RUTHFULLY YOURS

Today is Mothers’ Day so it is fitting to celebrate the mothers of Hadassah and other pioneer women who went to Israel in the first decade of the last century. Some established villages tilling the soil with bare hands. Others created schools and hospitals and social institutions which are the pride of Israel today. Their role in the epic post war rescue of the traumatized survivors of the Holocaust is legendary. They provided housing, schooling, counseling, vocational training and hands on guidance and support. Their memory and story is a blessing. If only they could read Michael Ordman’s weekly news and see the fruits of their labor.   rsk

https://verygoodnewsisrael.blogspot.com/

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Success in trials of multiple myeloma treatment. Israel’s BioLineRx (see here previously) has reported positive results in the Phase 3 trial of its Motixafortide treatment in combination with G-CSF for multiple myeloma. The treatment demonstrated improvement from five-fold to 14-fold compared to the control.

https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-biolinerx-soars-on-positive-phase-3-blood-cancer-trial-results-1001347840

https://ir.biolinerx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/biolinerx-announces-positive-top-line-results-genesis-phase-3

Cancer-fighting bacteria to begin Phase 2 trials. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s NeoTX Therapeutics (see here Mar 2020) has had FDA approval to begin Phase 2a human trials of its Naptumomab Estafenatox (NAP) treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. NAP binds bacteria to the tumor while activating tumor specific immune cells.

https://neotx.com/neotx-announces-fda-clearance-of-ind-for-phase-2-clinical-trial-of-naptumomab-estafenatox-nap-its-lead-tumor-targeted-superantigen-candidate/

Brain stimulation approved for major depression. (TY Atid-EDI) Israel’s BrainsWay (see here previously) has received US FDA clearance for its 3-minute Theta Burst treatment protocol for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Patients demonstrate meaningful reduction in depression scores after the treatment.

https://www.brainsway.com/news_events/brainsway-receives-fda-clearance-for-three-minute-theta-burst-treatment-protocol-for-major-depressive-disorder/

Machine learning to identify antiviral molecules. Scientists from Israel’s Technion Institute and Ben Gurion University are discovering molecules to fight viruses. They trained a neural network using known treatments and then reversed the process to identify previously untested molecules that bind to and disable virus proteins.

https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2021/04/machine-learning-for-antiviral-drugs/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21578-6

Molecular tweezers to destroy bacteria. Researchers from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University and elsewhere have developed “molecular tweezers” to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The tweezers destroy the biofilm that protects the bacteria against the immune system. Bacteria cannot develop resistance to this method of attack.

https://americansforbgu.org/bgu-molecular-tweezers-battle-bacteria/

https://www.cell.com/cell-chemical-biology/fulltext/S2451-9456(21)00152-5

Smart training for medical personnel. Israel’s Edocate has developed an app to help educate Health Care Professionals (HCPs) in the management of patients with chronic conditions (e.g. diabetes). Its virtual patient simulation platform allows HCPs to “learn by doing” and “learn by making mistakes” in a no-risk environment.

https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3906554,00.html https://edocate.com/

Digital systems keep Americans healthy. Israel’s Aidoc (see here) is to provide its CT image analysis AI system for Radiology Partners, whose radiologists work in 10% of all US hospitals. Another Israeli startup DayTwo (see here) has had much success in the US with its microbiome analysis program for diabetics.

https://unitedwithisrael.org/israel-startups-improve-americans-health/

Nephrologist donates his own kidney. Dr. Aharon Bloch of Hadassah Medical Center is the first Israeli nephrologist to donate a kidney to a stranger. He decided after the passing of Rabbi Yeshayahu Heber, the founder of the NGO “Gift of Life” (see here) whom he treated.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/305405

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/human-rights-watch-did-a-one-sided-takedown-of-israel-opinion-667590

“Israeli authorities do face legitimate security challenges,” Human Rights Watch acknowledged after accusing Israel of committing two “crimes against humanity” – apartheid and persecution – against Palestinians.

It was a grudging, and altogether disingenuous, admission in a new 217-page report about Israeli actions in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem that ignores history and belies reality, all to paint a strikingly one-sided picture of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The admission, in fact, seems designed to present a facade of balance in a report that is anything but. In describing Israeli behavior, over the course of decades and today, the report all but ignores the very same “legitimate security challenges,” thus painting a picture of gratuitous Israeli oppression.

Moreover, the report comes as Palestinian leaders in the West Bank and Gaza erect more barriers to peace with Israel, and as they themselves degrade the human rights of the Palestinian people. But you’d never know that from the tone of the report, or from what it includes and what it leaves out.

“Israel,” the report declares, “has maintained military rule over some portion of the Palestinian population for all but six months of its 73-year history.” Nowhere does the report note that Palestinian leaders have rejected multiple offers of a state since 1947, or that most Palestinians oppose the very notion of an Israel that occupies any land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

A few examples of Israel’s Jewish demographic momentum

In 2020, the number of Israel’s Jewish births was 134,866 – 68% higher than 1995 (80,400). In 2020, the number of Israel’s Arab births was 42,435 – 16% higher than 1995.

In 2020, Jewish births were 76% of total births, compared with 69% in 1995.
 
The surge of Jewish births has taken place due to the unprecedented rise of births in the secular sector, simultaneously with a rising level of education, income and wedding age. Israel’s ultra-orthodox sector has experienced a mild decrease of fertility.
.In 1969, Israel’s Arab fertility rate (number of births per woman) was six births higher than the Jewish fertility rate. In 2019, Jewish fertility rate was 3.09 (3.27 when the husband was Israeli-born), compared to 2.98 for Israeli Arabs and 3.02 for Judea and Samaria (West Bank) Arabs.

The Westernization of fertility rate has characterized all Muslim countries, other than the sub-Sahara region: Jordan – 3 births per woman, Iran – 1.93, Saudi Arabia – 1.95, Morocco – 2.29, , Iraq – 3.32, Egypt – 3.23, Yemen – 3.1, United Arab Emirates – 1.65, etc. 
 

The unique growth of Israel’s Jewish fertility rate reflects optimism, patriotism, attachment to roots, communal solidarity, frontier mentality and a declining number of abortions.

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/mahmoud-abbass-default-ploy-antisemitic-incitement-opinion-667449

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas may be losing his grip at home, but he still knows what to say to persuade donors abroad that all he wants is an independent state for his “oppressed” and “occupied” people.

The latter is why he called for elections that he never intended on holding, and then canceled them as they drew near, on the false grounds that Israel was to blame for “forbidding” the participation of east Jerusalem Arabs.
It also explains the letter he sent to President Reuven Rivlin on Friday, expressing his “sorrow” over the tragedy at Mount Meron late Thursday night “that claimed the lives of dozens of victims.”

Referring to the deadly crowd-crush at the grave site of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai during Lag Ba’omer celebrations, Abbas added, “We are praying for the victims and hope for the recovery of those injured.”

This might sound like heartfelt condolences – perhaps even a goodwill gesture toward Israel – if not for the fact that Abbas has spent his entire career, starting with his Holocaust-denying doctoral thesis, inciting his people to kill Jews.

Nor is it necessary to review his past. All along, and as recently as this week, PA officialdom under his rule has been consistent in its support for the cold-blooded murder of innocent Israelis.

https://worldisraelnews.com/opinion-mount-meron-a-tragedy-waiting-to-happen/

The Mount Meron tragedy reflected the best and worst of Israeli society.

The best could be seen in its wake. Israel unified around the victims and their families. Over 2,200 units of blood were donated in a single day. Sunday was declared a national day of mourning.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said while visiting recovering victims of the tragedy at Rambam Hospital in Haifa: “One of the parents told me the sentence that summarizes everything: ‘Here one reveals that the people of Israel has one heart.’”

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who had recently warned the country was dangerously divided, said “At the end of the day, and however hard it is for us to remember it, we are better than they tell us, more united than the election campaigns try to suggest. We are more committed to each other than this or that person with an ax to grind would have it. At the moment of truth, we are one human fabric.”

The outpouring during a time of national sorrow was especially poignant as the victims were haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, a segment of the population scorned by many for its insularity and hostility to Zionism. Antipathy toward the haredim has been exacerbated during corona, when it was felt that they ignored pandemic guidelines.

All that was pushed aside after the catastrophe – the worst civil disaster in Israel’s history – which took 45 lives on a festive holiday marked by dancing, singing and bonfires celebrating a famous Torah sage from the second century C.E. and, as chance would have it, the end of death from an ancient plague.

https://www.jns.org/opinion/mount-meron-and-israels-paradoxical-nature/

On Saturday night, as Tel Aviv’s City Hall lit up with the image of the Israeli flag to commemorate the dozens killed and 150 injured in the crowd-crush two nights earlier on Mount Meron, Israelis of all backgrounds came together to light yahrzeit (memorial) candles.

Some of the people present at Rabin Square that evening, like others around the country, configurated tea lights in the shape of the numeral 45—the number of people trampled to death during the Lag B’Omer celebrations that would become the source of multiple funerals.

The outpouring of nationwide grief over the victims and empathy with their families was not unusual in a state sadly accustomed to burying citizens who are, by all measures, too young to die. Nor was it novel for Israel’s Kan Radio to play sad music, out of respect for the gravity of the hour.

The same can be said of the public’s lining up in droves, and for hours on end in sweltering heat, to donate blood for the treatment of those still in the hospital. Though less frequent an occurrence, the offer by Israel’s national carrier, El Al, of free passage for anyone from abroad needing to pay their last respects or provide bedside comfort to loved ones was also not surprising.

Even the fact that Arab villagers from the Meron area in the north rallied to help their Jewish brethren in distress—distributing free food and drink to survivors—wasn’t totally out of the ordinary.
But all of the above has been noteworthy nevertheless, due to the identity of the casualties. All were ultra-Orthodox (haredi) Jews who had made a pilgrimage to the gravesite of second-century sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai to dance around the holiday’s traditional bonfire—hosted, as it happened, by the Jerusalem-based, anti-Zionist sect, Toldot Aharon.

https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/05/04/abbas-declares-state-of-emergency-following-elections-deferral/

The decision to delay what would’ve been the first Palestinian election in 15 years sparked protests

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a 30-day state of emergency in the Palestinian Authority.

While the announcement follows the leader’s decision last week to indefinitely postpone what would have been the first Palestinian elections in 15 years, such declarations have become routine during the coronavirus pandemic.

Following the postponement, Hamas – the Gaza Strip-based terrorist group that would have faced off against Abbas’s Fatah party – accused Abbas of perpetrating a “coup” against their partnership.

Protests against Abbas immediately flared both in Ramallah and in Gaza City.

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While the leader cited the tense situation in East Jerusalem as the pretext for calling off the vote, critics have said that the 85-year-old’s decision is due rather to his unwillingness to submit to the electoral process.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell described the deferment as “deeply disappointing.”