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David Beckham says he’s proud to be ‘part of the Jewish community’ at London synagogue event
(JTA) — British soccer icon David Beckham is known globally for his bevy of championships as well as the “bend” he could put on the ball during 20 seasons of play.
But on Sunday, approximately 600 people in a London synagogue saw him exhibit a different talent: saying “Hamotzi,” the Jewish blessing over bread.
That moment of Hebrew came during an interview Beckham gave at St John’s Wood Synagogue about his Jewish heritage as well as his career. According to accounts in British Jewish publications, the event was a fundraiser hosted by JW3, a Jewish community center, for a Jewish education fellowship. It cost nearly $100 a ticket and sold out in under an hour.
“I am part of the Jewish community and I am proud to say it,” said Beckham, whose grandfather was Jewish.
“My grandfather always made sure we would keep up with certain traditions,” he said. “We went to bar mitzvahs and weddings and I would wear a kippah. Every Saturday morning, I used to go to see my grandfather – you’d walk in the house to my grandmother preparing chicken soup and matzah balls and latkes. We always kept to those traditions; it was always about the family coming together and spending time together.”
Beckham was interviewed by television producer Ben Winston, son of the late Lira Winston, a Jewish nonprofit leader and educator for whom the fellowship is named.
Winston, a TV producer who is friends with Beckham — and with Harry Styles — remarked, ”I’ve never felt less good-looking on a stage.” (Beckham is also known as a model and the star of advertisements around the world.)
Winston also quizzed Beckham on his Jewish knowledge, reciting the first half of the “Hamotzi.” Beckham completed the blessing perfectly.
Beckham also spoke about the triumphs and regrets he had over the course of his two decades as a professional soccer player beginning in the early 1990s, much of which was spent with the powerhouse Manchester United club. Beckham also played for Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain, both also elite teams, as well as the L.A. Galaxy. He is regarded as one of the best players of his generation and as a cultural icon.
This is not the first time Beckham has spoken openly about his Jewish heritage. He has a Hebrew tattoo reading “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine,” a quotation from the Hebrew Bible’s “Song of Songs.” His wife Victoria Beckham, a fashion designer and former member of the Spice Girls, had a matching tattoo that she reportedly had removed in 2015.
In 2008, the couple sent their son Cruz to a Jewish preschool in Los Angeles. And in front of a JW3 audience in 2016, Beckham spoke about his grandfather, and how he was sad that only his oldest son, Brooklyn, had gotten to know him.
In 2022, Brooklyn married Jewish American heiress and actress Nicola Peltz in a Jewish ceremony, which included a huppah, the breaking of a glass and the signing of a ketubah, or Jewish marriage contract.
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The post David Beckham says he’s proud to be ‘part of the Jewish community’ at London synagogue event appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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