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.

Israeli Society

Jerusalem Orchestra Members Perform Virtual Concert From Homes in Israel, New York

The Jerusalem Orchestra East & West did a virtual performance last week to help lift spirits amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Tom Cohen, the orchestra’s artistic director and chief conductor, and the 35 musicians he worked with recorded a new original piece called “Darbuka la Corona” from their homes in Israel and New York. The almost 3-minute...

Iran

The Coronavirus Is Absolutely No Excuse to Lift Sanctions on Iran

Iran’s clerical dictatorship cares more about its own survival than it cares about the welfare of the Iranian people. But you wouldn’t know it from the chorus of Americans and Europeans exploiting the coronavirus crisis in Iran to push the Trump administration to lift sanctions against Iran. This is fundamentally dishonest—the sanctions do not...

US-Israel Relationship

US and Israel conduct F-35 exercise without face-to-face bilateral meetings

The United States and Israel conducted a joint F-35 exercise on Sunday in the Jewish state.

The Enduring Lightening training exercise consisted of “a wide variety of operational theaters while strengthening the cooperation between the forces,” said the Israeli Air Force in a statement.

The drill consisted of F-35s from the USAF’s 34th fighter...

Israel Defense Force (IDF)

IDF converts armored vehicle assembly lines to make medical equipment

The Israeli Defense Ministry’s Rehabilitation and Maintenance Center at Tel Hashomer, outside Tel Aviv, is familiar to every member of the Israel Defense Forces’ Armored Corps. The center, a subordinate of the IDF’s Technical and Logistics Directorate, produces Merkava tanks and other armored vehicles, builds command and control centers, and...

Palestinian Authority

PA Mouthpiece Accuses Israel of Coronavirus ‘Holocaust’ Against Jailed Palestinians

The Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper recently accused Israel of launching a coronavirus “holocaust” against Palestinian prisoners in its custody, even as UN officials praised Israeli and Palestinian leaders for their strong cooperation in combating the pandemic.

An editorial in the PA mouthpiece Al-Hayat al-Jadida falsely claimed that...

Antisemitism

Proposed New York Hate Crimes Law Named in Memory of Rabbi Murdered in Monsey Attack

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has renamed a proposed domestic terrorism law after the late rabbi who was stabbed during an attack on a Hanukkah celebration in Monsey.
Rabbi Josef Neumann, 72, had gone into a coma after suffering a head injury on Dec. 28 at the hands of a man who burst in on a Hanukkah celebration and began slashing attendees with...

Hezbollah

Don’t fall for Hezbollah’s coronavirus con

Lebanon announced this month it was defaulting on all of its outstanding debt payments for the year, including $1.2 billion in eurobonds due in March. There are another $3.4 billion worth of eurobonds coming due after that. Those, too, will go unpaid.

It’s a burgeoning crisis that deserves attention — but it does not warrant the blind bailout...

Medical Advancement

Israeli researchers make ‘significant progress’ in coronavirus vaccine

The Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) has begun testing a COVID-19 vaccine prototype on rodents at its bio-chemical defense laboratory, a source told Reuters on Tuesday.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the IIBR, in rural Ness Ziona, to join the fight against the coronavirus pandemic on Feb. 1, prompting an easing of its...

Medical Advancement

FDA okays Israeli drug for coronavirus treatment trials

NeuroRx, a US-Israeli pharmaceutical company, and Relief Therapeutics, a Swiss drug development company, announced Sunday they received the go-ahead from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for phase two trials of a drug that could take on a deadly condition associated with COVID-19.
The companies revealed that the FDA issued a "study may...

Iran

US troops in Iraq finally get Patriot air defense

Two and a half months after Iranian ballistic missiles slammed into a US base in central Iraq, lightly injuring more than 100 soldiers, the US finally brought Patriot batteries to Iraq. They will be set up at Ayn al-Assad base and in Erbil, according to reports. The US is withdrawing from a half-dozen bases and posts in Iraq as the coronavirus...

Antisemitism

Danon: UN must condemn Abbas’s false charge that IDF is spreading COVID-19

The United Nations must condemn the incitement of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against Israel, with his false charge that IDF soldiers are spreading coronavirus in the West Bank, Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said on Monday.“At this time, despite Israel's aid to the Palestinian Authority, we hear inciting comments...

Israeli Society

Bus driver who was Israel’s first serious virus patient makes full recovery

A bus driver from East Jerusalem who was hospitalized on March 5, and attached to a respirator after he contracted the coronavirus, on Monday was released from hospital, after recovering.

“It’s been a very difficult month, the hardest month of my life,” the man, who has been identified only as Johnny said on his discharge from the Baruch Padeh...

Medical Advancement

NY rabbi who survived COVID-19 donates blood plasma to treatment research

A New York rabbi who recovered from a mild case of COVID-19 donated blood plasma to researchers on Friday in the hope that his antibodies could be used to treat patients with more severe coronavirus symptoms.
Rabbi Daniel Nevins, dean of the rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, was laid up for a few days earlier this...

US-Israel Relationship

Teva to send millions of tablets to US hospitals for possible treatment of virus

Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva said that it will donate millions of doses of its anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine, which has been touted as a possible treatment for the coronavirus (COVID-19), to U.S. hospitals free of charge.

It said 6 million doses will be delivered by March 31 and more than 10 million in a month.

“We are committed to...

Iran

Pompeo Tweets Video of Iran’s Rouhani Saying Efforts to Lift Sanctions Due to Coronavirus Actually Intended to Enrich Regime

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo posted a video over the weekend showing Iranian President Hassan Rouhani saying that the purpose of Iran’s public relations campaign to end US sanctions due to the coronavirus pandemic is really about enriching the regime.

“Startling revelation by #Iran’s President @HassanRouhani that the regime’s concerted...

Medical Advancement

The Israeli Development That Could Produce Hundreds of Ventilators a Day

Microsoft’s research and development center in Israel, in collaboration with Israel’s emergency service Magen David Adom (MADA), the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov Hospital), and the Israeli Air Force, is working to develop a low-cost ventilator that can be mass-produced in labs without the need of dedicated factories, Microsoft Israel...

US-Israel Relationship

In Phone Call, Trump and Netanyahu Agree to ‘Cooperate Closely’ on Coronavirus Fight

US President Donald Trump held a telephone call on Friday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

A White House statement said, “Today, President Donald J. Trump spoke with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed the latest developments on the coronavirus pandemic, and the...

Antisemitism

Monsey attack victim Josef Neumann succumbs to injuries

Josef Neumann, 72, who was critically injured in the Monsey machete attack during Hanukkah last December, has succumbed to his wounds.
Neumann was struck in the head several times with a machete by the attacker, with the weapon penetrating his skull. In February, he opened his eyes after being in a coma for 59 days.

"We were hoping when he...

In The News

NY couple’s wedding attended on Zoom by friends, family — and officiating rabbi

JTA — Before everything changed, Jalna Silverstein and Asael Papour were planning a wedding much like many other Jewish nuptials on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
They had a band and caterer lined up, a ceremony planned for the synagogue where Silverstein grew up and all the little details mapped out, from the napkins to the chair coverings to...

Antisemitism

NYU Condemns Ex-Student’s ‘Shameful’ and ‘Callous’ Tweet Mocking First Israeli Coronavirus Death

New York University (NYU) took an unusual step this week, condemning a former student for a mocking tweet about the first Israeli coronavirus fatality.
Upon learning of the death of Aryeh Even, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who lived in Jerusalem, last Friday, Leen Dweik — ex-president of NYU’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) chapter —...