Matnat Chaim, the organization that promotes and encourages altruistic kidney donation, wanted to put on an event in Jerusalem at which 2000 kidney donors would attend, thus making it the largest congregation of kidney donors in one place ever. 

From what I understand, the majority of Muslim refugees and migrants in the various European countries (among others) originate from Syria. They were understandably escaping a brutal Syrian civil war. Why they went to Western countries for refugee status rather than fellow Muslim countries is another question, but be that as it may, Sweden, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and others are hosting many Syrian and other refugees and their own societies are changing because of it.

Go back to Europe, they said. 

UNRWA has been shown to practically being an arm of Hamas as some/many of their staff are actual Hamas terrorists, in addition to some having been involved in the October 7 massacre and some having been involved in holding hostages in Gaza since October 7.

The Vilna Gaon, Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, was born in 1720. To commemorate 300 years since his birth, the Bank of Lithuania is going to be issuing a commemorative coin in 2020.

The commemorative coin will bear an inscription that is a play on words of "Vilna Gaon" - that is vil nor gaon, meaning if you will it you can become a gaon, a genius.

The back side of the coin will bear an image of the Hebrew letter "shin", whose gematriya is 300. As well, the shin is symbolic of the famous picture of the Vilna Gaon wearing tefillin with the shin on the head tefillin standing out. I did not know this, but that significance of that image is that the Jewish year has 300 days devoted to prayer, not including Shabbos.
source: Lithuanian Jewish Community website

1. very cool
2. It seems Europe does an awful lot to commemorate its rich Jewish history. They do little to cultivate the current Jewish presence and its future...which is probably not a bad thing..

some politician in Austria has proposed a plan to limit the availability of kosher meat to Jews who register and declare such a need as an observant Jew.

The requirement to register and declare oneself as Jewish with a list being kept for legal purposes is reminiscent of certain behaviors of Nazi Germany, and a number of organizations critical of this proposal have made these references in their arguments.
source: TOI

I am not sure if it is worse to try to ban shechita entirely, as some European countries are trying to do, or if it is worse to require Jews to register and declare themselves observant in order to get a dispensation for kosher meat.

I get that the purpose of the proposal is to limit what they consider a cruel method of killing animals for food while at the same time not saying Jews who need such meat can't get it. Even though the proposal is probably being done with good intentions, as the proverb goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don't expect the proposal to pass, as it is too offensive to normal democratic thought and behavior and will likely be shot down by the more normal politicians in Austria.

According to a report in The Times of Israel, a poll conducted in Europe by the Pew Research Center had some interesting results. When asked "Would you be willing to accept Jews as members of your family?", Italy and the United Kingdom had the highest percentage of respondents saying no.

Italy came in at the top with 25% of respondents saying no to having Jews as family members, while the UK came in second place at 23%. Surprisingly, to me at least, the Netherlands came in with the highest percentage of acceptance with 96% of respondents saying they would accept Jews as members of their family.

While some are pointing to this as a sign of anti-semitism and decrying such sentiments, I say otherwise. I say good. I say the numbers aren't high enough. We Jews should not be intermarrying, and the non-Jews not wanting to marry Jews can only help us keep intermarriage numbers down, though obviously it isn't helping enough right now. And just like many of the non-Jews clearly don't want to marry us, many of us don't want to marry them.

And from a more objective perspective I might say that a poll showing that 25% or 23% of a European country not wanting Jewish family members is far from a sign of anti-semitism. I suspect that 50 years ago, 70 years ago, 100 years ago, those percentages were likely far higher, so, sadly, those percentages are probably going down fast.

There is a lot of excitement about a deal that was signed this morning between a region of Italy and the regional council of the Shomron for economic relations and trade. The agreement has come shortly after the EU decided to label products from the Shomron (and Golan and the West Bank), and is being seen as a boycott-breaker.
source: Walla News

The thing is, the EU did not decide to boycott the Shomron, just to label the products and give people the ability to decided for themselves what to buy and what not to buy. While the labeling is bad, and is perhaps encouraging of a boycott, the EU never actually declared a boycott.

Kol hakavod to Italy and to the Shomron council, but this is not a boycott-breaker.

Netanyahu today said, regarding the Palestinian bid to join the International Criminal Court in the Hague that "The Palestinian Authority is an entity that maintains an alliance with a terrorist organization, Hamas, which commits war crimes." Netanyahu encouraged the ICC to reject the Palestinian application.

The only problem I see with Netanyahu's argument is that he seems to be forgetting that Europe, the home of The Hague and the ICC, no longer considers Hamas to be a terror organization. Europe recently removed Hamas from their list of terror organizations.

So, according to Europe's belief, there is nothing wrong or sinister with the Palestinian Authority's alliance with Hamas.

On that merit alone, I don't see why their alliance with Hamas would hurt their application. On the other hand, the argument that they are not a state might hold more water.

According o the European Union, residents of Modiin are not living in Israel proper, but are "settlers". I congratulate them on acheiving this new status.

 The EU has decided that products manufactured in Modiin-Maccabim-Reut will no longer be considered to have been made in Israel, as Modiin was built on what was in 1948 a strip of no-mans land. So, while it is not "occupied" territory, Israel still does not have the right to it. The EU, by doing this, is saying that anything from that area will not be granted the tax-free status when imported into Europe.
(source: IH and INN)

Being that Modiin is now considered a settlement, residents need to make a decision whether to stay and accept their new status as a settler, or whether to leave to avoid being a settler. Staying in Modiin will require a change in lifestyle to one more commensurate with the settler lifestyle and appearance. We also now will begin to await the day when the Israeli government will decide to evacuate Modiin of its Jewish reidents and disengage from the entire area.

Thank you European union for your attempt to bring sanity, or even just balance, back to the Middle East.

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