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A 79-year-old woman from the kibbutz movement in Israel was massively disrupted by anti-Israel activists during a lecture in Hanover.

According to the ver.di union on Friday, the group had unexpectedly appeared in the lecture hall the evening before. They disrupted the event with shouts, video recordings, insults and loud music. The police eventually had to intervene. A police spokeswoman confirmed the incident to the Evangelical Press Service (epd) on Friday.

Ver.di and the German-Israeli Society (DIG) in Hanover, as organizers, had exercised their house rules and tried to remove the troublemakers from the hall, she said. When that did not have the desired effect, the police were called in.

Report of insult

State security is now investigating. According to the spokeswoman, the heckling itself was not criminally relevant. However, a complaint has been filed against a 24-year-old for insult.

The organizers condemned the disruptions. The ver.di regional director Andrea Wemheuer spoke of a new dimension of attacks on Israeli citizens and those who supported them. “We have a zero tolerance policy for anti-Semitic slogans,” she emphasized. epd/yes

The summer of 2024 was the hottest in the world since records began. Reduced crop yields, heat waves and the current floods are once again clearly demonstrating the effects of climate change in Germany this year. Global warming is making once-in-a-century floods like those we are currently seeing in Poland and Austria more and more common.

As a Jewish community, we are obliged to take responsibility individually and collectively in this crisis. The Midrash Kohelet Rabba states: “Everything I have created, I have created for you. Be careful not to spoil and destroy my world, for if you spoil it, no one will restore it after you.” In view of the climate crisis, this also means taking active steps against the destruction of creation.

The climate crisis is also a question of social justice.

At the same time, the climate crisis is also a question of social justice. Those who have contributed least to its causes are often the most affected by its consequences – especially the poorer segments of society. Our tradition emphasizes the duty to support the needy and the weak out of charity (gemilut chassadim), to heal the world (tikkun olam) and promote justice (tzedek).

In addition to tackling climate change, it is therefore also up to us to mitigate its impacts on the communities most affected and build their resilience.

None of us will be able to save the climate alone, but we are all called upon to do our best in our daily lives, in our work and in our communities. Or, as Rabbi Tarfon is quoted in the Mishnah: “It is not your task to complete the work, but you are not free to evade it either.”

The author is the founder of the environmental NGO »re:net« and was included in the »30 under 30« list by »Forbes« in 2023.

In France, planned attacks on the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been foiled in several cities. Anti-terrorism prosecutor Olivier Christen said that, among other things, an attack on “Israeli facilities or representatives of Israel in Paris” during the Olympic Games from July 26 to August 11 had been prevented. The plans were not directly aimed at the Israeli Olympic team, he told the broadcaster France Info.

Five suspects accused of terrorism are still in custody, Christen said. One of them is said to be a minor. The three foiled attack plans were mainly linked to jihadists, Christen said. Propaganda from the terrorist group Islamic State continues to be spread.

Christen said that preventive measures against attacks included increased house searches in the run-up to the Olympic Games. This year there have already been 936 such searches, compared to 153 last year. Before the Olympic Games, the authorities arrested a Chechen who was allegedly planning an attack on the football tournament.

France has been the target of Islamists for many years, and there have been numerous terrorist-related attacks in the country. At the end of August, police arrested four suspects after an arson attack on a synagogue in southern France. ap

The head of the Israeli elite reconnaissance unit 8200, Yossi Sariel, has resigned. The Israeli army announced this. In a letter to the unit’s employees, quoted by the portal “haaretz.com”, Sariel justified the step with the “personal responsibility” he bears for the reconnaissance unit’s failure on October 7 of the previous year.

On that day, the Islamist Hamas and other terrorist groups from the Gaza Strip launched a surprise attack on southern Israel. The attackers killed 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage in the sealed-off Palestinian coastal area. The unprecedented massacre triggered the Gaza War.

Unit 8200, which is comparable to the US secret service NSA, is involved, among other things, in uncovering and decrypting the communications of enemy forces. Many highly qualified specialists from the IT sector work in it.

The soldiers who complete their service in the unit are in for attractive jobs in the tech industry. But like other parts of the Israeli security apparatus, the military elite in Israel is accused of having failed on October 7 of last year.

The director of Israeli military intelligence, Aharon Haliva, resigned for this reason in April. The departure of 8200 chief Sariel increases the pressure on other top officials in the security apparatus to face up to their alleged responsibility for October 7.

The Army Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, the head of the foreign intelligence service Mossad, David Barnea, and the head of the domestic intelligence service Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, admitted their responsibility in connection with October 7, but at the same time declared their intention to remain in office until the end of the Gaza war.