December 20, 2017

Loblaws got caught price fixing. They are offering $25 gift cards. Here's the link and article:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/how-to-receive-a-25-loblaw-card-after-bread-price-fixing-arrangement/article37392332/

Loblaw Companies Ltd. is offering customers a $25 gift card as a goodwill gesture after admitting the company participated in an industry-wide bread price-fixing arrangement.

"This conduct should never have happened," said Galen G. Weston, CEO, during a conference call with analysts Tuesday.

"The gift card is a direct acknowledgment of that to our customers. We hope that they'll see it as a meaningful amount that demonstrates our commitment to keeping their trust and confidence," he said in response to how the company arrived at the card's $25 value.

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Link to register for the card: https://www.loblawcard.ca

November 24, 2017

Holocaust-denying Professor Back in Classroom Thanks to Government of Alberta

http://www.bnaibrith.ca/holocaust_denying_professor_back_in_classroom#_=_



LETHBRIDGE, Alta. – B’nai Brith Canada is outraged that Professor Anthony Hall has returned to work at the University of Lethbridge, after he was suspended for promoting antisemitism in October of 2016.

Hall’s return was facilitated by Alberta Premier Rachel Notley’s NDP Government, which passed two bills in mid-2017 that strengthened the position of Hall’s faculty association. In August, the Government even took the rare step of launching a direct legal intervention that aided Hall, and eventually prompted a labour arbitrator to order him back to work in November.

It is unclear whether the University of Lethbridge plans to appeal the arbitrator’s decision. Hall remains the subject of an Alberta human rights complaint.

“Premier Notley and her Government bear direct responsibility for placing a discredited conspiracy theorist back in a university classroom,” said Michael Mostyn, Chief Executive Officer of B’nai Brith Canada. “We repeatedly warned the Government of the likely outcome of its actions, but they sadly chose to ignore our warnings and expose Alberta university students to antisemitism and discrimination instead.

“Despite this setback, we expect the University of Lethbridge to continue fighting antisemitism on campus, and to do whatever it takes to ensure that Hall has no podium for his unhinged antisemitic nonsense.”

In 2016, Hall came under fire for teaching students that Israel was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and for producing Holocaust denial videos with German-Canadian neo-Nazi Alfred Schaefer.

October 26, 2017

NORWEGIAN BANK ISSUES ANTI-SEMITIC CREDIT CARD, SAYS SORRY

A pro-Israel advocacy organization demanded an explanation from a Norwegian bank after the company issued a credit card bearing blatantly anti-Semitic images.

The Hallelu Foundation, which aims to promote a positive perception of Israel around the world, came across the bank card after it was issued by one of Norway's largest banking firms, DNB, to an Australian national residing in the Scandinavian country.

The card features a centuries old trope of the hook-nosed Jew, wearing a kippah and a prayer shawl, rejoicing against the backdrop of gold coins. The DNB logo can be seen beside the image.


Upon hearing of the anti-Semitic illustration, the Hallelu foundation immediately contacted DNB's corporate staff.

The pro-Israel group passed the image to the company via email and within a short period of time received a response.

"We have been notified about a picture of a Visa card issued by us, with an anti-Semitic drawing of a Jew," read the apology, which Hallelu posted to their Facebook page, "and found out that this was produced due to a system we have where clients can upload their own pictures and get them printed on their card."


"We have, however, strict guidelines for what kind of pictures that are allowed, and this control is manual. Unfortunately, our manual controls have failed in this particular case, and we are deeply sorry for that. This card should never have been printed."

More: http://m.jpost.com/Diaspora/Norwegian-bank-issues-anti-Semetic-credit-card-says-sorry-413919

Manual control failed? So is this the new way of saying, "we employed an antisemite and he's a douche"?

October 25, 2017

Canada child benefit: How your family is affected by the latest changes

An average Canadian family with two children will see approximately $200 more in Canada child benefit payments next year, and about $500 more in 2019, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said Tuesday.

In its fall economic update, the Liberal government announced that beginning in July 2018, Canada child benefit payments will be adjusted as the cost of living increases – almost two years earlier than previously promised. The change will also see the qualification threshold for families adjust along with the cost of living.

Speaking to the House of Commons, Morneau credited the government’s child-benefit program for helping lift the economy.

“Now, with a little more wind in our sails, we’re doubling down on a plan with proven results,” he said in his speech.

The child benefit adjustment means the government will be paying out an additional $5.6 billion over five years, between 2018-19 and 2022-23, to families with children aged 17 years and younger, according to the economic update tabled Tuesday.


More: https://globalnews.ca/news/3822451/canada-child-benefit-changes-liberal-justin-trudeau/

I'm not so sure I like that, "vote for us again and then we will adjust for inflation.". I do appreciate that they made it nontaxable income though. The UCCB being taxable was a PITA. And sometimes not worth it.

October 24, 2017

Cornell University awakes to anti-Semitic fliers on campus

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Anti-Semitic fliers found Monday morning at Cornell University prompted President Martha E. Pollack to speak out against the hate.

"The campus awoke this morning to find fliers posted in several locations on and off campus with a clear and hateful message of anti-Semitism and white supremacy," Pollack wrote in a letter to the campus community.

The fliers read, "Just Say No to Jewish Lies!" and "Join the White Gang," and showed an image of a swastika next to the name of what appears to be a fake organization, "Solar Cross Society."

The fliers were placed on several buildings and a statue of Ezra Cornell overnight, according to The Cornell Daily Sun.

More:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2017/10/cornell_university_awakes_to_anti-semitic_fliers_on_campus.html



Note: "this morning" they mean yesterday.

October 17, 2017

THE CONVERSO COMEBACK

Hispanic crypto-Jews use social media and DNA testing to reconnect with their heritage
By Suzanne Selengut
October 17, 2017 • 12:00 AM



When retired civil servant Carl Montoya arrives for prayers at Mikveh Israel Synagogue in Philadelphia, he has a routine. He expertly wraps tefillin, dons his Sephardic prayer shawl, and greets his many friends in the pews. The Hebrew prayers can be tricky for him, but he is slowly mastering them all, together with the rest of Jewish ritual life. As a convert to Conservative Judaism and an active member of an Orthodox synagogue, Montoya has definitely broken from his past as a Catholic with deep roots in New Mexico’s historic Hispanic community. But what makes his story truly remarkable is not just that he is a Jew by choice, but that he is a Jew by birth.

Like many of the around 100 million other descendants of crypto-Jews of Spanish-Portuguese heritage globally, Montoya became curious about family lore. He learned his ancestors were Bnei Anusim—a Hebrew term for conversos, those forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition—who fled from the Iberian Peninsula to what is now New Mexico. Montoya shares his heritage with many others in the American Southwest, Central and South America, Spain, and Portugal. In Spain alone, one in 20 Iberian men have DNA markers identifying them as having a Jewish background, while some 15 percent of Hispanic men in the Southwest have those markers.

More: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/246057/the-converso-comeback?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=2dfcab6e35-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2017_10_17&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-2dfcab6e35-206808209

Mazal tov to Mr. Montoya and all of the conversos uncovering their roots!

October 17, 2017

Ukraine Honors Nationalist Leader Blamed For Pogroms

(JTA) — Ukraine unveiled a statue for a nationalist leader who guided a regime that killed tens of thousands of Jews in pogroms during the Russian Revolution.

The memorial for Symon Petliura was unveiled Saturday in Vinnitsa, a city in the western part of the nation, on Defender of Ukraine Day, a national holiday, the RT news site reported. It is located in an area once known as Yerusalimka, or Jerusalem, and located next to a small synagogue that is still in operation.

The statue, which RT calls the first official monument to Petliura, though there is a bust of the early 20th-century leader in the capital, shows him sitting on a bench with a map of the country in his hands.

During Petliura’s time as head of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, 35,000 to 50,000 Jews were killed in a series of pogroms between 1918 and 1921.

Petliura was killed in 1926 by a Ukrainian-born Jewish watchmaker, Sholom Schwartzbard, who was acquitted by a French court that ruled he was acting in the heat of the moment after 15 of his relatives were killed in the pogroms.

http://forward.com/fast-forward/385285/ukraine-honors-nationalist-leader-blamed-for-pogroms/?attribution=home-top-story-1-headline

What is wrong with these people? Honoring this scum???

October 9, 2017

Sukkah Destroyed By Vandals At Kansas State University

A sukkah was destroyed at Kansas State University in what officials believe was an act of anti-Semitic vandalism.

The sukkah had been erected on Wednesday by the university’s Department of Housing and Dining. But on Friday night, the structure had been completely demolished, with the pieces left on the ground around the car of the Housing and Dining employee who organized the sukkah’s construction.

Hillel co-advisor Gregory Newmark told the local newspaper The Mercury that he believed the act was meant to be anti-Semitic, especially because an informational poster explaining the holiday’s significance was attached to the sukkah.

“This was meant to be a place where everyone was welcome, and someone just ripped it down,” Newmark told the Mercury.

Anti-Semitic fliers were posted on K-State’s campus on Holocaust Remembrance Day in April.

Read more: http://forward.com/fast-forward/384559/sukkah-destroyed-by-vandals-at-kansas-state-university/

Always the reminders that life in the diaspora is unwelcoming.

October 4, 2017

DODGER STADIUM, AN ANCIENT JEWISH BURIAL GROUND

The major league baseball season that began before Passover and extended until after Yom Kippur is about to start its playoffs. My favorite this year is of course my beloved hometown Los Angeles Dodgers, which finished with the best record in baseball and secured the home field advantage for the rest of the playoffs. This privilege will extend even if the Dodgers win the pennant and advance to the World Series, a milestone that has unfortunately eluded them since the waning months of the Reagan administration in October 1988. Home field advantage will hopefully strengthen the Dodgers’ chance of success, as sabermetrics gurus have long written about the advantages provided to the home team. As a lifelong fan of the Dodgers, I look forward to watching my team play on the sacred ground of Dodger Stadium, the third oldest stadium in baseball today. But as not many of the team’s fans know, the stadium sits near the former sacred ground of the first Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles, a fact which led the famous Los Angeles Jewish historian Max Vorspan to quip that Chavez Ravine, the area in Los Angeles where the stadium is located, should actually be called “Shabbos Levine.”

A far cry from Ebbets Field, the intimate home of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the highly urban neighborhood of Flatbush, Dodger Stadium is nestled just north of downtown, providing fans with a stunning view of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north. The stadium itself is surrounded by tens of thousands of parking spaces sprawled over a large number of parking lots. Below the southernmost parking lot, parking lot 10, a hill slopes down to a street called Lilac Terrace. On the south side of this street, just west of the corner where Lilac Terrace turns into Lookout Drive, there is a bronze plaque for California Registered Historical Landmark No. 822. The plaque, which depicts a bear (the symbol on the California state flag) and two stars, reads as follows:



More: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/246434/los-angeles-dodger-stadium-jewish-burial-ground?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=post&utm_term=Dodger+Stadium%2C+L.A.%27s+Oldest+Jewish+Burial+Ground&utm_content=oct2017

Cross posted to the Baseball Group. This combines my 2 favourite things. Judaism, history, and baseball.

October 4, 2017

DODGER STADIUM, AN ANCIENT JEWISH BURIAL GROUND

The major league baseball season that began before Passover and extended until after Yom Kippur is about to start its playoffs. My favorite this year is of course my beloved hometown Los Angeles Dodgers, which finished with the best record in baseball and secured the home field advantage for the rest of the playoffs. This privilege will extend even if the Dodgers win the pennant and advance to the World Series, a milestone that has unfortunately eluded them since the waning months of the Reagan administration in October 1988. Home field advantage will hopefully strengthen the Dodgers’ chance of success, as sabermetrics gurus have long written about the advantages provided to the home team. As a lifelong fan of the Dodgers, I look forward to watching my team play on the sacred ground of Dodger Stadium, the third oldest stadium in baseball today. But as not many of the team’s fans know, the stadium sits near the former sacred ground of the first Jewish cemetery in Los Angeles, a fact which led the famous Los Angeles Jewish historian Max Vorspan to quip that Chavez Ravine, the area in Los Angeles where the stadium is located, should actually be called “Shabbos Levine.”

A far cry from Ebbets Field, the intimate home of the Brooklyn Dodgers in the highly urban neighborhood of Flatbush, Dodger Stadium is nestled just north of downtown, providing fans with a stunning view of the San Gabriel Mountains to the north. The stadium itself is surrounded by tens of thousands of parking spaces sprawled over a large number of parking lots. Below the southernmost parking lot, parking lot 10, a hill slopes down to a street called Lilac Terrace. On the south side of this street, just west of the corner where Lilac Terrace turns into Lookout Drive, there is a bronze plaque for California Registered Historical Landmark No. 822. The plaque, which depicts a bear (the symbol on the California state flag) and two stars, reads as follows:



More: http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/246434/los-angeles-dodger-stadium-jewish-burial-ground?utm_source=fb&utm_medium=post&utm_term=Dodger+Stadium%2C+L.A.%27s+Oldest+Jewish+Burial+Ground&utm_content=oct2017

Cross posted to the Jewish Group