ISSUES

At CUFI, we are focused on several key issues with the goal of defending Israel’s strength, security, and sovereignty.

If you want to keep up with all things Israel, sign up for CUFI’s Daily Briefing – our daily news roundup created exclusively for CUFI members. Every morning, Monday through Friday, receive an email with some of the top headlines in the news so you are always informed and ready to debunk lies with the truth.

Terrorism

Woman and two children injured in a car explosion in central Israel

A bomb explosion injured a 28-year-old woman, a four-year-old girl and a three-year-old boy on Highway 65 on Sunday. Magen David Adom paramedics gave them preliminary medical care and took them to the Hillel Yaffe Medical Center in Hadera. Another woman, 67, who was sitting in a nearby vehicle was lightly injured and drove herself to the hospital....

Antisemitism

Starting where Nazis burned books, 10,000 march in Berlin against anti-Semitism

BERLIN (AP) — Thousands of people in Berlin protested against anti-Semitism on Sunday, four days after a German neo-Nazi attacked a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle.

About 10,000 people participated in the march through the German capital.

Several thousand others protested Saturday in other cities, including Hamburg and Marburg.
...

Antisemitism

Children’s book reading prompts legal action against borough in central New Jersey

(October 13, 2019 / JNS) A controversy that began last summer, pitting community library-event planners in a New Jersey suburb and various Palestinian sympathizers against a Jewish community, is now moving into the legal arena.

The almost 20-year-old Central Jersey Jewish Public Affairs Committee (CJJPAC)—a pro-Israel advocacy organization headed...

Israeli Society

Gal Gadot to star in film about nun who saved Jewish kids during Holocaust

Israeli actress Gal Gadot will be co-producing and starring in a film about a Polish nun who save thousands of Jewish children during the Holocaust.

Gadot, who gained international fame for her performance in "Wonder Woman," will star as heroine Irena Sendler in the film of the same name, the Deadline website reported Friday.

“As producers, we...

Antisemitism

British cemetery in Haifa desecrated with swastikas

The Haifa District Police have launched an investigation into the vandalism of some 20 headstones in the old British cemetery in the lower city of Haifa.

On Friday morning, the cemetery manager discovered that a number of headstones for fallen British soldiers and Templars had been defaced with red painted swastikas. He reported the incident to...

Holocaust

Romania set to open first Holocaust museum since end of Second World War

(October 11, 2019 / JNS) Romania will open its first national Holocaust museum more than seven decades since the end of World War II.

The National Museum of Jewish History and the Holocaust in Romania will be in an 86,000-square-foot, eight-story building on the central Calea Victoriei avenue in Bucharest, reported Reuters.

Romanian President...

Palestinian Authority

A new house and huge terror salaries – the PA’s rewards to a family of murderers

Even while the Palestinian Authority was facing a self-inflicted financial crisis, the PA coffers were still full enough to fund the reconstruction of the houses of terrorists demolished by Israel as a means of deterrent.

Making good on promises made by PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, the PA has financed the rebuilding of the home of a terrorist, who...

Palestinian Authority

Israel will reopen economic agreements with Palestinians

Israel's consent to adjustments to the Paris Agreements, as urged by the defense establishment, has paved the way to a compromise on fund transfers to the Palestinian Authority.

As part of the move that recently enabled the transfer of tax receipts to the Palestinian Authority, Israel agreed to reopen the Protocol on Economic Relations, also...

Antisemitism

Synagogue attacker hoped to inspire further anti-Semitic attacks, German authorities say

HALLE, Germany — The suspect in a live-streamed attack on a synagogue in eastern Germany that killed two people is a right-wing extremist with a clear anti-Semitic motive, authorities said Thursday.

Government officials, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said the death toll in what authorities have characterized as a terrorist attack...

Iran

Iran says oil tanker struck by missiles off Saudi Arabia

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Two missiles struck an Iranian tanker traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S.

There was no word from Saudi Arabia on the reported attack and Saudi officials did not immediately...

Iran

Iran Oil Tanker Is Hit by Missiles, State Media Report

Explosions rocked an Iranian oil tanker in the Red Sea early Friday, in what the state news media described as a missile attack, raising fears about increasing tensions in an already volatile and economically crucial region.

The circumstances of the attack remained murky, with conflicting reports in the state news media about whether the ship was...

Antisemitism

Swastikas Sprayed on Gravestones in British Cemetery in Northern Israel

A British cemetery in the northern Israeli town of Haifa was vandalized and swastikas were sprayed over its gravestones, Israel Police said on Friday.

A local cemetery worker discovered during his morning rounds that about 35 headstones had been shattered, most of them in the Jewish section, a police statement said.

Police are investigating the...

Israel Defense Force (IDF)

The IDF’s secret weapon against Iran

Israel’s military has a secret weapon as the war-between-war campaign against Hezbollah and Iran continues to expand: the Language Teaching Department at the Military Intelligence and Cyber Instruction Unit (MICIU), a language school where soldiers become fluent in Arabic or Farsi in under two months.

In a nondescript building in a base in the...

Israel Defense Force (IDF)

IDF nears completion of new Gaza border fortifications

Israel is nearing completion of new defense works being constructed on the Gaza border in response to weekly border riots, threats from anti-tank missiles and other terror attacks, according to a Channel 13 report broadcast on Wednesday.

The project includes defenses against missiles and improved sniper posts, which have been better fortified,...

Archeology

5,000-year-old NYC-style metropolis uncovered in Northern Israel

The ruins of a 5,000-year-old megalopolis were uncovered in northern Israel, the Antiquities Authority announced on Sunday.

The ruins were exposed in a major excavation project in the Ein Assur site near Harish. The city was the largest in the area during the Bronze Age with about 6,000 people inhabiting it, a huge number at the time.

“About the...

Hamas

Netanyahu ‘strongly condemns’ Turkish invasion of Syria, offers aid to Kurds

Prime minister warns against ‘ethnic cleansing’ of minority in northern Syria, does not mention decision by US president that paved way for offensive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday denounced Turkey’s invasion of Kurdish-controlled areas of northeastern Syria and said Israel was prepared to offer humanitarian aid to the Kurds in...

Antisemitism

Germany shooting latest indication of increasing anti-Semitism worldwide

The shooting that left two dead and several injured in Halle, Germany, on Wednesday — when Jews celebrated Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year for their faith — has shined a spotlight on the worldwide rise of anti-Semitic incidents.

The attack in Germany, where investigators are pursuing anti-Semitic motives after the assailant shot at the...

Antisemitism

Rabbi discovers swastika, anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled on Canadian synagogue

(October 8, 2019 / JNS) A Canadian synagogue was vandalized late last week with anti-Semitic graffiti.

Beth Jacob Synagogue Rabbi Hillel Lavery-Yisraeli discovered the vandalism—a swastika and the word “Jews” crossed out—on Saturday upon arriving at the Hamilton, Ontario, building.

“It was very hard for me, harder than I expected,” he told CBC....

Medical Advancement

Team of Israeli doctors fly to Cyprus to save woman’s life

(October 8, 2019 / JNS) A team of four Israeli heart specialists traveled to a hospital in Cyprus with life-saving technology to save a woman who was suffering cardiac issues following childbirth, the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer revealed on Facebook on Sunday.

The Medical Center said a 29-year-old woman from Nicosia, Cyprus, suffered “a...

Israeli Society

Golda Meir’s Yom Kippur letter to bereaved families has been discovered

JERUSALEM — A letter of condolence to bereaved Israeli families written by then-Prime Minister Golda Meir on the eve of the Yom Kippur War has been discovered.

In the years following the establishment of the Jewish state, it was customary for the prime minister to have contact with the families of killed soldiers, including sending letters for...