JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Hamas puppets mark Israel 60

By Ami Eden · May 6, 2008

The puppets from Hamas television reflect on Israel’s 60th birthday:

0 Comments | Share This | Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, video

Mike’s Place

By Ami Eden · April 18, 2008

Joshua Faudem’s documentary on the bombing of Mike’s Place, “Blues by the Beach,” is coming out at the end of the month. It’s being released exclusively online, not in theaters or on DVD. Here’s the trailer.

Click here to purchase the full film.

Here’s a press release:

BLUES BY THE BEACH ONLINE PREMIERE

Blues by the Beach officially debuts on the fifth anniversary of the Mike’s Place terror attack in Tel Aviv, Israel. On April 30, 2003 an American producer and his film crew were in the midst of a lighthearted documentary about the popular music bar when two British Nationals participated in a suicide bombing. The film captures the unprecedented before, during and after; footage from this film aired around the world.

This award winning documentary is now available to everyone online through a new video streaming technology from VIVIDAS. There are no downloads and no installation of programs. Within seconds Blues by the Beach is ready for viewing. This innovative technology takes up no computer memory and lets users watch video in a vibrant full-screen mode and connect their laptop to TV.

Blues by the Beach is not distributed on DVD or broadcast on television. The film is playing exclusively at http://www.bluesbythebeachfilm.com. Pay Per Views are $4.99 each and entitle viewers to three screenings for one month - and any of these three screenings may then be e-mailed to friends and family.

You are invited to preview the free trailer and purchase Pay Per Views at the film’s Official Website and Online Cinema http://www.bluesbythebeachfilm.com. Experience this new video streaming technology and delivery system from VIVIDAS and see Blues by the Beach. As Pulitzer Prize winning dramatist and filmmaker David Mamet writes: ‘This is a very, very important film.’

0 Comments | Share This | Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism, video

Remembering Liviu Librescu

By Ami Eden · April 16, 2008

Rabbi Shea Hecht’s outfit produced this video tribute to Liviu Librescu, the Jewish professor at Virginia Tech who died saving the lives of his students during the 2007 shooting spree.

2 Comments | Share This | video

The Matzah taste test

By Ami Eden · April 11, 2008

The L.A. Jewish Journal’s VideoJew, Jay Firestone, submits himself to a Matzah taste test.

2 Comments | Share This | Holidays, Passover, video

Hamas behaving badly

By Ami Eden · April 1, 2008

The New York Times has a front-page story today on Hamas incitement against Israel and Jews:

In the Katib Wilayat mosque one recent Friday, the imam was discussing the wiliness of the Jew.

“Jews are a people who cannot be trusted,” Imam Yousif al-Zahar of Hamas told the faithful. “They have been traitors to all agreements — go back to history. Their fate is their vanishing. Look what they are doing to us.”

At Al Omari mosque, the imam cursed the Jews and the “Crusaders,” or Christians, and the Danes, for reprinting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. He referred to Jews as “the brothers of apes and pigs,” while the Hamas television station, Al Aksa, praises suicide bombing and holy war until Palestine is free of Jewish control.

Its videos praise fighters and rocket-launching teams; its broadcasts insult the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, for talking to Israel and the United States; its children’s programs praise “martyrdom,” teach what it calls the perfidy of the Jews and the need to end Israeli occupation over Palestinian land, meaning any part of the state of Israel.

Such incitement against Israel and Jews was supposed to be banned under the 1993 Oslo accords and the 2003 “road map” peace plan. While the Palestinian Authority under Fatah has made significant, if imperfect efforts to end incitement, Hamas, no party to those agreements, feels no such restraint.

Plus this clip, from MEMRI, of a puppet show on Hamas television, in which an Arab child tells President Bush that the White House has been turned into a great mosque and then stabs the U.S. leader to death.

2 Comments | Share This | Bush, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, video

Film Fight

By Ami Eden · March 31, 2008

Here is the film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders in which he argues that Islam is a threat to the Western world (Muslims in Holland are suing him on the grounds that it falsely charges Islam with promoting violence)…

Wilders gave a lengthy interview to Fox News…

3 Comments | Share This | Islam, video

The News Shticker: Jewno, Britney & Mel

By Ami Eden · March 18, 2008

If Juno were Jewno ...

(Jewschool has more on the story behind the video)

Britney removes her Kabbalah tattoo and ... does lunch with Mel Gibson. On Shabbos!!!

Before the deadly construction accident last weekend, a Jewish octogenarian and retired contractor tried to warn New York officials that a crane on E. 51 St. wasn’t properly braced.

(With help from JTA digital master Daniel Sieradski)

0 Comments | Share This | Comedy, Culture, Film, Pop Culture, video

One more incentive for peace: A Rami Kashou studio in Ramallah

By Ami Eden · March 14, 2008

Rami Kashou, the Ramallah-born fashion designer who finished a close second on Season 4 of Bravo’s Project Runway, plays the checkpoint card in a Q & A with Jewcy.

What about [opening a studio] in your home country?

I’d love to open up in more than one country, but with checkpoints in the Middle East, it could be hard. But it would be nice to have my work in different countries, to make it more accessible.

Here’s a Project Runway montage of Kashou…

0 Comments | Share This | Culture, Fashion, Television, video

An old newspaper and a new TV channel explore the Jewish-Rastafarian connection

By Ami Eden · March 14, 2008

The Forward has hooked up with The Jewish Channel to produce three shows: a round table featuring the paper’s staffers, an interview show with J.J. Goldberg and a movie-themed program with arts & culture editor Alana Newhouse.

In one recent segment on Newhouse’s show, she and the TJC crew looked at the Jewish-Rastafarian documentary Awake Zion.

http://tjctv.com/blogs/are-dreadlocks-the-new-peyos/

0 Comments | Share This | Culture, Film, music, Television, video

I want my Holocaust awareness ad

By Ami Eden · March 14, 2008

MTV has produced two Holocaust awareness ads as part of its ”Think” initiative.

THE FAMILY ROOM

THE SUBWAY

2 Comments | Share This | Culture, Shoah, Television, video