confederate soldier looked intently at the elderly Union soldier across from him: “But my God, look at you. You are that man.”
The men embraced and wept, moving all those around them to tears.
It was July 3, 1913, the last day of the Great Reunion, a grand commemoration that marked the Battle of Gettysburg’s 50th anniversary. Veterans of the Blue and Gray came by the thousands — 50,000 to be exact — from all corners of the country to be at the very spot where they had fought in the battle long accepted as the turning point of the Civil War. They came on foot, by rail, in horse buggies and in automobiles, all clogging the roads leading to this Adams County village.
While the elite and powerful gave speeches on the virtues of sacrifice and patriotism — like Lindley Garrison, the U.S. Secretary of War who like the president who appointed him, Woodrow Wilson, had no military experience himself — most of the rank and file soldiers, who did most of the suffering, sacrificing and dying, sought each other out to find a way to heal.
There will be no such reunions as the town of Gettysburg and the Gettysburg National Military Park prepare for the reenactments, visitors, parades and celebrations that will mark the battle’s 160th anniversary in July. Yet when I visited on a sunny April day, it was hard to find anyone who doesn’t sense the sacredness of this place, and that it serves as the ultimate reminder to never let such bloodshed happen again.
Everywhere I went, even on a Tuesday afternoon, was packed with young and old, whether at the visitors center, walking the battlefields, searching for traces of ancestors on memorials or wandering away from the larger monuments to find smaller ones often buried among the tall grasses where the more obscure skirmishes happened.
Despite the crowds, though, it is still the silence at Gettysburg that is most pervasive.
Historian Michael Kraus, who is the curator at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall in Oakland and a Union re-enactor, said that 1913 reunion was an awakening to the country that Civil War veterans weren’t going to be around much longer, and that “we do need to listen to them and gather their stories, so that there is a national awareness of what they witnessed, but also what they can teach us from their experiences and that desire to heal after all they had been through.”
Mr. Kraus thinks the veterans of both sides of that war — were they alive today — would be startled that their memory still affects our lives. “We’re still fighting for the same thing right now: the political struggle over rights, and how you see your rights, and whether they’re protected by federal government, state government or the individual. And that’s essentially the background of the war. So, their war was hugely significant in who we are as a country — and I think they would be surprised to see how much of a stamp it still has on it,” he said.
Jason Martz, Gettysburg National Military Park spokesman and ranger, wondered if the country had really learned the lessons of the war. “I’m not so sure that the Civil War has ever really been over,” he said. “We can go back to almost any stage in America’s history since the Civil War came and went, and put our thumb on any given point in time and say, ‘Did we not learn anything?’”
“To think that nearly 160 years, we’re still debating some of the things that came out of the Civil War, for better or for worse, one way or the other, that part is both fascinating and frustrating,” he said.
More than 50,000 men and women lost their lives here — 23,000 Union soldiers, 28,000 Confederates — and it changed the lives of the people from this small town forever. The stench of the bodies, both human and animal, rotting in the summer sun spread out for miles. Many of the homes were heavily damaged, destroyed or filled with bullets lodged in their walls, to serve as permanent reminders of the carnage.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee left here knowing it was the beginning of the end, Mr. Kraus said, “and General Meade left thinking, ‘I think we beat them.’”
It’s not an exaggeration to say I have visited the battlefield well over 100 times. For me, it serves as a place of reflection and contemplation. It gives me both peace and dread — peace in that the men who came back here tried to reclaim a sense of unity that had evaded the country in the years following Reconstruction, and dread in that there are many of us who have failed to learn from what happened here, who have no sense of history, or what it meant to fight and kill their neighbors, brothers and countrymen.
Today’s extremist rhetoric and growing hate — from the fringes on all sides — can lead to consequences we are not equipped to understand, let alone survive.
Visiting Gettysburg today serves as a reminder of the frightening similarities between the political rhetoric today and that which predominated in Washington in the decade that preceded the Civil War. Kraus reminds us that the two biggest bomb throwers during that time were John C. Calhoun, whose beliefs and rhetoric heavily influenced the South’s secession from the Union, and John Brown, whose very different rhetoric and actions have generally been forgiven, and even lionized, because he is perceived to have been on the right side.
“Both men were agitators and really were on fire. However, the people reading or listening to them just added fuel to the fire they started,” Mr. Kraus said.
Today’s rhetoric is as inciting as it was back then, and just as before, it is coming from both sides of the aisle. But how do we dial it back? How do we get people to think about the stakes, the real life-and-death implications? Most of our elected leaders have no interest in doing that, which only leaves us, the people, to step back from the brink.
If there is one common theme that came from listening to people visiting Gettysburg that should speak to us all, it’s the spirit of those two old soldiers — those two Americans — reuniting at the Angle in 1913: Never again.
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Get ready America for it's first Green Woke naval defeat!!!!!
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As China War Looms, Navy’s Priority is Going ‘Green
The “age of American naval dominance is over”, Jerry Hendix, a former Navy Captain warned in a high-profile article in The Atlantic.
Hendrix’s article imagines a scenario in which China or other enemy nations seize control of what are now international waters and the cargo that moves across them. “The great container ships and tankers of today would disappear, replaced by smaller, faster cargo vessels capable of moving rare and valuable goods past pirates and corrupt officials.” A handful of nations would end up controlling the chokepoints of international trade and America would not be one of them.
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has already conceded China’s naval supremacy.
Last month, the Biden appointee stated that China has “got a larger fleet now so they’re deploying that fleet globally.”
The People’s Liberation Army Navy topped the US Navy in 2020. By 2025, it will have an estimated 400 ships. We’re still below 300
Biden’s current defense plan is to have 350 by 2045. And by then we will have lost.
“They have 13 shipyards, in some cases their shipyard has more capacity — one shipyard has more capacity than all of our shipyards combined. That presents a real threat,” Del Toro conceded. “They’re a communist country, they don’t have rules by which they abide by.”
We don’t have China’s shipyard capacity because it isn’t a priority. Biden’s Navy budget would buy 9 ships and retire 24. That means we’ll be down to 280 by 2027. The administration has plenty of money, with over $1 billion directed to Afghanistan aid, hundreds of millions for the ‘Palestinians’, and foreign aid for every one of our enemies, but plans for a shrinking military.
Communist China has its priorities, but so do Biden and Del Toro.
“As the Secretary of the Navy, I can tell you that I have made climate one of my top priorities since the first day I came into office,” Del Tore declared a week after admitting that China had taken the naval lead and would hold on to it for the conceivable future.
The Navy’s 2023 budget wastes $718 million on fighting global warming. That’s more than 10% of the $6.2 billion in maintenance costs for 151 Navy vessels.
China’s Communist leadership is focused on building warships to win a war, ours isn’t.
What does it mean that under Biden, the Navy has made global warming into its priority?
Last year, the Navy joined California and assorted failed blue states in committing to “net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050”. Net Zero emissions is an impossibility. In practice it means wasting a fortune on buying carbon credits from politically connected leftist companies. It also means that we will not be quickly and efficiently constructing warships because that’s not ‘green’. Winning wars isn’t green either, losing them however might be.
A Navy official absurdly claimed that, “to remain the world’s dominant maritime force, the Department of the Navy must adapt to climate change.” Going ‘green’ means that being a dominant marine force is not the priority. Much like diversity, equity and inclusion, which the woke brass have taken to claiming will improve our deadliness, it’s a betrayal of the mission
China, which is rapidly becoming the dominant marine force, doesn’t give a damn about adapting to climate change except when it comes to peddling its junk solar panels assembled by slave labor to woke companies that will resell them at a massive markup while gobbling up tax credits because when we go ‘green’, it only weakens us and strengthens our enemies.
Communist China aims for a ‘victory-ready’ force while Biden’s after a ‘climate-ready’ force.
While China builds warships to achieve naval dominance in the next decade, the US Navy’s goal for the next decade is to have “100 percent zero-emission vehicles by 2035” and “100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity”. No word on whether firing torpedoes will also be carbon-pollution free, but that’s not a problem for a leadership that never intends to use them.
There will be “hybrid-propulsion” for naval vessels and more money lavished on “green fuels”.
Apart from the massive waste of money, hybrid systems are more expensive and more prone to breakdowns. Forcing ground vehicles to rely on lithium batteries comes with more expensive maintenance costs and worse operations in extreme weather. All of this pandering to green special interests not only corruptly steals money from national defense, but puts lives at risk.
Del Toro claims that the problem with our shipbuilding capacity is that, unlike China, we don’t use slave labor, but during WWII, we built a massive fleet in a short time with no slaves. But that was an age in which skyscrapers could also be built in a year. It was also a time when there were no environmental reviews and we focused on the mission, not corrupt woke politics.
Under the Democrats, politics, from DEI to climate goals, is the mission: winning isn’t.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy is not investing in “low-carbon fuels” or electric cars for its personnel. Instead it’s been busy holding drills with Iran and South Africa in a matter of a few weeks to show off a growing ability to operate on a global scale with its international allies.
While our military brass obsessed over diversity, equity and inclusion, the PRC turned the South China Sea into its own private backyard, enabling it to potentially cut off traffic to the United States. China has built up chains of islands studded with its naval outposts so that its fighter jets and ant-ship and anti-aircraft missiles now encompass not only the coasts of Taiwan and China, but much of the coastlines of everything from Thailand to Malaysia to the Philippines
The People’s Republic of China has military goals, our military now only has political goals.
The US Navy brass claim that “leveraging our diversity is the key to reaching the Navy’s peak potential” and that their priority is changing the weather and fighting global warming.
China’s priority isn’t fighting the weather, it’s fighting us.
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Pentagon leak suspect Jack Teixeira didn’t act solo, says former Trump intel official
By Mary Kay Linge and accused Pentagon leaker Jack Teixeira could not have acted alone — suggesting the 21-year-old is merely the patsy in a much wider intelligence breach, according to one of former-President Trump’s top national security aides.
“It’s just not possible” for a low-level Air National Guard information technology specialist like Teixeira to have access to the trove of highly sensitive US intelligence he allegedly revealed, according to Kash Patel, Trump’s former deputy director of national intelligence.
“You can be the biggest IT person in [the Department of Defense], and you are still compartmented off of the actual information,” Patel told Breitbart News Saturday.
“Almost never does an IT person need to know, as we say, the substance of the intelligence,” Patel, a onetime Pentagon chief of staff, told the conservative outlet. “Their job is to provide the secure information systems around it to protect any disclosures.”
“This is crazy sensitive stuff,” he said of the detailed data about Ukraine’s military planning that Teixeira is accused of posting online. “Ninety-nine percent of people who have a Top Secret/SCI clearance don’t have access to this information.
Patel said he does not believe “for a single second” that “this guy — a 21-year-old Air National Guardsman — ran his operation alone.”
Instead, he said, the explosive revelations are likely part of “an Assange-style operation” — referring to the WikiLeaks founder who faces espionage charges for helping U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning steal classified diplomatic cables and military files.
“The way it was produced, the way it was put out there — pages, printed photographs taken, published online — that is a methodical way of releasing classified information illegally,” Patel said.
“I think he’s definitely working with other people in DOD or the intel space to get this information out,” he added — calling Teixiera’s Thursday arrest “an extensive cover-up.”
Heavily armed federal agents arrested Teixeira at his mother’s home in North Dighton, Mass. after he leaked dozens of sensitive US intelligence documents related to the Ukraine war through a Discord channel with 20 to 30 members.
Photos of the leaked documents first appeared in the “Thug Shakers Central” channel, where members shared their opinions about the war in Ukraine.
The classified documents from the Department of Defense, were marked “Top Secret” and “Secret,” contained detailed information about America’s espionage efforts against Russia, as well as secrets relating to South Korea and Israel.
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Ordman's good news Israel. (edted.)
It's hard to be positive when a tragedy occurs such as that to Lucy (Leah) Dee and her daughters Maia and Rina. All I can report is that the organs Lucy donated have benefited five Israelis who will be thankful to Lucy for the rest of their lives. And as this newsletter testifies, Israelis continue to work hard to create a better future, for those that love life.
A new Israeli chest monitor is saving lives every day; so is a new Israeli AI system that unscrambles unintelligible emergency calls. A pacemaker was fitted to a 102-year-old Israeli woman; and Israeli medics saved two passengers flying from Israel to the USA. Israeli doctors saved a 4-year-old Palestinian Arab girl and Israeli NGO Save A Child's Heart has now saved children from 68 countries. A Thai Princess came to see how cancer is treated in an Israeli hospital; and volunteers from Israeli NGO IsraAID are currently saving lives in hurricane / cholera-hit Malawi.
Israeli scientists have won awards for research into screening and preventing diseases. An Israeli startup that detects road safety design flaws is saving lives in Israel and in 20 US states. And another startup won the Innovation Award at a tech & music festival in Texas for its brain diseases diagnostic system.
I have a few personal commitments this week, so I plan to publish my next newsletter in two weeks time on Sun 30th Apr. I also wish everyone Yom Ha'Atzmaut Sameach - Happy Israel Independence Day on Weds 26th April.
In the 16th Apr 23 edition of Israel’s good news, the highlights include:
- Israeli high pressure oxygen treatment cures traumatic induced fibromyalgia.
- A 102-year-old Israeli woman is the oldest known recipient of a pacemaker.
- Israeli Foreign minister hosts Iftar meal for Muslim diplomats.
- Israelis aid “forgotten” hurricane & cholera victims in Malawi.
- Israeli scientists have discovered that plants can “talk”.
- Major boosts to Israeli trade relations with UK and Vietnam.
- An Israeli whisky is named the best single malt in the world.
- The organs of two Israeli victims of terror saved 10 lives.
- If someone wishes to be added to the free email subscription list, they should either click here or send a request (with their name) to michael.goodnewsisrael@gmail.
com
ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
HBOT is effective for fibromyalgia. Tel Aviv University researchers have found that hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is more effective than medication in reducing fibromyalgia pain caused by a traumatic head injury. 40% of the HBOT group were cured of fibromyalgia, compared to none receiving standard medication.
https://journals.plos.org/
Health monitor is a lifesaver. (TY Hazel) Israel’s BioBeat (see here previously) has just completed a study of its wearable chest monitor in use on 521 patients. It reported a 77% success rate for detecting those at high risk of deterioration. This compared with 20% monitored using current alternative methods.
https://nocamels.com/2023/03/
https://www.frontiersin.org/
AI emergency system saves more lives. A unique, artificial intelligence-based system is helping paramedics in Israel save lives by transcribing poor-quality emergency phone calls to save precious time. The technology was developed by Israel’s AudioCodes (see here previously) and is now installed at MDA’s 101 dispatch center.
https://www.mdais.org/en/news/
https://www.jpost.com/
US approval for PTSD brain modulator. Israel’s GrayMatters Health (see here previously) has received US FDA clearance to market its Prism system, for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The patient wears Prism’s cap fitted with special electrodes. Software plus an audio-visual interface then helps calm emotions.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Shortening the healing time for dental implants. (TY Israel21c) The implant activation device, Active+ from Israel’s Nova Plasma gives dental implants a 30-sec deep-cleaning cold plasma bath immediately before they go into the patient’s mouth. Clinical results show a 50% improvement in integration and healing time.
https://novaplasma.com/using-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
mRNA vaccine center for Jerusalem. Jerusalem Mayor Moshe Lion has announced that the German company BioNTech intends to open a factory in Jerusalem where mRNA vaccines will be developed and produced. BioNTech partnered Pfizer in developing its mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccine.
https://www.
Grant for autism research. Hebrew University of Jerusalem Professor Haitham Amal has received a $400k grant from the Philadelphia Eagles Autism Foundation to develop treatments based on his nitric oxide research for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Amal is the first researcher outside the US to be awarded the grant.
https://www.jns.org/wire/
102-year-old receives pacemaker. Doctors at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya implanted a cardiac pacemaker in Rachel Kafri who was born in Tel Aviv under the British Mandate 102 years ago. Rachel said. “I have been through so much in my life, but I am probably not ready to say goodbye to the world yet.”
https://www.jpost.com/health-
Is there a doctor on the plane? On a flight from Tel Aviv to Chicago? - of course there is! A pediatric doctor from Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, and a United Hatzalah EMT, treated a 60-year-old man who fainted and fell over. Then they were called to stabilize a woman suffering from dehydration. All in a day’s work!
https://www.
ISRAEL IS INCLUSIVE AND GLOBAL
Foreign Minister hosts Iftar meal for Muslim diplomats. Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen hosted Muslim diplomats from Turkeye (Turkey), Egypt, Morocco, Albania, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, and Chad for the traditional Iftar break-fast meal. He spoke about expanding the 2020 Abraham Accords.
https://www.jns.org/israeli-
First Iftar in Israel for UAE Ambassador. (TY Hazel) UAE ambassador to Israel, Mohamed Al Khaja, hosted Iftar for the first time in Israel. Leaders from Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Druze communities also attended the event.
https://www.khaleejtimes.com/
Israeli doctors save Palestinian Arab girl. 4-year-old Ayla from PA controlled Kalkilya suffered a stroke after many brain events. She was admitted to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center where advanced brain catheterization saved her from a life-threatening cerebral aneurysm.
https://www.jpost.com/health-
SACH saves children’s lives everywhere. Israeli Arab Yoseph Haddad describes how Israeli NGO Save a Child’s Heart performs free surgery to repair the hearts of children everywhere. 50% are Palestinian Arabs. SACH has just received children for the first time from Guinea Bissau and Gabon – its 67th and 68th countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Middle East & Africa conference in Jerusalem. (TY Hazel) The 3-day Jerusalem conference “Trusted Regional Partnerships at a Time of Shifting Alliances” included representatives of Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Djibouti, Tunisia, and Mauritania – countries that do not have diplomatic ties with Israel.
https://www.jns.org/jerusalem-
https://www.jns.org/israel-
https://www.ynetnews.com/
UK influencers visit Israel. Vibe Israel brought six British non-Jewish social media influencers to see Israel and document their 7-day trip. As Luke Vernon explains to his millions of followers - it is not possible to understand what’s going on here without seeing it for yourself. “It’s nothing like you see in the media.”
https://video.i24news.tv/#/
Thai Princess visits Israeli hospital. The Princess of Thailand, a.k.a. Prof. Dr. H.R.H. Chulabhorn Mahidol, visited Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem to get to know first-hand technological developments and innovative and advanced treatments in the field of cancer. The Princess holds a PhD in biochemistry.
https://www.
Drip irrigation system for Indian children’s park. (TY Hazel) On World Water Day (22 Mar) Israeli Ambassador to India Naor Gilon donated and inaugurated a drip irrigation system at the New Delhi India Gate Children’s Park. https://www.aninews.in/news/
The oldest copper fishhook. An ancient copper fishhook, found in 2018 excavations in the Israeli coastal city of Ashkelon, has been dated to at least 5,000 years old – one of the oldest in the world. It was exhibited for the first time at Israel’s 48th Archaeological Congress, along with rare Roman-era jewelry discovered in 1971.
https://www.
https://www.israel21c.org/
Disaster aid to Malawi. There’s not much international news about the cholera epidemic in Malawi that has been compounded by the aftermath of hurricane Freddy. Israeli NGO IsraAID has sent an 8-person team there to set up cholera prevention points, including water filtration systems and hygiene kits, in the city of Blantyre.
https://www.israel21c.org/
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Technion’s Summer School. SciTech 2023 (17 Jul - 10 Aug) at Israel’s Technion Institute offers international high school students in grades 11 and 12 a unique opportunity to develop entrepreneurial skills and knowledge in fields at the frontier of science and technology, including robotics, space, biotechnology, and food!
https://int.technion.ac.il/
$100,000 prizes for top Israeli scientists. This year’s $100,000 Blavatnik Awards (see here previously) for Young Scientists in Israel went to Shai Carmi (IVF egg screening for diseases); Rina Rosenzweig (protein misfolding); Zvika Barkerski (data encryption).
https://nocamels.com/2023/04/
Technion in Space. The Adelis-SAMSON nanosatellite mission successfully launched in Mar 2021, thanks to the partnership between Israel Aerospace Industries and Israel’s Technion Institute (see here previously). See the launch in the first video, a video overview of Technion’s space projects, plus an update of the partnership.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
https://technionuk.org/news-
We speak your language. Finally, Israel is using its own AI systems to enhance (some may say begin) its PR. The Foreign Ministry has engaged Israel’s D-ID (see here previously) to enable its staff and Ambassadors to give out messages in languages they do not know. The embedded video has an avatar speaking fluent Persian.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
What we want, what we really want. Israel’s Tastewise (see here previously) has launched TasteGPT – an instant AI response to any questions from food innovators about what eaters and drinkers are ordering, cooking, and eating right now. No need to waste time and money developing products that are not currently popular.
https://nocamels.com/2023/03/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Securing the perimeters. (TY Hazel) The V-Alert perimeter intrusion detection system from Israel’s GM Afcon (see here previously) protects borders, airports, ports, database servers, industrial sites, power plants, and more, in Israel and internationally. Its sensors activate a pinpoint precision alarm when moved by an intruder.
https://www.jns.org/israeli-
Designing safer roads. Israel’s RDV (Rapid Design Visualizations) Systems is a 3D design visualization firm specializing in planning highways and is now focusing on road safety. It has worked with around 20 US state departments of transportation. It also fixed six design deficiencies on the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway.
https://worldisraelnews.com/
https://www.rdvsystems.com/ https://vimeo.com/674308130
Sustainable non-plastic packaging. Israel’s Melodea (see here previously) has launched VBseal™, its new sustainable packaging solution to cut back plastic waste in consumer-packaged goods. The green coating solution is resistant to water vapor, oil, aroma and has heat-sealing properties.
https://melodea.eu/melodea-
Plants emit sounds. Tel Aviv University researchers have recorded and analyzed sounds distinctly emitted by plants. The click-like sounds resemble popping popcorn, emitted at frequencies beyond the hearing range of the human ear. The sound varies according to the plant species and stress factors – e.g., lack of water.
https://english.tau.ac.il/
Another plant-based egg protein. Israel’s PoLoPo is developing a plant-based alternative to ovalbumin, the main protein in egg whites. PoLoPo's product will be identical to ovalbumin from eggs, which means that no food technology adjustments are required. See also Israel’s Fabumin, and other vegan egg substitutes here.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
https://finder.
Identifying on-line gambling addicts. Israel’s Optimove (see here previously) has developed AI software that helps betting websites identify users with a potential gambling addiction. These users then receive messages encouraging them to take a break, reduce their bet, or get help. The online betting company is also alerted.
https://nocamels.com/2023/03/
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
UK & Israel sign landmark agreement. Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and the UK’s James Cleverly signed “the 2030 Roadmap for Israel-UK Bilateral Relations.” It covers trade, cyber, science and tech, R&D, security, health, and more. It includes around £20 million in joint funds for technology and innovation projects.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Free trade with Vietnam. Talks about a Free Trade Agreement between Israel and Vietnam have been in progress since 2013 (see here previously). They have now concluded, and an agreement will be signed later this year. During the 10 years, Israeli exports to Vietnam have risen from some $350 million to $1 billion.
https://www.jns.org/israel-
Tel Aviv – 2nd most valuable ecosystem outside the US. According to Intelligence company dealroom.co, Tel Aviv tech startups had a combined value of $393 billion at the end of 2022 - second only to London among Europe, Middle East, and Africa. In the last 5 years, Tel Aviv businesses have more than tripled in total value.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
Israel in Texas. Israeli entrepreneurs made a big impression at the SXSW (South by Southwest) tech and music festival in Austin, Texas. They included NeuraLight, which beat 1,000 startups to win the Innovation Award for Health and Med Tech. The festival covered technology, education, film, music, and comedy.
https://www.israel21c.org/
A Quantum alliance. KPMG's Global Quantum Hub announced its partnership with Israeli quantum software company Classiq (see here previously) to bring innovative quantum solutions to clients. They will target financial services, automotive, medical, energy, telecommunications, and logistics.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Inspecting vehicles at Haifa Port. Israel’s Ravin AI (see here previously) has partnered with Haifa Port to inspect new vehicles entering Israel, pinpoint damage during transport, offloading, and storage and help identify the responsible parties. Ravin’s customers include Avis Budget, Sixt, Mercedes Benz, and Toyota-Lexus.
https://www.calcalistech.com/
High flying deliveries. Israel’s Flytrex (see here previously) has reported a huge surge in its delivery orders in 2022. It delivered more than 85,000 items across 21,350 orders – seven times the numbers in 2021. Flytrex now delivers to 140,000+ households in the United States.
https://dronedj.com/2023/03/
https://thespoon.tech/french-
https://www.flytrex.com/
Heading for the Judean hills. Michael Fertik, founder of US Fund Heroic Ventures said that his “decision to continue to invest in Israeli startups is not just a matter of principle: there has never been a better economic moment to invest in startups in the Jewish State.”
https://www.calcalistech.com/
Exits, takeovers and mergers to 16/4/23: Entain, one of the world's largest sports betting and gaming groups, is acquiring Israeli sports results application 365Scores for $200 million. Cisco is acquiring Israel’s Lightspin for $200-250 million. BP and Abu Dhabi National Oil have offered $2 billion for 50% of Israel’s NewMed Energy.
Investment in Israeli startups to 16/4/23: Japan’s Softbank has invested another $100 million in Cybereason; Fetcherr raised $12.5 million; Otterize raised $11.5 million; Redefine.dev raised $8.5 million; Rupert raised $8 million; Entrio raised $7.5 million; PxE Holographic Imaging raised $5.4 million; Wilk raised $3.5 million; PoLoPo raised $1.75 million;
CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT & SPORT`
Contest to perform at Israel’s 75th. A new song competition comes with a free trip to Israel for the winner, who will perform with Nicole Raviv and others at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Competitors will submit renditions of “The Whole Entire World Is a Very Narrow Bridge” in their native language.
https://www.jns.org/contest-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The best archeological site. (TY Nevet) GIST, Italy's foremost tourism press agency, has awarded the ACTA Archeological and Cultural Award for the best foreign archeological site, to Caesarea. Israel’s northern city was chosen for its coastal harbor, underwater sites and scientific and archeological studies taking place there.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-
The best single malt whisky in the world. Israel’s M&H Distillery (Milk and Honey – see here previously) won “Best Single Malt Whisky in the World” for its Element Sherry Cask at the prestigious World Whiskies Awards 2023 competition in Britain. It beat thousands of whiskies from the world’s top distilleries.
https://worldwhiskiesawards.
https://www.jpost.com/israel-
Only for the birds. 150+ participants from as far afield as Colombia, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Finland, and the UK competed in Israel to photograph as many bird species as possible in 24 hours. They raised over $35,000 to protect the illegally hunted rare, red-breasted goose. The winning group photographed 181 different species.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
THE JEWISH STATE
The Way to Jerusalem. Two Israelis, Golan and Yael have revived the ancient 400km road from Jaffa to Jerusalem, used by Jewish Pilgrims in the second Temple period. They say that the route exposes the traveler to the tremendous power that comes from a long, physical walk, through history, characters, and symbols.
https://www.israel21c.org/new-
https://aleteia.org/2023/03/
Helping more medics make Aliyah. Nefesh B'Nefesh’s Medex event aims to help a record number of doctors make Aliyah from the USA. Some 400 medical professionals attended the event in Teaneck, New Jersey. Some 100 of the 120 physicians were under 35. They were able to open files with Israel’s Ministry of Health.
https://www.
Where did wine originate? A recent multinational study on the genetic makeup of grapevines, suggests that the harsh climate during the Ice Age enabled the domestication of grapes in Israel and the Caucasus. Ariel University’s Elyashiv Drori says that Israeli wild grapevines are the source of all cultivated table grapes.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/
https://www.israel21c.org/
https://www.science.org/doi/
70 UN Ambassadors attend Israeli Passover Seder. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan, in collaboration with Aish Global, hosted a model Passover Seder at the UN that was attended by 70 global Ambassadors. It included traditional Passover foods, Haggadah readings, and explanations of Seder customs.
https://www.
Let’s get packing. Tel Aviv’s Chabad center enlisted the help of protestors in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to pack food boxes for the needy before the Passover festival. Many passersby also joined in the humanitarian initiative to help and connect the entire Israeli Jewish nation.
https://www.
Victims of terror saved lives. Organs donated by Or Ashkar and Lucy Dee have been transplanted into 10 patients. Their corneas have given sight to even more. The wife of one of the heart transplant patients said, “I heard that Or Ashkar had a heart of gold. I promise his family that his heart reached a man of gold.”
https://worldisraelnews.com/
https://www.
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My take.
A Jewish Senator is about to be thrown out of office so Cal. Gov Newsom can appoint a black woman to her seat because the Sentor has been ill and has not been able to serve. A white man from PA. lied to gain a Senatorial seat and has been hospitalized almost from day one but no Democrat or the mass media dare say anything.
The GOP Tenn. legislature threw two black yahoos out for disrupting the Legislature. This move by the Tenn GOP made them martyr's and the mass media lionized their actions and ignored the fact that they broke the rules of the legislature.
I cite these facts so any shrinking number of fair minded citizen's can see how far our nation has drifted away from a function republic.
Weaponizing politics trumps ethics, lying trumps truth and a Governor manipulates he status of a sitting Senator so he can advantage a woman for racial reasons. In no instance was competence a factor, simply race, ethnicity, religion.
While this is happening, our president has ignored leaking borders, the flooding of death killing drugs, spreading crime and now penetration of our nation's most sensitive intelligence secrets. This president's family has also been connected with evidence of receiving millions from our enemies and the "Big Man" has apparently sold his office for a significant cut. Yet nothing akin to outrage has surfaced. and our republic sinks even further.
If Biden has committed "treason," as seems the case, he should be hung.
Now it is reported that 6 Alabama kids, attending a birthday party, have been murdered. Whoopy do!
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Democrats Discover the Age Issue
They belatedly admit Dianne Feinstein is too old to serve. What about Joe Biden?
By KimberleyStrassel
Nothing is certain but death and taxes, save perhaps Democrats’ recent ability to ignore the relevance of old age to that saying. Will their Dianne Feinstein problem provoke a rethink of the wisdom of re-nominating Joe Biden?
Ms. Feinstein, California’s 89-year-old senior senator, announced this week that her return to Washington would be delayed by “continued complications” of shingles. She has already missed nearly three-quarters of Senate votes this year because of her illness, though Democrats’ more immediate frustration is that her absence leaves the Judiciary Committee deadlocked, unable to greenlight Mr. Biden’s nominees. With the House in GOP hands, that’s about all the Senate is currently good for.
And don’t progressives know it. Plenty of senators have faced injury and illness before, some absent for long periods. But with a 51-49 Senate margin—and the potential for a judicial pileup or the loss of a crucial floor vote—Democrats have suddenly decided octogenarians pose a problem. California Rep. Ro Khanna unloosed the hordes on Wednesday with a tweet demanding Ms. Feinstein resign, citing the need to put “country ahead of personal loyalty.” He was joined by Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who called it a “dereliction of duty” for Ms. Feinstein to remain in office and for Democrats to “remain quiet.”
Don’t think Mr. Khanna is motivated entirely by civic-mindedness. Gov. Gavin Newsom has vowed to appoint a black woman to Ms. Feinstein’s seat should she step down before her term ends in 2025. Mr. Khanna happens to be a co-chairman of House Rep. Barbara Lee’s campaign for the seat. Ms. Lee is an obvious top contender for a placeholder pick, which would give her a huge leg up over rivals in 2024. It’s convenient when “country” holds a political upside
Yet as ugly as the pressure campaign might be, the wonder is that Democrats didn’t act to avoid this situation at the obvious time. As Ms. Feinstein debated re-election in 2017 she was, at 84, already the oldest senator and already showing decline. Yet the California political firmament (Kamala Harris, Mr. Newsom) rallied with endorsements and rolled over a primary challenger backed by the California Democratic Party. What could go wrong?
Time, and age. Stories of Ms. Feinstein’s cognitive struggles are rife in Washington, at times on painful display. A 2020 New Yorker article related several excruciating instances, even as it reported that Mr. Schumer intervened to pressure her to relinquish her position as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee—which she did. That was more than two years ago.
Mr. Schumer says he’ll put forward a new organizing resolution that names a temporary replacement to Judiciary—“per Sen. Feinstein’s wishes”—and the media is suggesting Republicans have a duty to provide the necessary 60 votes. They don’t. This situation is a consequence of a close midterm election and Democrats’ decision to ignore the risks of such a scenario. (Much as they did as they cheered on John Fetterman’s Senate bid in Pennsylvania despite health problems following a stroke.) GOP Judiciary members are still entirely free to vote through judges who have bipartisan support. But Republicans have no obligation to empower Judiciary Democrats to push through Mr. Biden’s more radical picks. Democrats certainly wouldn’t if the situation were reversed.
Whatever Messrs. Khanna’s and Phillips’s motivations, they have thrust into central debate the topic of age and competency. Which raises the obvious question of how it is not likewise a “dereliction of duty” for Democrats to remain silent about Mr. Biden. His decline has become impossible to ignore, and the pace is notable, with weekly if not daily gaffes, stumbles and confusion. This week’s feature: Mr. Biden, in Ireland, embarrassingly confusing the New Zealand rugby team (the All Blacks) with a 1920s British paramilitary group that helped occupy Ireland (the Black and Tans).
Democrats kept mum about Mr. Biden’s predicament in the 2020 election, and even as concern has since grown, the party establishment remains loath to entertain a 2024 primary fight. Apart from what happens to the country under Mr. Biden’s leadership, Democrats might consider the potential for problems for the party, à la today’s Feinstein moment.
How electable will Mr. Biden be 19 months from now? Might Democratic voters—already feeding into the president’s low approval ratings—prove unwilling to turn out for the party’s anointed yet faltering nominee? What happens if Mr. Biden announces a run yet by next spring is incapable of following through, leaving the party in disarray?
One smart move in today’s crazy political environment is to assume anything is possible, including the worst. All the more so when there are already blaring signs of a problem to come. Democrats might view the Feinstein moment as a warning of the danger they are courting by continuing to close their eyes to what the rest of the country so clearly sees.
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