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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Thursday, December 10, 2020

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'Sufganiyot' donuts sold at a bakery in the Mahane Yehuda Market, Jerusalem, ahead of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, on November 26, 2020. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

In another U-turn, government drops plans to impose Hanukkah restrictions

Instead, ministers said to agree that when daily caseload hits 2,500 or basic reproduction rate climbs to 1.32, businesses will be shuttered and schools in virus hotspots closed

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the arrival of a DHL freight plane transporting the first batch of Pfizer vaccines at Ben Gurion Airport on December 9, 2020. (Marc Israel Sellem/POOL)

Netanyahu: Vaccine drive to begin December 27, with 60,000 shots given a day

By ToI Staff and AFP

Itamar Grotto at a press conference about the coronavirus COVID-19, at the Health Ministry in Jerusalem on May 31, 2020. (Flash90)

Top health official: Masks may offer more protection from virus than vaccines

2,700-year-old clay sealing from a stamp from the Israelite King Jeroboam II in the 8th century BCE. (Dani Machlis/Ben Gurion University)

Archaeology'Belonging to Shema the servant/minister of Jeroboam'

2,700 years ago, tiny clay piece sealed deal for Bible’s King Jeroboam II

By Amanda Borschel-Dan

Bought for a pittance at a market in 1980, 8th century BCE paleo-Hebrew inscription is the earliest writing found on a clay seal impression in the Land of Israel, study shows

Aerial view of the Herodium fortress, on November 25, 2020, with the King Herod's tomb site and the theater built by Herod the Great in 23-15 BCE in the Judaean desert, southeast of Bethlehem (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

New parts of Herod’s palace unveiled, including 300-seat personal theater

By Jonah Mandel

IDF soldiers guard a bus station at the Tapuah Junction next to the West Bank city of Nablus, June 30, 2020. (AP/Oded Balilty)

Amid virus, 2020 on track for fewest security-related deaths in Israel’s history

By Judah Ari Gross

In year-end briefing, IDF chief says military driving Iran out of Syria, maintaining calm in Gaza; ‘We successfully fulfilled the primary mission of the IDF: providing defense’

Palestinian workers enter Israel through the Mitar checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron, on May 3, 2020. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

Israel to start testing Palestinian workers for COVID-19 at checkpoints

By Aaron Boxerman

Palestinian Authority Health Minister Mai al-Kaila briefs reporters in Ramallah on Wednesday, December 10, 2020 (Screenshot: Palestine TV)

Palestinians expect first vaccines only between January and March

By Aaron Boxerman

Barbed wire is seen at the memorial site of the former Nazi concentration camp 'Neuengamme' in Hamburg, northern Germany, on May 4, 2010. (apn/Axel Heimken)

Germany drops investigation into former Nazi guard living in US

By AFP

Friedrich Karl Berger, 95, had been accused of aiding and abetting the killing of prisoners at 2 concentration camps; his case was seen as ‘possibly the last’

Stephan Balliet, who is accused of shooting dead two people after an attempt to storm a synagogue in Halle, is seen during his trial on November 18, 2020, at the district court in Magdeburg, Germany. (Ronny Hartmann/AFP)

Halle synagogue attack suspect silenced at trial after denying Holocaust

By AFP

What would the Maccabees think of us?

If the true Jewish revolt is a countercultural rebellion of ideas, here are some of the ideas we should be challenging today

Jeremy Benstein

Our Big Fat Greek Hanukkah

Given the Maccabees’ fight against foreign influence, the holiday has some surprising linguistic dimensions

Yossi Kuperwasser

A picture from Iran that’s worth a thousand warnings about the JCPOA

Why was the now-deceased top military nuclear scientist Fakhrizadeh secretly decorated after the Iran nuclear deal came into effect?

Peter Buchsbaum

Israel’s ‘nation-state’ law analogous to Jim Crow? Not so fast

Passage of the law may have been a bad idea, but that still doesn’t mean it’s a tool for denying the rights of non-Jews in Israel

Rafi Revach (left) and Nissim Arush, two Israelis from Dimona visiting the Dubai Mall, December 9, 2020 (Shoshanna Solomon/Times of Israel)

Snapshot from an emirate

Shoshanna Solomon

‘Ma koreh?’ Dubaians cheerfully pick up Hebrew as Israelis see what’s up in UAE

At the mall, Rafi and Nissim sip coffee and shop, while a Syria-born salesman at Sephora initially flinches but then decides his Israeli customers are in fact very nice

Illustrative: UAE Interior Minister Sheik Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, center, participates in a Gulf Cooperation Council interior ministers gathering to discuss regional security issues in Manama, Bahrain, Nov. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)

Israel joins UAE-based international body fighting organized crime

By Raphael Ahren

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks with Gideon Sa'ar at a Likud party meeting in the Knesset, March 2, 2009. (Miriam Alster / FLASH90)

Analysis

Sa’ar power: Staving off election, troubling Netanyahu, paring the center-left?

Our latest would-be PM failed in trying to defeat Netanyahu from within Likud. Polls suggest he’ll have far more impact now he’s bolted. But there’s polls, and then there’s reality

Then-Likud MK Gideon Sa'ar speaks to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, February 19, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Polls show Sa’ar at 15-18 seats, remaking map and possibly unseating Netanyahu

By Alexander Fulbright

AnalysisBennett is Israel’s next PM. Or Sa’ar. Or maybe Netanyahu. For sure.

By Haviv Rettig Gur

MK Gideon Sa'ar in the Knesset plenum on December 9, 2020. (Dani Shem Tov/Knesset Spokesperson)

Israel media review

Bitter poll to swallow: What the press is saying on December 10

By Joshua Davidovich

Polls show big numbers for Gideon Sa’ar’s upstart party, but is Netanyahu running scared, or is the former Likud minister a paper tiger?

A composite image shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Gideon Sa'ar, right. (Flash90)

Netanyahu accuses Sa’ar of bolting Likud to save his political career

Knesset members Yoaz Hendel (L) and Zvi Hauser (R) seen at the Knesset, ahead of the opening session of the new parliament on April 29, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Sa’ar party gets first boost as Derech Eretz MKs Hendel, Hauser join up

By Raoul Wootliff

From the blogs

Kenneth S. Stern

Steering the Biden administration wrong on anti-Semitism

Of all the crucial steps the new government must take to protect Jews, adopting the IHRA definition I drafted should not be the top priority

People hold a large Palestinian flag during a protest against normalizing relations with Israel, in Rabat, Morocco, Friday, September 18, 2020. (AP/Mosa'ab Elshamy)

Live updates (closed)

Palestinians angrily denounce Moroccan ‘betrayal’ over Israel move

By Joshua Davidovich

Moroccan king tells Abbas support for Palestinians ‘unshakeable’ after Israel deal, as groups fume; Gantz and Ashkenazi only informed of talks from White House, not Netanyahu

7:33 pm

Kamala Harris's husband Emhoff to teach law at Georgetown
7:25 pm

Morocco in talks to buy large drones from US -- report
7:20 pm

Egypt's Sissi praises Israel-Morocco deal

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (left) with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi (right) on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 27, 2018. (Avi Ohayon / PMO/ File)

Netanyahu said set to meet Sissi in first official visit to Egypt in a decade

Israeli reports quote Egyptian officials as saying that if trip goes ahead, leaders will discuss regional alliance against Iran, peace talks with Palestinians

Actress Scarlett Johansson attends the special screening of 'Jojo Rabbit' during the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario, September 8, 2019. (VALERIE MACON/AFP)

Egyptian celebs rap ‘Zionist’ Scarlett Johansson over bid to free rights workers

An illustration of the impact of multiple sclerosis on the brain. On the left, a brain with white areas denoting MS damage. On the upper right, close-up of regular myelin, and below, damaged myelin. (wildpixel via iStock by Getty Images)

Stem cell treatment ‘freezes’ MS, lets some walk again, Jerusalem study finds

By Nathan Jeffay

Small study saw improvement in 73% of multiple sclerosis patients who got spinal injection containing treatment made from their own cells; larger trials now planned

Sight Diagnostics' OLO devices analyzes blood samples in minutes, the company says. (Screenshot/YouTube)

Israeli blood test startup Sight Diagnostics inks deal for distribution in UAE

By Luke Tress and Shoshanna Solomon

Human-generated refuse (mbaysan by iStock by Getty Images)

Humans make so much ‘stuff’ it now outweighs life on Earth – Israeli research

By Nathan Jeffay

In an environmental ‘wake-up call,’ scientists say mankind’s impact on planet so huge that our creations weigh more than ‘living biomass,’ and plastic weighs more than all animals

US President Donald Trump addresses the White House Hannukah party on December 9, 2020. (Screen capture/Twitter)

Stopping by White House Hanukkah party, Trump laments ‘stolen’ election

After skipping 1st of 2 receptions, president tells crowd of supporters that he beat Biden and that ‘certain people’ will need to show courage in reversing results

Following the lighting of the menorah on the first night of Hanukkah on December 23, 1997, President Clinton leans over his desk in the Oval Office as children from the Jewish Primary Day School in Washington show him how to twirl the dreidel, a traditional toy similar to a spinning top. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

Photo essayFrom lightings to full-fledged parties: A history of White House Hanukkah revels

By Jonathan D. Sarna

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) speaks with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (left) in the Knesset on September 7, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Netanyahu could reverse decision to tap Erdan as dual UN, US envoy – report

The oversized, lit-up dreidels placed in Jaffa for Hanukkah 2020 (Tomer Neuberg/Flash 90)

Analysis

Jessica Steinberg

One for each night: Ideas to celebrate Hanukkah even as the coronavirus lurks

Pandemic-friendly activities to mark the eight-day festival of lights include daytime strolls, nighttime lights, crafts and of course — digital entertainment

Snow falls on a Hanukkah menorah made of ice in Tomsk, Russia on December 8, 2020. (Levy Kaminetsky via JTA)

Hot and coldA Siberian synagogue has a majestic Hanukkah menorah made of ice

By Cnaan Liphshiz

Jewish hip hop singer Nissim Black performs at a Hanukkah festival in Pittsburgh, 2018. (Esther Wayne/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images via JTA)

Al HaNissimOrthodox rapper remakes ‘Hava Nagila’ just in time for Hanukkah

By LAURA E. ADKINS

Darrell Blocker poses at his home in Santa Monica, California, in 2019. (Jayne Amelia Larson/Courtesy of Darrell Blocker via JTA)

Darrell Blocker, the Black, Jewish ‘spy whisperer’ who could lead Biden’s CIA

The 28-year agency veteran, who converted to Judaism in 2017, is one of several candidates said under consideration; would be first Black, and 3rd Jew, to lead CIA

Illustrative: US Air Force F-35A Lightning II’s at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, on November 16, 2019. (Joshua Williams/US Department of Defense)

Senate votes down resolutions aimed at blocking $23b Trump arms deal to UAE

By Jacob Magid and AFP

Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat of California, talks to reporters in a basement corridor at the Capitol in Washington, January 4, 2019. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Top House Democrats urge Biden to go back into Iran deal without preconditions

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sings with pop singer Eden Ben Zaken in a duet of Arik Einstein's hit classic 'Got Love in Me' released on December 10, 2020. (Screen capture/YouTube)

Belting Bibi

Netanyahu cameos in new single with pop star as elections loom

PM hits all the notes in duet rendition of Arik Einstein classic ‘Got Love in Me’ with Eden Ben Zaken, to raise funds for organization that assists senior citizens in need

An artist's image of aliens (bertos via iStock by Getty Images)

Israeli space chief says aliens may well exist, but they haven’t met humans

By Nathan Jeffay

After retired space pioneer Haim Eshed claims aliens visited Earth, made deals with people, Isaac Ben-Israel says he went too far, but fascination with extraterrestrial life legit

A conceptual schematic for the Beresheet 2 lander, released to the media on December 9, 2020. (Haim Zach/GPO)

Israel launches second bid to put a lander on the moon; UAE may join

Five of the astronauts that will be part of the Atremis missions, from left, Jessica Meir, Joe Acaba, Anne McClain, Matthew Dominick, and Jessica Watkins are introduced by Vice President Mike Pence during the eighth meeting of the National Space Council at the Kennedy Space Center Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2020, in Cape Canaveral , Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Jewish astronaut among 18 NASA candidates for next moon mission

More Headlines

Political graffiti is visible in front of the scene of the August 4 explosion that hit the seaport of Beirut, Lebanon, August 9, 2020. (AP/Hussein Malla)

Lebanon’s caretaker PM, 3 ex-ministers charged with negligence over port blast

By Agencies and ToI Staff

Bryan Cranston as Michael Desiato in Showtime series 'Your Honor,' a remake of Yes Studio series 'Kvodo' (Courtesy Skip Bolen/SHOWTIME)

Positive verdictShowtime’s ‘Your Honor’ closely follows Israeli original ‘Kvodo’

By Jessica Steinberg

Democratic challenger for U.S. Senate Raphael Warnock speaks during a debate with Republican U.S. Sen. Kelly Loeffler on December 6, 2020, in Atlanta. (AP/Ben Gray, Pool)

Center-left, pro-Israel PAC backs Georgia candidate criticized for Israel views

Rabbi Eliezer Berland arrives for a hearing at the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, on February 13, 2020. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Victims of sex offender rabbi’s alleged fraud decry emerging plea deal

By Marissa Newman

Celebratory 2020 balloons are hung from a storefront in Jerusalem on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2019. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

‘Corona,’ ‘Zoom’ and pancakes: Israel’s top trending Google searches in 2020

Defense Minister Benny Gantz of Blue and White in the Knesset plenum on December 9, 2020. (Dani Shem Tov/Knesset Spokesperson)

Gantz-backed equality bill clears first Knesset hurdle, to Likud’s dismay

Tucking in at the Starting Over animal sanctuary in Moshav Herut, central Israel. (Revital Topiol)

Int'l Animal Rights DayAnimal sanctuaries on brink of collapse as COVID-19 dries up donations

Couple takes part in a mass same-sex wedding in Tel Aviv, June 4, 2019. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Ministers approve draft of bill to enable adoption by same sex couples

By Stuart Winer

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and President Reuven Rivlin attend a ceremony in memory of deceased Israeli presidents and prime ministers held at the President's Residence in Jerusalem on June 17, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Man arrested over social media threats to Netanyahu, Rivlin, ministers

Pope Francis (far right) lights candles at a 2012 Hanukkah Interfaith Celebration at a Buenos Aires synagogue with current World Union of Progressive Judaism head Rabbi Sergio Bergman. (courtesy)

Pope Francis sends Hanukkah greetings to international head of Progressive Jewry

The home of Lewis Weinger in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, which has been rented out using Airbnb. (Meni Lavi)

As Airbnb set to go public, Amnesty International decries settlement listings

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Illustrative: Police officers look at bullet holes in the windows of a school across the street from the JC kosher supermarket on December 11, 2019, in Jersey City, New Jersey. (Rick Loomis/Getty Images/AFP)

Jersey City to remember victims of anti-Semitic attack on one-year anniversary

By AP

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