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5 Jewish facts about Guatemala’s new Hebrew-speaking president
(JTA) — Guatemala elected a new president on Sunday: Bernardo Arevalo, a center-left former congressman and son of a former president.
In an election that was marred by controversy — and included the government’s disqualifying of multiple opposition candidates — Arevalo was able to emerge victorious by running on an anti-corruption platform. He defeated Sandra Torres, a former first lady who many Guatemalans view as corrupt.
Decades-old statistics put the Jewish population of Guatemala, Central America’s most populous country, at about 900. But despite that small number, Guatemala’s president-elect has a unique history with Jews and Israel.
Here are five Jewish things to know about Arevalo:
1. Arevalo is the son of Juan Jose Arevalo, who became Guatemala’s first democratically-elected leader in 1945. On May 14, 1948, under Juan Jose Arevalo, Guatemala became one of the first countries in the world to recognize Israel. After leaving office, the elder Arevalo then served as ambassador to Israel.
2. While his father was serving as Guatemala’s ambassador to Israel, Bernardo Arevalo studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, receiving a bachelor’s degree there in sociology. While at Hebrew U., Arevalo also studied the history of Christianity in Latin America. He recently stated that he still has friends from his time studying in Israel.
3. Like his father, Arevalo worked at the Guatemalan embassy in Israel. From 1984 to 1986, he was first secretary and consul. Later, from 1987 to 1988, he served as minister counselor. Speaking of his time in the country with local media, he said: “Israel is a country for which I have great affection. I lived 10 years of my life in Israel. They were very important years.”
4. The president-elect speaks Hebrew. A TikTok video of Arevalo conversing with an unidentified man in Hebrew went semi-viral earlier this month, garnering more than a quarter of a million views and nearly 30,000 likes.
5. Despite speaking fondly of his time in Israel, Arevalo does not support all of the positions of the current Israeli government. In May 2022, Arevalo met with officials at the Palestinian embassy in Guatemala. After the meeting, he posted on the platform then known as Twitter: “Today we met with the Ambassador of Palestine and we reiterated that the solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine is the creation of a state for each people, within the framework of international law and peace negotiations with multilateral support.” Arevalo went on to criticize former President Jimmy Morales’s 2018 decision to move Guatemala’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, saying the move “violated international law” and would not help resolve the conflict. However, it is currently unclear if the president-elect plans to move his country’s embassy back to Tel Aviv or maintain the status quo.
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The post 5 Jewish facts about Guatemala’s new Hebrew-speaking president appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.