Students of Upenn respond to BDS, head to ProGo to clear the shelves of Sabra Hummus!
Building on the Success of 2011 Campaign to Combat the BDS Movement and Promote Israeli Products, Buy Israel Week Will Take Place December 1-9, 2012
NEW YORK, NEW YORK, January 11, 2012 – Buy Israel Week announced its 2012 dates today as well as other initiatives aimed at combating the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and promoting Israeli products. For this year, Buy Israel Week will take place from December 1-9, 2012, and will once again feature special sponsor offers, print supplements published in the largest household Jewish population centers in the United States, and discount vouchers from a variety of online and local merchants that sell Israeli products.
By all measures, the 2011 inaugural event was an enormous success. In a two week period, Buy Israel Week reached more than 6 million people through an extensive print and social media campaign that included more than 4000 Facebook fans, 1.1M friends of fans and over 2000 people “talking about it” online. The Twitter following expanded with some very strong and credible followers in the Jewish and Evangelical Christian communities.
“Many people want to support Israel, but are unaware of what Israeli products are sold by their local merchants, or who those local merchants are. In addition, many consumers are looking for ways to support Israel that goes beyond the political movements; our campaign is aimed at building awareness at the consumer level, so that instead of buying products made from another country, their choice is to buy Israel, ” said Frances Zelazny, the founder of Buy Israel Week.
Buy Israel Week 2011 merchants represented a wide spectrum of “Made in Israel” goods, such as soap from kidronsoap.com, honeys, jams and oils from Negev Nectars, Shalom Sesame DVDs from SISU Entertainment, women’s fashion from TelAvivCouture.com, chocolate from the Chocolate Dreams Company, and award-winning Israeli wines from onlinekosherwine.com and The Wine Shuk. There were also a variety of religious items like hand woven Tallitot fromGabrieli.com, IDF Tzizit and prayers at the Western Wall. Local merchants across the US selling Israeli products also participated, as did a variety of Israel-based charities.
Sponsors included AHAVA; American Associates, Ben Gurion University (AABGU); Barkan Winery; Binyamina Wines; American Friends of Magen David Adom; American Friends of Meir Panim; Artistic Tile; Conference of Presidents; EL AL; Israel Bonds; Osem; Royal Kedem; PJ Library and Tnuva. Sponsors were given added exposure via ongoing social media and blog posts.
Buy Israel Week 2012 will build on this success, and will focus on Buy Israel every week, featuring Israeli merchants on its marketplace on a weekly basis; working with other organizations to fight BDS activities in the U.S., and promoting specific sectors such as Israeli Food and Wine.
About Buy Israel Week
Buy Israel Week is an integrated campaign that is aimed at combating the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that is actively sponsoring the delegitimization of Israel and organizing boycotts against the purchase of Israeli products around the world. Buy Israel Week held its inaugural event in 2011. In 2012, Buy Israel Week will be held from December 1-9. Print supplements will be issued by the major Jewish media across the U.S. and a series of events are planned to promote the purchase of Israeli goods. Buy Israel Week is organized by jdeal.com, the largest and most comprehensive daily deal site targeting the Jewish market, and nine media organizations -– The Jewish Week Media Group of NY, Washington Jewish Week, Florida Jewish Journal, Tribe Media Corporation, the Jewish Standard of New Jersey, the Chicago Jewish News, Texas Jewish Post, J. the Jewish News Weekly of Northern California and Jewish News of Greater Phoenix – representing the largest Jewish markets in the United States, as well as the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce, Manufacturers’ Association of Israel, Israel Export and Cooperation Institute, Conference of Presidents, United With Israel and Stand With Us. For more information, contact info@buyisraelweek.com or visit us on Facebook, atwww.facebook.com/buyisraelweek.
We are delighted to inform you that we have inaugurated the first TOUS store in Tel Aviv, Israel. The store, located in the popular Azrieli Mall, is our flagship in Israel.
We are planning to celebrate an official inauguration in the store in the coming months with a very special event and we will share all the details with you then.
The new store follows along the lines of the new TOUS store concept, in which the product takes on all the protagonism and all the customers’ needs are graciously attended to in a pleasant and comfortable setting. We are thrilled with our new store and we look forward to your visit!
Source: http://blog.tous.com/
(Reuters) – Apple said on Wednesday it had bought Israel’s Anobit, a maker of flash storage technology whose chips it already uses in gadgets such as theiPad.
Israeli media reported on December 20 that Apple bought Anobit for as much as $500 million, its first acquisition of an Israeli company. Apple declined to comment at the time.
“Yes … we did buy Anobit,” Apple spokesman Alan Hely said in an e-mail to Reuters, declining to elaborate. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”
Anobit has developed a chip that enhances flash drive performance through signal processing. The chip is already incorporated in Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad and the MacBook Air.
The Calcalist financial daily reported last month that Apple, among one of the largest buyers of flash memory, was interested in Anobit’s technology to increase and enhance the memory volume and performance of its devices. The chip may as much as double the memory volume in the new iPads and MacBooks.
Anobit has raised $76 million from Battery Ventures, Pitango Venture Capital and Intel Capital since it was founded in 2006.
Source: Reuters
TORONTO — Canada’s main pro-Israel advocacy group is urging Canadians to shop at housewares retailer Bed, Bath & Beyond in response to a call last month to boycott Israeli-made Ahava cosmetics and SodaStream home carbonation products being sold at the U.S.-based chain.
Buycott Israel, an initiative of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) that was started in 2009 to encourage consumers to support Israeli-made products in response to boycott actions, sent out an alert to its followers last week in response to a flash-mob demonstration in a Bed, Bath & Beyond store in Larkspur, California on Dec. 10.
There have been no reports of protests at the company’s Canadian outlets – located in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island – said Sara Saber-Freedman, the Montreal-based executive vice-president of CIJA and the lead on the Buycott file.
The boycott was organized by the U.S.-based group Codepink, which has targeted Ahava products in the past. The group describes itself as “a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement.”
It claims that Ahava cosmetics and SodaStream home carbonation products “are fraudulently labelled as ‘Made in Israel,’ but are in fact produced in illegal Israeli settlements, under the conditions of a military occupation in the West Bank, outside the internationally recognized borders of Israel.”
Ahava counters that the minerals used in its products are mined in the Israeli part of the Dead Sea, which is undisputed internationally, and that Mitzpe Shalem, the West Bank kibbutz where Ahava products are produced, is not an illegal settlement.
Saber-Freedman, right, said she was gratified that many U.S. Jewish organizations, such as theAmerican Jewish Committee and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, have latched onto the buycott method to fight such situations as they arise in the U.S.
“Buycott is a tool that’s only as strong as the breadth of participation. We’re proud to be a part of what continues to be one of the few examples of open-source advocacy,” she said.
“We will follow up with Bed, Bath & Beyond. But the message to the people calling for this boycott is that the immediate result of them organizing a boycott is that there will be an increase in sales of the product they’re boycotting,” Saber-Freedman said.
A U.S.-based spokesperson said the chain won’t pull the Israeli products.
“In order to offer our valued customers the widest selection possible, Bed Bath & Beyond carries products from all over the world,” Rachael Risinger said. “As long as our customers continue to purchase and enjoy those products, we will continue to make those products available to our customers.”
Saber-Freedman said said the buycott tactic has “worked pretty much every time” it has been employed.
In 2009, hundreds of pro-Israel consumers converged on a mid-town Toronto LCBO outlet to counter a call to boycott Israeli wines. Within a few hours, the store had sold out of its stock of about 150 cases of Israeli wine.
Last year, Saber-Freedman and Buycott Israel helped dispel rumours that The Bay had removed Ahava beauty products from its shelves as part of a boycott request from Canadian anti-Israel group Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME).
The Bay had in fact temporarily removed the products from its stores in order to make room for a rebranded Ahava line that it continues to sell.
Last week, CIJA refreshed the old Buycott Israel website and Facebook page to update its functionality and “feel,” Saber-Freedman said.
For more information, visit www.buycottisrael.ca.
Check out Business Insider’s list of 15 Israeli Startups to look out for in 2012!
Any.DO
Any.DO - ”Make things happen.”
Elegance and simplicity are what make this to-do list app the very best one out there. Maybe that’s why it’s been featured as one of the top apps out there on The New York Times, TechCrunch and more.
Wibbitz
Wibbitz - “The new visual experience for your site!”
Transforms text content into interactive short videos. After adding it’s platform to Wibiya, this service has been steadily growing.
Onavo
Onavo - “Control your data, control your costs.”
Possibly one of the most useful apps you’ll ever download, Onavo monitors your data usage and easily lets you cut down the usage.
Tawkon
Tawkon - “Now keep talking.”
As radiation from cellphones becomes a hotter topic, this app will shine. Tawkon lets its users know how much radiation is being emmitted from their phone and how to avoid it
BillGuard
BillGuard - “Protect your money.”
This web app is already saving its users plenty of money. Through sophisticated algorithms they are able to detect fraud and hidden charges on your credit card
Shaker
Shaker - “Where things happen.”
Shaker most recently won TechCrunch Disrupt, a highly coveted competition. They created a beautiful virtual world in Facebook.
For full list click here
ANTWERP (EJP)—Following calls by pro-Palestinian activists in Belgium to organize a weeklong boycott action of Israeli products in supermarkets, a Jewish organization in Antwerp has invited the community to counter this action by buying en masse these products.
The Forum of Jewish Organizations publicized the names of all the products listed on the website of a Belgian coordination for the boycott of Israel and invited Jews in Antwerp to come to a supermarket in the city on December 1 and buy as much Israeli products as possible.
The union of independent entrepreneurs UNIZO has condemned the boycott call and denounced the import of foreign conflicts in the country. Such a boycott, it said, will only hurt local companies and trade.
Source: European Jewish Press
by Bernard-Henri Levi
Since it is necessary to spell things out, let’s do so.
Obviously, I have never, directly or indirectly, pressured anyone to cancel a meeting in support of the partisans of the boycott of Israel, with Palestinian Leila Shahid, Frenchman Stéphane Hessel, and others scheduled to appear, at the Ecole normale supérieure in Paris.
This would have been all the more absurd because, by nature and by conviction, I believe in the power of ideas and, even more, that of the truth. In such circumstances, I am always in favor of debate, the clash of opinions, even the confrontation of convictions–hence, not of censure.
And the fact is that, in this particular circumstance, that is to say in this matter of the BDS (”Boycott, Disinventment, Sanctions”) campaign that was to be the main issue of the Ecole normale meeting, I would have been more than happy to be able to present those who speak sincerely with facts and, basically, evidence that seems to have escaped them: namely that we are faced here with a skilfully orchestrated but calumnious, bellicose, anti-democratic and, in a word, perfectly despicable campaign.
Why?
First of all, because one boycotts totalitarian regimes, not democracies. One can boycott Sudan, guilty of the extermination of part of the population of Darfur. One can boycott China, guilty of massive violations of human rights in Tibet and elsewhere. One can and should boycott the Iran of Sakineh and Jafar Panahi, whose leaders have become deaf to the language of common sense and compromise. One can even imagine, as we once did with regard to the fascist generals’ Argentina or Brezhnev’s USSR, boycotting those Arab regimes whose citizens’ freedom of expression is forbidden and punished, if necessary, in blood. One does not boycott the only society in the Middle East where Arabs read a free press, demonstrate when they wish to do so, send freely elected representatives to parliament, and enjoy their rights as citizens. Regardless of what one thinks of the policies of its government, one does not boycott the only country in the region and, beyond the region, one of the unfortunately limited number of countries in the world where voters have the power to sanction, modify, and reverse the position of said government. To such an extent that finding, like Mr. Hessel, the source of its “main indignation” in the workings of a democracy that, like all democracies, is by definition imperfect but perfectible (yet, on the contrary, having nothing to say about the millions of victims of Africa’s forgotten wars, about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East or, yesterday, about the massacre of Bosnia’s Muslims) is at best profoundly stupid and at worst, disgraceful.
And then because, in any event, this boycott campaign is in reality indifferent to the stance of the government of Mr. X or Mrs. Y. It is unaware, nor does it care to know, of what Israeli citizens themselves think, for example, of the resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank. It doesn’t give a hoot about demands, parameters, actual conditions of peace between the citizens in question and their Palestinian neighbors. Of the latter, their aspirations, their interests, their possible hopes and the way the Hamas regime has smashed those hopes in Gaza, it doesn’t give a tinker’s damn and never says anything, either. No. Regardless of what its promoters and its useful idiots say, the only real, accepted, hackneyed goal of this boycott campaign is to de-legitimize Israel as such. That is what the comparison with the South Africa of apartheid implicitly expresses. That is what the anti-Zionist rhetoric that serves as the common denominator of all the groups constituting this BDS movement explicitly says and, if words have any meaning, what signifies their intent to undermine the very idea that today, like it or not, binds the Israeli nation. And that is why this campaign, in fact, contravenes the customs, rules and laws of international and, in this case, French or American national law.
And then, lastly, there are those at the heart and, sometimes, at the origin of this campaign whose inspiration is, to say the least, not that of De Gaulle’s Free French nor of those who penned the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, nor of those in favor of a just peace between the Israeli and Palestinian peoples. I submit, to whomever wishes, the declarations of Omar Barghouti, one of the movement’s founders, affirming that his goal is not two States but two Palestines. And those of Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada and also opposed to the two-state solution, who does not hesitate to compare Israel to Nazi Germany and this or that of its philosophers to the columnists of Der Stürmer. And the declarations of the leaders of Sabeel, this group of Palestinian Christians firmly implanted in North America who, anxious to lend the idea of “responsible investment” a “theological” basis, do not hesitate to subtly but surely reactivate the Christ-killing Jews stereotype. Not to mention some rather shady initiatives whose purpose is to mark Jewish–sorry, Israeli–merchandise with supposedly derogatory stickers intended for the attention of the vigilant French consumer.
All that is deplorable and, once again, indisputable. Presenting the promoters of this discourse of hatred as victims speaks volumes of the current state of confusion–intellectual and moral–of a Western world one would have hoped cured of its worst criminal past.
Source: Huffington Post