Two large swastikas were found spray-painted on the Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi) Jewish fraternity house at University of California (UC), Davis during Shabbat.

“Jewish people still can’t feel safe on their own campuses and in their own houses,” Nathaniel Bernhard, vice president of the UC Davis AEPi chapter, told the Sacramento Bee. “Anti-Semitism still exists today. It’s not a fairy tale.”

Bernhard said the swastikas were spray-painted on the building sometime between 3-9 a.m. on Saturday.

Barry Broad, board president of the Jewish Federation of the Sacramento Region, called the swastikas “especially heinous” given the recent commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27.

“Unfortunately, the lessons that history has taught us about the culture of hate have not been heeded by everyone,” Broad said in a statement.

UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said, “Nothing rivals a swastika as a more potent or offensive symbol of hatred and violence toward our Jewish community members.

The Beach Boys will perform for the first time in Israel in November, another slap in the face for the Boycott Israel’s diminishing entertainment branch, headed by Roger Waters of Pink Floyd.

The “I Get Around” band swept the United States in the 1960s with its smoothie style and its popularization of surfing on the beach as one of the basic purposes of life. The group will appear at the Nokia Arena on November 29. Start saving your shekels now because the tickets will go for 390 shekels, which comes out to approximately $110.

The Beach Boys went through a transformation following founder Brian Wilson’s drug use and mental problem, and it regrouped.

The Beach Boys represented the epitome of a 1960s culture that placed sporty cars, girls and the California beach as basic human values.

If their appearance helps drown out Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) and his anti-Israel cronies, the Beach Boys will have made a major contribution to civilization.

Honey cake, gourmet honey, flavored honey, and honey as a recipe in chicken, and even fish, are all expected to contribute to soaring sales of honey this Rosh Hashanah and holiday season.

Ironically, the US Department of Agriculture is conducting hearings to define honey or just how much honey is required to qualify for “pure honey.”

In 2006, members of the honey producing, packing, and importing industries petitioned the FDA to develop a standard of identity for honey. The petitioners stated that “a compositional standard for honey will serve as a tool to help combat the economic adulteration of honey.”

In California, a record drought is having an effect on honey production. The historic drought, now in its third year, is reducing supplies of California honey, raising prices for consumers and making it harder for beekeepers to earn a living.

But kosher sources say that they have noticed an appreciable increase in the sale of honey products, including pastries. Norman’s Dairy even markets an apple and honey flavor in its highly touted Greek Yogurt products.

The hope is that it all makes for a sweet new year.

The 6.1 earthquake that jolted northern California in the middle of the night Sunday upended furniture and scattered broken glass at the Napa Valley Chabad Jewish Center.

“It was very violent—not a gentle rolling quake, but more of a jolting traumatic experience that shocked us out of sleep at 3:20 a.m. and lasted for about half a minute, Rabbi Elchonon Tenenbaum told the Chabad website.

The rabbi, his wife and five children were not injured.

Tenenbaum said he waited outside with his neighbors until daybreak before going back into his home and Chabad center, where power had been lost, to survey the damage. Upended furniture and broken glass prevented him from accessing some rooms, including his office. A disaster recovery fund was quickly established for those wanting to help out.

“I went to check up on people in the area and found that they were in a similar situation,” he added. “Their houses are standing, but everything inside has been ruined. Thank God, this happened in the middle of the night when we were in our beds and not in other parts of our homes, where heavy bookcases fell over.”

The Chabad website reported, “Tenenbaum says that waking up in the middle of the night with his children screaming amid violent banging and shaking helped him picture what life must be like on a regular basis for people living in Israel, where Hamas has been firing rockets from Gaza for much of the summer.”

“It is really surreal,” he said. “There are some stores that are functioning as usual, and others have been completely destroyed for now. Some streets are buckled, and others are just fine. Some people have broken water mains or leaking gas pipes, and others do not.”

Many residents in the area, famous for its wineries, are crying over wine spilled from barrels that were broken from the earthquake.

The largest quake to hit the San Francisco area in 25 years, it caused several injuries, including three who are in critical condition, set off fires and knocked out power.

Napa’s downtown historical areas sustained irreparable damage.

SAN PEDRO, CA (Aug. 19, 2014), Congresswoman Hahn released the following statement after the ILWU Local 10’s initial decision not to unload a Zim ship docked at the Port of Oakland last week.

Anti-Israel protesters temporarily blocked the unloading of the ship through intimidation and picket lines.

The congresswoman recognized the damage to the local economy that these BDS protesters could cause, including the loss of local jobs, if Zim and other carriers were to choose safer and friendlier ports than Oakland.

“It is critical to the state’s local economy that this ship be unloaded. I urge the local police department to take steps to ensure ILWU Local 10 workers’ safety so that they may reconsider their decision and unload this Zim ship. This issue is about commerce in the United States not the political situation in the Middle East. Failing to unload this ship threatens the local economy and jobs this community relies on. I have been assured that the local police can guarantee the safe passage of workers at the terminal while allowing the peaceful protests to continue.

With cargo diversion a constant threat to our West coast ports, not unloading this cargo, simply sends the wrong message.

Last week in my San Pedro office, I convened a meeting with the local ILWU, the Israeli Counsel General, clergy, and representatives from Jewish Labor and the Port of Los Angeles to discuss this issue. We were assured by our ILWU leadership that they are neutral on the political situation in the Middle East and guaranteed that the ships in LA and Long Beach would be unloaded. As the co-chair of the Congressional PORTS Caucus, I hope that we can hold similar meetings in Northern California to bring key leaders to the table to find a resolution.

Finally, I stand with the Teamsters in calling on the ILWU to unload the Zim ship and allow important commerce to continue.”

Congresswoman Hahn is the founder and co-chair of the Congressional PORTS Caucus. She represents America’s Port – the Port of Los Angeles. With the Port of Long Beach, it is the largest port complex in the nation.

Students at a school in California who were given an assignment to compare propaganda with actual evidence on the Holocaust have instead been told to abandon the project.

The order came following a firestorm of criticism and at least one death threat aimed at Southern California’s Rialto Unified School District, which assigned the homework.

According to a report published in The Daily Bulletin newspaper, the project was assigned in April to 2,000 13-and-14 year old eighth grade students, as follows:

“Shen tragic events occur in history, there is often debate about their actual existence. For example, some people claim the Holocaust is not an actual historical event, but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain.  Based upon your research on this issue, write an argumentative essay, utilizing cited textual evidence, in which you explain whether or not you believe the Holocaust was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain. Remember to address counterclaims (rebuttals) to your stated claim. You are also required to use parenthetical (internal) citations and to provide a Works Cited page.”

It had first been reviewed by a committee of eighth grade teachers, and sent to middle school sites in February for comment prior to distribution to the students. No objections were raised at the time, according to the spokesperson.

But the district found itself under siege on Monday, with the switchboard lines ringing off the hook.

At least one person called police repeatedly threatening death to a district spokeswoman Syeda Jafri and the interim school superintendent Mohammad Z. Islam. The incident is under investigation.

But also among the critics was Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, who slammed the assignment as inappropriate.

Rabbi Cooper told FoxNews.com on Monday, “Whatever the motivation, it ends up elevating hate and history to the same level… We should train our kids to have critical thinking, but the problem here is the teacher confused teaching critical thinking with common sense, because common sense dictates you don’t comingle propaganda with common truth.”

The rabbi advised the district to instead assign students to research the issue of Holocaust denial and meet with local survivors of the Nazis.

The school district responded in a statement saying the interim superintendent will speak with its educational services department to “assure that any reference to the Holocaust ‘not occurring’ will be stricken from any current or future argumentative research assignments. The Holocaust is and should be taught in classrooms with sensitivity and profound consideration to the victims who endured the atrocities committed,” the statement continues. “We believe in the words of George Santayana, ‘Those who cannot learn from history are bound to repeat it.”

The Los Angeles office of the Anti-Defamation League said it was satisfied with the district’s actions by Monday. “It is ADL’s general position that an exercise asking students to question whether the Holocaust happened has no academic value; it only gives legitimacy to the hateful and anti-Semitic promoters of Holocaust denial,” Associate Regional Director Matthew Friedman was quoted as saying, after having spoken with the interim superintendent on Friday.

“ADL does not have any evidence that the assignment was given as part of a larger, insidious, agenda,” a blog post quoting Friedman continues. “Rather, the district seems to have given the assignment with an intent, although misguided, to meet Common Core standards relating to critical learning skills.”

In a number of European countries today — including Germany — Holocaust denial is a criminal offense for which one can be sentenced to prison. The Nazis exterminated six million Jews out of a total of some 11 million victims murdered between 1933 and 1945, in the Holocaust that took place prior to and during World War II. Some two-thirds of European Jewry was wiped out in the slaughter, which ended with the defeat of Nazi Germany by the U.S., UK and their Allies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed an economic and research partnership agreement with California Gov. Edmund “Jerry” Brown.

The agreement will enhance cooperation between Israel and California in a variety of areas, with a focus on water conservation, alternative energy, cybersecurity, health and biotechnology, education and agricultural technology, according to a press release from Brown’s office.

The agreement also allows Israeli companies access to a variety of Californian technology research facilities, including technology incubators, research parks, federal laboratories and universities.

“Through this agreement, California and Israel will build on their respective strengths in research and technology to confront critical problems we both face, such as water scarcity, cybersecurity and climate change,” said Governor Brown in the statement.
Netanyahu said “the opportunities of our partnerships are truly limitless. They’re limited only by our imagination.” While in California, Netanyahu also met with Apple CEO Tim Cook, as well as with Jan Koum and Brian Acton, the founders of text message service WhatsApp.