Briefs Amazon expanding in Israel Amazon is expanding in Israel, setting up Alexa Shopping teams in two cities. The company will open research and development groups in Haifa and Tel Aviv with a total of 100 employees at the start, the Israeli business daily Globes reported. Alexa is a digital personal assistant developed by Amazon that allows users to shop online using voice commands. Amazon said in an announcement that it is seeking to hire scientists, software engineers and product managers for the two offices. The company recently hired Eyal Itah, former Microsoft Israel development director, as general manager of the Alexa Shopping engineering team, and Yoelle Maarek, who was the former research director at Yahoo! and ran its Haifa development center, as vice president of worldwide research. Amazon has been active in Israel for the past several years. In early 2015 it purchased the Israeli cloud computing company Annapurna Labs. (JTA) Adelsons, Sands Corp. establish $4 million fund for Las Vegas shooting victims Billionaire philanthropist Sheldon Adelson and his doctor wife, Miriam, and Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. have established a $4 million relief fund in memory of the victims of the mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip. Half the money will come from the Sands Cares corporate giving program and the other half from the Adelson Family Foundation. The money will be contributed to organizations providing aid to victims and their families, and to support crisis and disaster response, the Adelson-owned daily Las Vegas Review Journal reported. “No amount of financial resources will erase this terrible tragedy or bring back those who lost their lives because of it,” a statement from the Adelsons said. “To honor the memories of those lost, we must help rebuild the lives of people impacted and provide much-needed support to the organizations helping in that effort. “Las Vegas is our home and on behalf of every single Las Vegas Sands team member and the Adelson family, we
pledge to do everything we can to bring our community together, provide support for the victims and their families, and ensure Las Vegas remains the strong and vibrant city it has always been.” The Oct. 1 shooting attack on a country music festival from a hotel room at the Mandalay Bay hotel left 59 people dead and more than 500 wounded. The gunman killed himself as police closed in on the hotel room. Days after the attack, the Adelsons met with President Donald Trump at the White House, where they reportedly discussed how to help the victims of the shooting. (JTA)
Islamic State claims responsibility for Sinai rocket attack on Israel The Islamic State claimed responsibility for two rockets fired from the Sinai Peninsula at southern Israeli communities. The terrorist group’s official news agency, Amaq, said Monday, Oct. 16 that the long-range rockets fired the previous night were targeting Israeli Air Force jets flying in the area, Ynet reported. There were no injuries or damage in the first attack from Sinai on Israel since May 23, when President Donald Trump was visiting the area. “The fighters confronted Israeli jets that flew above the state and targeted the Eshkol compound with two Grad rockets,” the statement said, according to Haaretz. Eshkol refers to the Eshkol Regional Council located near the Gaza border. The rockets triggered a Code Red alarm for Israeli communities near the border with Gaza. The Islamic State also claimed responsibility for attacks in northern Sinai that left six Egyptian soldiers dead. (JTA) Halloween costume company removes Anne Frank outfit An online costume company removed a Halloween costume of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank from its U.S. and European websites. Holloweencostumes.com, whose website is run by the Minnesota-based company Fun.com, pulled the costumes earlier this month after a backlash on
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social media. The costume, which can be seen on social media in screen grabs, included a long sleeve blue button-up dress, a brown shoulder bag and a green beret. The company described Frank as a World War II hero and an inspiration, adding that “we can always learn from the struggles of history.” “There r better ways 2 commemorate Anne Frank. This is not one,” Carlos Galindo-Elvira, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League in Arizona, said in a tweet. “We should not trivialize her memory as a costume.” Company spokesman Ross Walker Smith in a tweet apologized “for any offense” the costume caused. “We sell costumes not only for Halloween season, such as school projects and plays. We offer several types of historically accurate costumes—from prominent figures to political figures, to television characters,” he tweeted. “We take feedback from customers very seriously. We have passed along the feedback regarding this costume, and it has been removed from the website at this time.” (JTA)
Spanish newspaper regrets discussion of British soccer club’s ‘Jewish origin’ A Spanish newspaper wrote that soccer fans hate the British team Tottenham Hotspurs because of their “Jewish origin,” spurring condemnation from British soccer clubs. Marca, a Madrid-based daily sports paper, published the article ahead of a Champions League match between the Spurs and Real Madrid. “Their Jewish origin has made them into a club hated by rival fans,” the article said, in part. “But in their 135 years of existence they have always had style and great players.” In a clarification issued after publication, senior reporter Enrique Ortega wrote: “That ‘hatred’ that Tottenham suffers is very focused on the radical and racist groups that are hiding in the social mass, especially Chelsea and West Ham.” “I regret the confusion that has been created in this respect,” he added. “The intention was not to damage the image of Tottenham, a club we respect, value…and
we do not want to serve as a speaker to these racist minorities who use any pretext to expand their hate messages, which we reject head-on.” The Tottenham team responded in a statement. “We are astonished that a publication such as Marca, which presents itself as an alleged source of professional journalism, has seen fit to publish such an article which is blatantly wrong and wholly distasteful,” it wrote. Chelsea and West Ham also released statements blasting the article’s assertion. Chelsea said the article made “wide-ranging, inaccurate and appalling accusations.” West Ham called the article “unfounded, offensive and wildly inaccurate.” The Spurs were popular among Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Fans often call themselves the “Yid Army,” though the league has since banned the term as offensive. (JTA)
German court again convicts Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck, 88 Ursula Haverbeck, a well-known historical revisionist and neo-Nazi, was convicted again of Holocaust denial. Haverbeck, 88, was sentenced in a Berlin district court to six months in prison, Deutsche Welle reported. In January 2016, she said at an event in the German capital that the Holocaust did not occur and there were no gas chambers at the Auschwitz concentration camp, which she said was a labor camp. Haverbeck said she will appeal the conviction. Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany. Haverbeck is scheduled to go on trial in the western German town of Detmold for the third time after twice being convicted of incitement to hatred there for denying a genocide of the Jews during World War II. She has been convicted and sentenced to prison on several other occasions for writing articles denying the Holocaust and incitement to hate, but has appealed all the decisions and not spent any time in jail. The German media have dubbed her the “Nazi grandma,” according to Deutsche Welle. (JTA)