Every few years Israel is convulsed in “kidnapped Yemenite children” hysteria, and this summer is just the latest round. The ruckus concerns allegations that Yemenite children in the 1950s were kidnapped from their parents by racist Ashkenazim, five years after the Holocaust, “sold” in a giant conspiracy and put up for illegal adoption.

This year, as usual, demagogue politicians are joining the calls for yet another state commission of inquiry into the matter, trying to make political hay. There have been several commissions already. Journalists from the Far Left, the Far Right, and the Far-out Center are trying to build careers out of it all.

Large numbers of the Israeli public, not limited to Yemenites, believe the conspiracy tales. Not as many as Americans who believe in UFOs or a JFK conspiracy, but nevertheless alarming.

There is just one little problem with the “theory.” It is nonsense.

READ MY LIPS! THERE WERE NEVER ANY KIDNAPPED YEMENITE CHILDREN IN ISRAEL. THERE WERE NO ILLEGAL ADOPTIONS OF YEMENITE CHILDREN. THERE WAS NO CONSPIRACY.

Before arriving in Israel, infant/child mortality in Yemen was probably the worst in the world. Well over 60% of infants died. Much like in the days of the Talmud. In halakha an infant death or NAFAL is not death at all and there is no shiva.

The deaths did not suddenly halt when the Yemenite Jews got off the planes in Israel. Israel at the time was a Third World mess. Much of the population was in MAABARA transit camps. The roads were mud. Almost no Israelis had phones and many had no bathroom or kitchen.

Hospital record keeping was poor and hospital care not much better. The country’s attention was elsewhere, in things like finding food. People who did not know Hebrew could not communicate with one another. And the mess was not just in the hospitals. Large numbers of soldiers had died in the War of Independence, without their identities ever being recorded and known. The Israel Central Bureau of Statistics was not founded until 1949 and in the 1980s was still located in asbestos shacks without computers

Under these circumstances, infants died, corpses were misplaced, parents were not kept fully informed, parents imagined being persecuted. To put things into proportion, in 21st century USA with all the computers, corpses disappear from hospitals all the time.

Why did the hospital not simply call the Yemenite parents when an infant died? Because the hospital had no phone, the parents had no phone, lived in a tent, did not speak Hebrew, and the mail did not work – it still does not.

Since the 1950s, EVERY STATE COMMISSION – there have been at least three – HAS RULED THERE is no hard evidence of any KIDNAPPINGS.

NONE WILL EVER SETTLE THE MATTER FOR THE CONSPIRACY NUTS BECAUSE THEY WILL ALWAYS DEMAND YET ANOTHER INVESTIGATION.

THE PEOPLE DEMANDING NEW INVESTIGATIONS NOW ARE EXACTLY LIKE THE 911-TROOFERS AND THE PEOPLE SEEKING EVIDENCE OF A JEWISH CABAL TO CONTROL THE WORLD.

The fact that “a lot of people” think something is true does not make it true. 65 years of “searching” have already gone by. Multiple state commissions of inquiry. Highest of high tech available. And not a single proven case of a “kidnapped” Yemenite child ever found – OR EVEN OF AN ILLICIT ADOPTION. Where are all the Yemenite-looking Ashkenazim in Scarsdale and how come none ever asked about being adopted? None. Conclusion?

Supposedly “hundreds” of “kidnapped” Yemenite children were “sold.” Yet 65 years later and not a single one of the sold ever went searching for his or her biological family.

Conclusion?

Now just suppose that the main advocate of a theory, any theory, were a certifiably deranged stockpiler of assault weapons planning mass murder and attacks on the Israeli police. What would be your conclusion about his theory?

Well, meet the leading advocate of the “theory” of the kidnapped Yemenite children: the late Uzi Meshulam. A certified lunatic and terrorist. He led the drive to (re-) investigate once again the “disappearances.”

His fans – conspiracy nuts still beating the dead old horse about “kidnapped” Yemenite children – are not nutty enough for you?

Well let us introduce you to Ami Meshulam, son of Uzi Meshulam. He is all over the media in Israel this week as the “conspiracy” fiction gets retold ad nauseum. Meshulam the Younger goes way beyond what his whack job pappy said. According to Ami, “thousands” of Yemenite children were rounded up in Israel in the 1950s by an Ashkenazi Gestapo and sold en masse to the USA WHERE THEY WERE SUBJECTED TO MENGELE-LIKE EXPERIMENTATION. Really. Which I am sure will be interesting for anyone who grew up in American during the Eisenhower era.

Ultra-leftist Haaretz, which generally likes the conspiracists, runs a TV review this week saying Ami Meshulam’s theory might as well be that UFOs kidnapped the Yemenite kids. Conspiracy nut UFOLOGIST Barry Chamish – who publishes his “scoops” on Holocaust Denial web sites – has long been a devoted Meshulamite and has ties to Ami.

In a country where politician peccadillos become known instantly, where the “stinky deal” with Shimon Peres was exposed immediately, where the “esek bish” affair was leaked right away, where military secrets might as well appear on Facebook, explain to me how the thousands of people who would have to have been involved in the “kidnappings” of hundreds of children all kept silent 65 years and not a single one ever spoke out??!!

by Michael Zeff

Four members of the Hamas terror organization were sentenced to life in prison Wednesday by an IDF military tribunal in Samaria. The terror cell was convicted on charges of murdering Rabbi Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, an Israeli rabbi and his wife, in October 2015. A fifth member of the Shechem-based cell was found guilty but has not yet been sentenced, and two others await trial.

Yahia Abdullah Hajj-hamad, Samir Qusah, Karem Razik; and Amjad Aliwi, were among the five terrorists responsible for the ambush and murder of the Henkin couple. They were shot while driving their car near the Itamar community in Samaria, as their four children sat in the back seat. Eitam, son of the prominent American-born educators Rabbi Yehuda and Chana Henkin, was a U.S. citizen.

The murder of their parents, witnessed by Matan, 9, Nitzan, 7, Netta, 4, and four-month-old baby Itamar, shook the Jewish nation both in Israel and in the Diaspora.

The four terrorists were sentenced to two consecutive life sentences and an additional 30-year prison term each. Zeid Jamil Amar, the fifth member of the terror cell hasn’t been sentenced yet.

The Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency (Israel Security Agency) said in a statement that the terrorists are also responsible for several other shooting attacks that took place in Samaria in August 2015.

The judge said that it was the “carefully planned and cold blooded nature of the killing, in which every member of the squad played a vital role,” that swayed the military judge to issue a harsh and uniform sentence to all the terrorists, regardless of who pulled the trigger.

Shin Bet officials have suggested the children were only spared from death due to the fact that one member of the cell accidentally shot his fellow terrorist, causing him serious injury and prompting him to drop his gun at the scene and flee.

It was that gun and “friendly fire” that helped the Shin Bet and IDF identify and capture the killers in a Shechem hospital a few days later.

During Tuesday’s debate at the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice committee, five MKs shared their families’ stories about the disappearance or the kidnapping of their relatives, presumably at the hands of public officials. MKs Yoav Ben-Tzur (Shas), Yoseph Yonah (Zionist Camp), Nava Boker (Likud), Rachel Azaria (Kulanu), and Nurit Koren (Likud) and their families have been living with the pain of that cruel separation for more than half a century.

The committee on Tuesday debated public demands to reveal the sealed protocols of the state investigating commission on the kidnapping of Yemenite, Mid-Eastern and Balkan children by government officials in the early years of the State of Israel. The commission’s findings have been sealed until the year 2071 in keeping with the State Archives Law.

The investigation dealt with the disappearance of thousands of babies and children who arrived in Israel from Yemen and other third-world countries in the 1950s, whose families were told that they died even though their bodies or their graves were never presented. Family members of the disappeared and several NGOs have called in the past for the public exposure of the findings of the investigation, but the state has remained firm in its refusal. Now, in response to increased public pressure, Prime Minister Netanyahu assigned Minister Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud) to look into the matter and submit his recommendations.

Hanegbi, son of illustrious underground radio broadcaster and former MK Geula Cohen, is from Yemenite extraction himself.

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice committee / Courtesy the Knesset

Committee chair MK Nissan Slomiansky (Habayit Hayehudi) opened the debate, saying, “The question is where have we been until now? It’s crazy — everybody knows there are protocols and it’s all locked up. As if these are the nuclear secretes of the State of Israel. It looks completely hallucinatory to me.”

State Archives official Dr. Jacob Lazovic told the committee that the archives possess more than one million pages of the investigating commission’s proceedings. “I personally, and we as an organization would be only to happy to reveal everything, but we are operating within the law, which imposes two limits on exposure: one based on the State Archives Law and the other on the Privacy Law,” he explained.

Dr. Lazovic added that while the government has the authority to order the exposure of said material, it is not authorized to permit the publication of content which relates to private persons. In his expert view, this problem could be resolved in short order by the archives’ staff who could go over the documents and redact the private information with black ink. “There are 3,500 cases,” he said. “My estimate is we’ll need one thousand work days.”

MK Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid) who initiated the debate, called the disappearance of the Yemenite children “a stain, a mark of Cain, a gross tumor on Israeli society. I’m trying to think what would have happened nowadays if a mother would have given birth and the next day was informed that her child had died. This phenomenon is rife with racism.”

MK Yonah told the committee, “I carry with me the story of the family of my uncles who passed away three years ago. They had a child named Tzipora who became sick with jaundice, which is why she was being treated in hospital, and was in progressive recovery. One day before she disappeared or kidnapped her mother still nursed her. When they called her to come get her daughter from the hospital, my aunt arrived, but was told, ‘Your child died.’ She asked, ‘How can it be? Only yesterday they told me about her quick recovery.’ My aunt described in chilling details how she ran through the different rooms looking for her girl. The child was gone.”

Yonah continued, “My uncle arrived at the hospital and was also told his daughter had died. He asked to see the death certificate and then, in complete reversal of the message of the state wishing to be modern, they told him, ‘You think you’re living in Iraq? At this age we don’t issue death certificates.'”

Tragically, according to Yonah, “when Tzipora turned 18, her enlistment order arrived in her family’s home, but she was not there, obviously. She is somewhere out there in the world and her brothers want to know where she is.”

Responding to the archives official’s comment regarding the limits posed by the privacy law, MK Yonah said, “My family members are those private people whose privacy is being damaged. Now, clearly, there is no demand on the part of families of the disappeared children for justice or revenge. But a society that wishes to advance to its future must heal its wounds and we need this for the sake of our own future. To face the inequities, not in order to sink but to face and overcome them.”

MK Boker, who co-sponsored the committee debate with MK Cohen, on Monday shared her own family’s story on her Facebook page, speculating that her older brothers and sisters had been among the kidnapped children. “I wasn’t fortunate enough to know my older brothers and sisters … According to what my mother told me when she was still alive, my older brother died at age one year and a half, but now we know he has two graves, rather than one. As to my sister, as soon as she was born, the doctors told my mother she was dead. My mother never saw the body, didn’t receive a death certificate, and that sister was never buried. The doctors and the medical staff probably took advantage of my mother’s naiveté and took away her daughter.”

“It’s time to expose the truth behind this shocking episode, an episode that is a black stain on the history of the State of Israel,” MK Boker said.

The committee meeting ended with a call on the government to open up the protocols; representatives of NGOs working to expose this episode called on the government to accept responsibility and recognize that this is a case of the mass kidnapping of children.

The United Nations issued a stern warning on Wednesday to both sides in the fierce fight for control of the Iraqi city of Falluja, currently under the thumb of Da’esh (ISIS).

UNICEF expressed deep concern for an estimated 20,000 children who are still trapped in the city, located west of Baghdad.

Very few families managed to flee before Da’esh blocked their escape, holding them hostage as human shields when Iraq launched its offensive to retake the city.

UNICEF also warned the children face possible forced recruitment by Da’esh as well. The UN children’s agency called on both sides to “provide safe passage to those wishing to leave the city” but the plea is likely to be more wishful thinking on the part of the agency.

Da’esh has repeatedly proved its cynical use of children with indoctrination of the young at all ages, and forced recruitment when necessary.

The handwriting performance of children with high-functioning autism differs from that of children without autism. Accordingly, the education system should consider the types and formats of tasks given to these children when they are integrated in regular schools. This conclusion emerges from a new study undertaken at the University of Haifa. “The typical process of handwriting performance among children with high-functioning autism is unique, but while the education system addresses reading skills, it pays almost no attention to handwriting skills,” explains Prof. Sara Rosenblum, the author of the study.

Children with high-functioning autism experience difficulties in the social, sensory, and movement fields, but differ from other children on the autism spectrum in terms of their linguistic and cognitive development. Among other differences, these children are usually integrated in regular schools where they are required to perform routine activities such as reading and writing. Writing tasks play an important part in academic progress: writing-related activities account for 30-60 percent of daily activity time in schools. Despite this, the education system places a strong emphasis on reading, whereas skills development, monitoring, and assistance in handwriting performance are much less frequent. There is also a lack of teacher training in this important area.

The present study is unique and the first of its kind in the world. The study was undertaken as part of the thesis prepared by Hemda Amit Ben Simhon of the Neuro-developmental Center at Maccabi HMO, supervised by Prof. Rosenblum, and in consultation with Dr. Eynat Gal, an autism specialist, both from the Department of Occupational Therapy at the University of Haifa. The study included 60 children aged 9-12 from the 3rd through 6th grades at various schools. Half the subjects were children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder with IQs above 80, while the other half were children with normal development. The children were asked to complete three writing tasks: writing the first name and family name; copying a paragraph; and writing a story describing a picture that was shown to them.

The writing tasks were completed using a special system developed by Prof. Rosenblum that provides objective, computerized data relating not only to the rhythm and speed of handwriting, but also to the degree of pressure applied on the page by the writer, the length of time the pen is in the air, the degree of slant of the pen during handwriting, and so on.

The study findings show that in 91.5 percent of the instances the objective indicators provided by the computerized system enabled the identification of children with high-functioning autism as distinct from children with normal development. In other words, the handwriting performances of the two groups showed statistically significant differences. The children with high-functioning autism produced taller and broader letters; waiting times on paper and in the air were longer; and the degree of slant of the pen was smaller.

It also emerged that the differences between the children with high-functioning autism and those with normal development were particularly prominent in the copying task, and less so in the free writing task. The text copying task required significantly more time. The researchers suggest that the need to invest a long period of time in the handwriting task may exacerbate fatigue, impair concentration, and even hamper the ability to produce handwritten content. This investment in the handwriting task may come at the expense of availability for other academic tasks the children receive, as well as their availability for social challenges in the classroom. “When a child has difficulty writing, they effectively have to cope with this difficulty over many hours a day, making it harder for them to cope with the additional challenges they face (social, cognitive, and functional). For example, if a child has to stay behind in recess to copy text from the board, they will have less time to practice social skills,” the researchers explained.

A group of ambitious students and parents from the Yigal Alon elementary school in Hod Hasharon, a bedroom community just east of Tel Aviv, last week shot a meteorological balloon 15 miles up, almost reaching the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, and collected images and complete flight data.

The project, dubbed “Aiming High,” was initiated by Yuval Erez, a parent who works as aeronautic engineer for military manufacturer Elbit. He managed to infect with his enthusiasm the school head, a group of parents, and 33 students, and together they “simply conquered space,” as a local newspaper put it with superlatively unabashed pride.

The students were divided into work groups, each led by a parent, Erez related, “and we started to meet for activities every Friday after school. The aim of the project was to teach the children different things, the kind they don’t learn at school; to show them that if you have a dream and you designate a target, even if it looks unattainable, like flying a documentation device to the edge of space and retrieving it, it is attainable.”

Weather balloon (illustration)

“The group purchased the technical equipment, with adjustments made by the mechanical team that built the box,” Yuval continued. The Styrofoam box, weighing 42.3 ounces, “was installed with two GoPro type cameras, a black box to record the full flight data, location respondents so we could locate the box after it landed, and a radio transmitter.”

The launch had to be coordinated with the Civil Aviation Authority and Air Force Intelligence, lest the unidentified balloon be treated as an invader and shot down prematurely.

The edge of space (Illustration)

The launch took place at the Megadim beach, north of Atlit, off the main highway to Haifa. The weather balloon, filled with helium (courtesy of the Maxima company which provided the expensive gas free of charge), reached the height of about 15 miles and blew up above Nazareth. The box parachute opened and the tiny spaceship landed in the orchards between the communities of Kinneret and Alumot, on the shore of Lake Kinneret.

“The balloon launch was not problem free,” Erez recalled. “The wind was too strong, and when the balloon was being inflated, the tether was torn and it escaped and flew a few yards off. We figured out the malfunction and the second launch was a success.” The balloon rose at the rate of 18 to 21 ft. per second, he said, and “we received flight data and stunning images from the side camera, showing the blue stripe between the black outer space and the white atmosphere at the edge of space. We even managed to get a selfie of the balloon, and shots of the moment the balloon exploded.”

And just to save our learned readers the trouble of writing a knowing comment regarding the Karman line, which commonly represents the boundary between the Earth’s atmosphere and outer space, at an altitude of 62 miles, and not 15 miles — well, we also knew that one.

In an appearance at the Russian Frobes Club last week, Jewish Billionaire Mikhail Maratovich Fridman, 52, who is worth $14.2 billion according to Forbes, which ranks him second wealthiest Russian, said he plans to leave almost all his fortune to charity. Nothing to his children.

“I’m not a big fan of this kind of public announcements,” Fridman told the Forbes Club audience, “but I can say that I am going to leave all my money to charity. I don’t plan to leave any money to my children.”

Fridman is a major patron of Jewish initiatives in Russia and elsewhere in Europe. In 1996 he was one of the founders of the Russian Jewish Congress. He makes large contributions to the European Jewish Fund, a non-profit organization promoting tolerance and reconciliation.

Fridman, together with Stan Polovets and fellow Russian Jewish billionaires Alexander Knaster, Pyotr Aven, and German Khan, founded the Genesis Philanthropy Group, to develop and enhance Jewish identity among Jews worldwide. In 2014, at the first annual Genesis Prize event in Jerusalem, Fridman told the audience that the prize is intended to inspire the next generation of Jews with the example of the Laureates’ outstanding professional achievement, contributions to humanity and commitment to Jewish values.

The Ukraine born Fridman shares control of Alfa Group, the biggest financial and industrial investment group in Russia, with two college buddies and now billionaires German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev. They have been partners since 1989, when they launched Alfa-Eco, then Alfa-Bank—today the biggest private bank in Russia. The three college buddies bought Tyumen Oil from the Russian state in the late 1990s, merged it with BP’s Russian assets to form TNK-BP, then sold their stakes in 2013. Alfa Group has stakes in telecommunication giant Vimpelcom; owns Russia’s second-biggest retailer, X5; bought German oil and gas company DEA for $5.7 billion in 2015; and invested $200 million in Uber in 2016. (Source: Forbes)

Fridman, who has four children, the youngest is 10 and the eldest 22, told his Russian audience he wants his children to follow in his footsteps and create something on their own. He also confessed that he is worried his elder daughter Laura, 22, be targeted by bad people, which is something to be considered when you’re a very wealthy Russian.

Fridman revealed that his two close friends and business partners have made the same decision regarding their own children.