The man who sought to eliminate Jews just gets another one in der fuhrer’s face: Germany is ordaining its first rabbis since 1942. Say “Shalom,” Adolf.

Oh, wait. You can’t. You’re dead.

BERLIN Sep 13, 2006 (AP)— More than 60 years after the Nazis shut down Germany’s only rabbinical school, the first rabbis will be ordained Thursday in a ceremony welcomed by many as confirmation that Jewish life can again flourish in the country decades after the Holocaust.

[...] “After the Holocaust, many people could never have imagined that Jewish life in Germany could blossom again,” President Horst Koehler said Wednesday. “That is why the first ordination of rabbis in Germany is a very special event indeed.”

Germany’s Jewish community has more than tripled since the country reunified in 1990 and the government set up a program to take in Jews from the former Soviet Union. More than 100,000 Jews now live in some 102 communities.

But for years Germany has had to rely on rabbis trained in England, Israel and the United States because Germany’s last Jewish seminary, the Berlin-based Higher Institute for Jewish Studies, was shuttered by the Nazis in 1942.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an AP article if it reported only good news about Jews.

Dieter Graumann, the vice president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, noted it would take a long time before the relationship between Germany and its Jews could be considered “normal.”

“That will only be possible when we don’t need to support this normalcy and when we don’t have to talk about it anymore,” Graumann said.

Hate to tell you this, Dieter, but if it’s Jews, it’s news. There will never be normalcy for Germany’s Jews, because there will never be normalcy for any of the world’s Jews. People simply will not let us live in peace. They haven’t for thousands of years, and it doesn’t look like it’s changing anytime soon.

However, one has to be happy about the ordination of German rabbis. And old Adolf? Spinning in that metaphorical grave of his.

The only source of this news item so far is Debka, but if true it should be regarded as one more step to demolish the remains of the UNSC resolution 1701.

Until Wednesday night, the Shiite terror group stood by its consent to the Lebanese army on the border with Israel handling any military problems or clashes with Israel, with Hizballah assisting. Now, Hizballah has gone back on this deal and announced that henceforth its own forces will no longer wait for the Lebanese army to act but send its own forces into action against Israel. This is the first time since the UN-brokered went into effect on July 14 that Hizballah has threatened direct military action against Israel.

This also opens the way for its men to shoot at any Israeli aircraft entering Lebanese skies and any naval craft in Lebanese waters. In a second statement, Hizballah warned Berlin that German troops posted at Lebanese air ports, seaports or Lebanese-Syrian border posts would be legitimate targets for attack. The warning came just hours after the German government approved a 2,400 naval and air contingent for the UN Lebanon force.

The Hizballah threat applied also to all the foreign contingents serving with expanded UNIFIL, thereby limiting their area of operation to the border with Israel.

There is not much left of the 1701 letter. Spirit was lacking from the start. What now?

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Looks like the Holocaust cartoon contest got more attention outside of Iran than it’s getting inside:

An exhibition of cartoons about the Holocaust, some suggesting it was fabricated or exaggerated, has been a flop in Tehran. It drew audiences of fewer than 300 a day in its first week and now, three weeks after sparking international furore when it opened, attracts just 50 people a day.

That’s good enough. But this is better:

Most of those approached in central Tehran said they had not heard of the exhibition and insisted the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis was a historical fact. “I’m sure the Holocaust was true - I’ve heard all about it from newspapers and television,” said a housewife from a religious family. “I don’t know why some say it didn’t happen.”

And this is best:

Officials said that the exhibition championed freedom of speech, but yesterday they closed Iran’s most popular reformist newspaper. One alleged offence was its publication of a cartoon which appeared to show President Ahmadinejad as a donkey.

They should have drawn him as a gorilla. I wonder if Cox and Forkum take requests?

Watcher has discovered (how the heck does he do it?) an interesting poll conducted by Al Jazeera. One of the main results is that 49.9% of the Muslims support Osama Bin Laden.

The results were conveniently hidden in the Arabic only part of Al Jazeera, probably to save the “progressive” Western crowd the headache of explaining the results.

Still , be interesting to hear some tranquilizing noises from we-do-not-condone-but-we-understand and from Bush-and-Zionists-cause-all-this-trouble folks.

Cross-posted on SimplyJews

Take a look at this news story:

NEW YORK Sep 13, 2006 (AP)— Billionaire financier and global philanthropist George Soros has dedicated $50 million to the anti-poverty work of the Millennium Village project in Africa, his largest commitment to a single entity in almost a decade.

The donation, to be officially announced Wednesday, is being matched by other donors to bring in $100 million for the project, which works to reduce extreme poverty in African communities through a multi-pronged approach covering areas such as health, education and food productivity.

[...] The Millennium Village project covers 12 sites in 10 African countries, a total of 78 villages. Each village, averaging about 5,000 people, gets five years of support from experts to help lift itself out of poverty. That support includes cleaning up water sources, provision of basic education, and teaching people how to diversify crops and make the best agricultural choices.

For about $60 per villager per year, or about $1.5 million per village over the five years, the U.N.’s poverty reduction goals can be achieved, Sachs said. The first village started with the program about 2 years ago, with most of the rest starting up this year. That first village, Sauri in Kenya, has already seen a surplus in food production and an increase in school test scores.

Sachs said that after a fundraising goal of $100 million was set, he approached Soros, who through his Open Society Institute gives out hundreds of millions of dollars to a number of causes every year.

Soros agreed to commit $50 million over five years if matching donations could be found.

$100 million dollars. A paltry hundred million. The UN can barely raise a hundred mil for ten African countries, but an effing palestinian stubs his toe, and the world donates billions.

These are the people who are truly starving, and yet, the EU is all set to contribute half a billion in aid to the palestinians, who have received billions already over the past decades. Let’s take a look at only the past few years:

UNRWA’s General Assembly-approved cash budget for 2006 is US$ 470.9 million. This funds the Agency’s ongoing Education, Health and Relief and Social Services activities. As of July 2006, contributions pledged to this cash budget by UN and donors total US$ 340.2 million. An additional US$ 150.4 million has been budgeted for projects and US$17.6 million for in-kind donations.

In keeping with previous years, UNRWA will likely have to initiate measures to reduce implementation of some planned activities to bring its regular budget closer to its likely income from donors. In 2005, UNRWA’s regular cash budget was approved at a level of US$339.2 million. However, actual expenditure was US$345 million while income was US$326 million.

Since October 2000, UNRWA has launched Emergency Appeals to the donor community to fund the Agency’s Emergency Programmes in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. From October 2000 until December 2005, the Agency received a total of US$542.8 million in pledges, which is less than two-thirds of the amount requested. In December 2005, UNRWA launched an appeal for US$ 95.5 million to cover the cost of its emergency activities in 2006. Due to the prevailing difficult situation in the oPt, the 2006 Appeal was revised in May 2006 to include additional US$75.2 million to cater for anticipated humanitarian needs. Against 2006 Appeal UNRWA received US$103.6 million in pledges as of 31 July 2006.Please find additional information on the Emergency Appeals below.

Let’s hear again how the palestinians desperately need the help. Because gee, they’re so much more important than the millions of Africans in poverty.