6 minute read
Briefs
Jewish researcher harvey alter shares Nobel Prize iN mediciNe for ideNtifyiNg hePatitis c virus
The Nobel Prize in medicine was awarded to three scientists who identified the hepatitis C virus, including Harvey Alter, a Jewish researcher at the National institutes of Health.
“The Nobel Laureates’ discovery of Hepatitis C virus is a landmark achievement in the ongoing battle against viral diseases. Thanks to their discovery, highly sensitive blood tests for the virus are now available and these have essentially eliminated post-transfusion hepatitis in many parts of the world, greatly improving global health,” the Nobel committee said in announcing the prize, which also went to Michael Houghton of the University of Alberta and Charles Rice of Rockefeller University.
Alter, 85, was born in New York and attended medical school at the University of Rochester. Early in his career he worked with Nobel Prize winning scientist Baruch Blumberg, who identified the hepatitis B virus. in 2000, he received the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research for his work leading to the discovery of the virus that causes hepatitis C.
Houghton isolated the genetic sequence of the new hepatitis C virus while working at Chiron Corporation in the 1980s. Rice showed that hepatitis C virus alone could cause hepatitis. (JTA)
dutch fox sPorts chaNNel adds aNti-semitic chaNts to live soccer match
With professional sports taking place in empty stadiums because of the coronavirus pandemic, many TV stations are adding audience sounds when they broadcast games.
For a dutch soccer game on Sunday, Oct. 4, those sounds included anti-Semitic chants.
The gaffe happened in a FOX Sports Netherlands’ live broadcast of a match between the Amsterdam team Ajax and a rival from the city of Groningen. The network added a recording from a past game that featured the popular chant “Whoever doesn’t jump is a Jew.”
Supporters of rival teams sing the chant to taunt the players on Ajax, which many dutchmen associated with Jews because of Amsterdam’s rich Jewish history. (“i have nothing against your people. When i say i hate Jews, i just mean supporters of Ajax,” one dutch soccer fan told JTA in 2017.) in recent years, the chant has been heard also at several protest rallies with islamist participants.
The network apologized for including the chant in its soundtrack for the game.
“due to human error during the match, during the first halftime a certain chant was heard that should not have been played. The fragment was removed,” FOX News Netherlands wrote on Twitter. “We offer our sincere apologies and are looking into how this could have happened and how to make sure it does not recur.” (JTA)
The Oxford English dictionary’s online word of the day was kibitz on Sept. 24.
The dictionary defines the verb as “To watch (a card game or card player) as a spectator, typically while offering (unwelcome) advice or criticism.”
The second definition is closer to the one familiar to the Jewish community: “To chat, banter, or joke (with a person), esp. in a lighthearted or informal manner; to fool around.”
The word comes from the German word kiebitzen.
The dictionary also offers several spellings, including kibitz, kibetz, kabitz and kibbitz. (JTA)
youtube removes louis farraKhaN’s NatioN of islam chaNNel
YouTube has removed the video channel of the Nation of islam, the organization led by Louis Farrakhan.
YouTube said it removed the channel on Oct. 2, citing its policies against hate speech, according to the Jewish Journal.
“We have strict policies prohibiting hate speech on YouTube, and terminate any channel that repeatedly or egregiously violates those policies,” said the statement, according to the Jewish Journal. YouTube said it has removed 25,000 channels for hate speech.
Some individual accounts of Nation of islam members are still up, with tens of thousands of followers.
Farrakhan is a longtime, vehement anti-Semite who has railed against “wicked Jews,” praised Adolf Hitler, condemned the “synagogue of Satan,” likened Jews to termites and accused them of controlling the U.S. government. He also has a history of homophobia. This past summer, a string of celebrities defended or praised Farrakhan and echoed his anti-Semitic rhetoric.
A July 4 speech in which Farrakhan called Jews the “enemy of God” has been viewed more than a million times, according to the Anti-defamation League. That month the AdL called Farrakhan the “most popular antisemite in America.”
YouTube has also removed white supremacists from its platform this year, including Richard Spencer and david duke. (JTA)
26-year-old soN of millioNaire, taKes coNtrol of el al airliNes
Eli Rozenberg, the 26-year-old son of millionaire U.S. businessman Kenny Rozenberg, has taken control of El Al Airlines, after a tumultuous debate over who should manage israel’s flagship airline.
El Al was privatized in 2004, and since then it has struggled financially, with the coronavirus pandemic worsening the situation.
Eli Rozenberg’s $75 million bid to buy control of the airline offered a lifeline, but some in israel argued that selling to him would amount to a circumvention of the law prohibiting non-israelis from owning the airline. Eli Rozenberg is a resident of israel and an israeli citizen, but his father, who owns a nursing home chain in the United States, is not. The source of the financing for the deal is a 25-year loan from Kenny Rozenberg, the israeli business daily Globes reported.
Critics of the deal argued that such a loan amounts to a gift and might mean that Kenny Rozenberg effectively controls the airline. But Eli Rozenberg pledged that his father was not given any El Al shares as collateral for the loan.
The government accepted that argument and concluded that Eli Rozenberg will be the actual owner. Now that the deal has gone through, Eli Rozenberg is able to name directors and a CEO for the airline. But flights into and out of israel are severely curtailed because of the nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of COVid-19, and it is unclear when normal air travel might resume. (JTA)
suPreme court dismisses Jewish rocK star’s stairway to heaveN lawsuit
The Supreme Court effectively ended a years-long legal battle between Led Zeppelin and the estate of a lesser-known Jewish rocker that claims that Stairway to Heaven plagiarized one of his songs.
The court refused to hear the case on Monday, Oct. 5, meaning that a 2016 federal court’s ruling in favor of Led Zeppelin will stand.
Randy Wolfe, aka Randy California, was the front man for the psychedelic rock band Spirit, which was founded in 1967 and performed periodically until Wolfe’s death in 1997. in 1968, the thenbrand new British group Led Zeppelin opened for Spirit on a U.S. tour. A trustee for Wolfe’s estate claimed that Led Zeppelin stole parts of Spirit’s song, Taurus in writing Stairway to Heaven, which would become one of the era’s most iconic rock songs.
The case became one of the most scrutinized in the music industry. Court documents argue that Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page asked Wolfe to teach him how to play Taurus during the tour. Page has claimed he had never heard the song before the start of the lawsuit.
Wolfe, born to Jewish parents in Los Angeles, titled one of his songs Jewish.
Wolfe died in 1997 at the age of 45 while saving his son from drowning off the coast of Molokai, Hawaii. He was able to push his son to safety before drowning. (JTA)
