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Muslim man postpones Torah burning protest outside of Israeli embassy in Sweden
(JTA) — A Muslim man put off a protest that would have involved burning a Torah scroll in front of Stockholm’s Israeli embassy this past weekend.
The man, identified in reports only as a 34-year-old Egyptian writer living in Sweden, had reportedly received approval from Swedish authorities for the protest, which would have come in the wake of a far-right politician’s recent burning of a Quran outside of a mosque in Denmark.
The man told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter that he is trying to spark debate and expose a double standard in the treatment of Muslims and Jews in Sweden. He also said he believed a provocative protest outside the Israeli embassy would shed further light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“My action is not aimed at the Swedish Jewish minority. I am standing outside the Israeli embassy because I want to remind about Israel’s killing of Palestinian children,” he said.
He added that he had only postponed his plan.
“I will still carry out my actions, it is important to me. I will submit a new application next week,” he said.
Danish politician Rasmus Paludan — whose far-right Hard Line party does not sit in government — burned a Quran on Jan. 21 in response to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s hints that his country might block Sweden’s attempt to join NATO. The burning sparked an outcry in Turkey and across the Islamic world. On Monday, the U.S. State Department warned U.S. citizens residing in Turkey to avoid churches and synagogues, as they could be targets for retaliatory terror attacks.
Israel’s ambassador to Sweden, Ziv Nevo Kulman, tweeted last week that his embassy worked with Swedish authorities to successfully thwart the Torah burning. But a rabbi involved in interfaith work in Sweden told the Jerusalem Post that he credited Muslim leaders for dissuading the protest organizer.
“The burning of the Torah scroll was prevented thanks to the leadership of the Muslim community in Sweden,” said Rabbi Moshe David HaCohen, who was formerly the rabbi for the Jewish community in Malmö, in Southern Sweden. HaCohen is now the director of Amanah, an interfaith organization that connects Swedish Jews and Muslims.
Both Jewish and Muslim clergy had spoken out against the desecration of sacred texts as a form of protest since the Quran burning.
“It is with deep concern that we once again witness Islamophobic hate manifestations in the streets of Sweden. Once again racists and extremists are allowed to abuse democracy and Freedom of Speech in order to normalize hate against one of the religious minorities in Sweden, by burning the Quran,” Amanah said in a statement.
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The post Muslim man postpones Torah burning protest outside of Israeli embassy in Sweden appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
It’s not every day that a kosher dill pickle puppet gets a chance to learn some Yiddish.
Monty Pickle, star of the children’s series The Monty Pickle Show, recently joined Rukhl Schaechter, host of the Forward’s YouTube series Yiddish Word of the Day, for an episode teaching viewers the Yiddish words for various wild animals.
Or as they’re called in Yiddish: vilde khayes.
The Monty Pickle Show, a puppet comedy on YouTube and TikTok, aims to show young viewers what it means to be Jewish in a fun, lively way. The series was created by the Emmy Award-winning producers of Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.
So far, he’s met a number of Jewish personalities, including rabbis, musicians and chefs, and explored holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Passover.
Sitting alongside Rukhl during the lesson, Monty eagerly tries to guess what each word means, providing for some very funny moments.
The post Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’ appeared first on The Forward.
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IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.
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Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – The US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.
US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.
Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.
The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.
The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.
Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.