Quality Israeli wines used to only come from the Golan Heights, an area reminiscent of Sonoma County, California. But as different regions of the country have been busy developing their own unique brands and tastes, it appears that a renaissance of sorts has been taking place in the largest wine growing region, the Shomron, or Samaria, where Israelite kings and prophets used to roam the earth and, very likely, sample the local wines.

It turns out that, in recent years, the Shomron has produced a disproportionate number of award winning wines from its relatively young vineyards and abundance of boutique wineries.

The foundation of the Shomron wine taste comes down to the high altitude, the humid and warm climate and the heavy and limey soil. Ah, and there’s the breeze, blowing in from the sea and gliding off the Carmel Mountains.

Frankly, there are probably some secular Israelis, alas, who couldn’t care less whether this sacred land would go into someone else’s hands or stay Jewish. But giving up this amazing wine country—same as in the Golan—would be unthinkable to many of them.

Now, whatever your political views, if you wish to find out for yourself what’s the big deal about Shomron wines – they’re coming to New York, this Sunday.

Shomron Wine Tasting in New York City

Sunday, November 17, come taste award-winning wines from Samaria.

A Wine Tasting Reception is planned for 6:30 PM, following Sunday’s Israel Advocacy Conference at the West Side Institutional Synagogue (the original location was the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue—it’s been changed).

West Side Institutional Synagogue

120 West 76th Street

(212) 877-7652

Many of the featured wines have only limited availability in the U.S., because of politics—the boycotts on products from the wrong side of the 1949 armistice border also known as the “green line.” So Sunday’s reception is sure to draw enthusiasts of both great wines and of Israel, eager to taste and assortment of wines that consistently score at 90 and above.

Featured producers include Arnon, Mount Blessing, Psagot, Shiloh and Tura wineries, which have together brought attention and acclaim to this region by winning multiple high-level awards in the Vinalies, Zarcillo, Terravino, and Eshkol Ha’zahav competitions.

You can register for the conference and the wine tasting here. The cost for the wine tasting event is $100 per person, for an offering of a large variety of bottles priced in the $40-80 range.

The suggested donation fee for attending the conference is $18.

Agudath Israel of America condemned a New Jersey law prohibiting gay reparative therapy for minors as an infringement on religious freedom.

The statement from Agudah came just hours after Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill barring licensed therapists from providing treatment to help gay teenagers become straight.

“The new law tramples on the rights of mental health therapists to engage freely in their profession, and it unfairly denies teenagers seeking therapy for issues that are troubling them the ability to obtain professional help,” the group said.

“Under the new law, therapists, social workers or counselors who work with minors on these issues risk losing their licenses to practice their professions, and minors who sincerely want to obtain professional help will have nowhere to turn. This is an unconscionable infringement on personal liberty and a trampling of personal rights, including religious and free speech rights.”

New Jersey joins California as the only states with laws barring so-called reparative therapy. The New Jersey bill passed both houses of the state Legislature in June with bipartisan support.

In signing the bill into law, Christie, a moderate Republican who is widely believed to be eyeing a presidential run in 2016, appended a note indicating his reluctance to intrude on parents’ ability to determine the right treatment for their children.

“However, I also believe that on issues of medical treatment for children, we must look to experts in the field to determine the relative risks and rewards,” Christie wrote. “The American Psychological Association has found that efforts to change sexual orientation can pose critical health risks including, but not limited to, depression, substance abuse, social withdrawal, decreased self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. I believe that exposing children to these health risks without clear evidence of benefits that outweigh these serious risks is not appropriate.”

America’s gift to Al Qaeda, California native Adam Gadahn, has asked rich Arab Muslims to open up their vaults and offer cash to other terrorists to kill Western diplomats, according to the SITE organization, which monitors terrorist websites.

He previously has praised the brutal murder of U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya last year. His latest message states, “These prizes [money] have a great effect in instilling fear in the hearts of our cowardly enemies. They also encourage hesitant individuals to carry out important and great deeds in the path of Allah.”

He apparently does not share the same fear. The U.S. government also has put up cash, $1 million to be exact, for information leading to the arrest of Gadahn, whom the FBI believes is in Pakistan.

“We know how to combine theoretical and empirical analyses,” claims the Econ One website. “We not only have the capability to develop sophisticated economic and econometric models, we have the experience and know-how to dig through the data and documents to make sure the facts of the case match the theory of the case.”

And so Econ One, a Los Angeles-based the litigation and business consulting company, is using a photo from the Birkenau death camp to push its services in its advertising.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum have told JTA that they’re consulting with their lawyers after the firm published on its website an image of barbed wire and a guard tower from Birkenau .

Museum employees noticed the image on Friday.

Of course, the first thing the museum attorneys will check to see, is if using the photo violates copyright laws,Bartosz Bartyzel, a museum spokesman, told the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper.

“Using Birkenau is disgusting and immoral,” Bartyzel said.

But breaking copyright laws is serious business…

The text under the photo reads:

“Great work is the only kind that’s okay with us. It takes management of the entire work process. Communicating with clients every step of the way. Committing to a budget, then keeping expectations aligned with what’s really happening so there are no surprises. And efficiently staffing each case to keep costs down. Because when it comes to client service, okay… just isn’t. At least not for our clients.”

Hey, who doesn’t want to be represented by a real shark, in business and in the courts? And who’s sharkier than a Nazi camp commandant?

Makes perfect sense.

Econ One has not responded to a JTA request seeking comment on the image. They will, eventually, when the phones from the big guys start ringing. Meanwhile, JTA reminded readers of two other memorable applications of Holocaust imageries to advertising:

A year ago, the Estonian company GasTerm used an image from Auschwitz in an advertisement. GasTerm representatives said at the time that they wanted to show the gas they produced was not poisonous.

And in January 2012, a gym in Dubai used an image from Auschwitz with the tag line “Kiss your calories goodbye.”

Orthodox Jews in Los Angeles have convinced a company to take down a billboard that showed a mostly naked woman promoting an energy drink, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal reported Monday.

A message on a local email stated, “The largest Orthodox Jewish community on the West Coast was horrified to see a completely inappropriate pretzus [sexually improper] photograph posted across a billboard in the center of the Jewish community.”

The ad posted by Wagner Communications promoted the XO energy drink. Yehuda Neurollah, the assistant rabbi of the mostly Sephardic Orthodox Beit Aaron outreach organization told the Journal, “It’s not a model for what we want our kids to see.”

He said that Wagner removed the billboard the day after a complaint was filed. “They were very, very good about it,” Neurollah said. “The Jewish community is very grateful to them.”

He now is considering trying to remove other billboards, such as on advertising the movie “We’re the Millers” and showing which shows four people, with the labels of “Stripper, Virgin, Runaway, and Drug Dealer,” terms that Nourallah said prompted his child and a friend to asked what they mean.

The number of anti-Semitic incidents dropped 14 percent nationwide last year, but vandalism rose, according to the Anti-Defamation League’s annual Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents that was released Monday. New York and New Jersey saw increases in anti-Semitic incidents.

Nationwide, the audit counted 927 anti-Semitic incidents reported during the 2012 calendar year, a 14 percent decline from the 1,080 incidents in 2011.

The 2012 figures included 17 physical assaults, 470 cases of harassment, threats and events, and 440 instances of vandalism.

The vandalism figure represented a 33 percent increase over the 330 incidents in 2011. While a majority of the vandalism took place on public property or individual homes, Jewish institutions were targeted in 13 percent of the incidents.

The ADL recorded 248 anti-Semitic incidents in New York in 2012, representing a 27 percent increase from the 195 incidents in 2011. New York City’s five boroughs had a total of 172 anti-Jewish acts, including incidents of assault, harassment and vandalism, compared to 127 in 2011.

“While the great majority of Jewish New Yorkers feel comfortable and safe in their respective communities, it is nevertheless disturbing that we saw almost a 30 percent uptick in the total number of anti-Semitic incidents across the state,” said Etzion Neuer, ADL’s acting New York regional director. “

The number of incidents dropped in other states with large Jewish population. California documented 185 incidents, down from 235; Florida reported 88 incidents, down from 111; Massachusetts logged 38 incidents, down from 72; and Pennsylvania recorded 37 incidents, down from 38.

San Francisco anti-circumcision activists are planning to picket a campaign for marriage equality by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California (ACLU )in Oakland Wednesday evening because the civil liberties group opposes circumcision bans.

The reasoning is based not only on mixing apples and oranges but also making them equal, just like boys and girls are born equal – from top to bottom.

Here is a civil liberties group campaigning for equality in marriage but is being picketed because it does not support the argument that there should be gender equality in the law that protects girls from circumcision.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California has organized a screening of “The Campaign,” and members of Bay Area Intactivists said they will protest outside the event venue” to condemn the ACLU’s work denying boys equal protection from genital mutilation.”

The ACLU’s sin, in the eyes of anti-circumcision activists, is that it argued that the San Francisco Male Genital Mutilation Bill a ballot initiative two years ago to restrict non-therapeutic circumcision to consenting adults  violated the right of parents to have their sons circumcisions, according to Jewish law.

The ballot proposal never even reached the voting booths because  a San Francisco judge ruled that state law preempts the city from regulating medical professionals.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Loretta Giorgi removed the measure from the ballot in her order, stating, “The [California state] statute speaks directly to the issue of local regulation of medical procedures and leaves no room for localities to regulate in this area.”

But if you already are going to change the facts of life and disregard certain bodily differences between girls and boys, then why stick to other facts?

IntactNews, which reports on the “genital integrity movement,” reported that the removal of the proposal from the ballot was “squelching democracy by denying voters their voice.”

In other words, democracy is when you win and it is anti-democratic when you lose.

Once that reasoning can be understood, everything becomes clear.

Federal law protects girls from genital mutilation. IntactNews points out that the law does not stipulate any “religious or cultural exceptions.” If there are any readers who know of a religion that considers circumcision of girls a mitzvah, please raise your hand.

Following the court ruling striking the anti-circumcision proposal from the ballot, California passed a law making it illegal for local authorities to ban or restrict circumcisions. The ACLU backed the law, making it persona non grata for the activists.

By the way if you want to demonstrate against the ACLU next week, be warned that, according to Intact, “a limited number of signs will be available [but] you are also welcome to bring your own sign.”

A tree fell through a dining hall at a Jewish summer camp in Northern California Wednesday morning, killing one adult and injuring 20 others, including four adults who were airlifted to a nearby hospital. No children were injured.

Cal Fire spokesman Daniel Berlant, posted on Twitter that emergency crews were responding to a “mass casualty” event on Wednesday at Camp Tawonga with 20 reported injuries. The camp is located near Yosemite National Park.

All children have been accounted for. Although none were injured, a tweet from CalFireNews stated, “children trapped after tree falls through dining hall at Camp Tawonga.” The fatality has not been identified and official reports said he or she is “missing.”

The tree smashed through the roof of a dining hall around 8:30 a.m. (PDT), and U.S. Forest Service park rangers worked several hours to to remove the tree. Two of the four who were airlifted were women, ages 20 and 21, who suffered minor injuries. The condition of the others is not known.

Last week, lightning injured three children, one critically, at a summer camp in Indiana.

Two of the three injured  campers at the Goldman Union Camp Institute Reform Jewish summer camp near Indianapolis have been released from the hospital.