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The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Tuesday, December 21, 2021

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An Israeli health worker administers a dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a student at the al-Manahel School in the village of Majdal Shams on December 12, 2021. (JALAA MAREY / AFP)

Live updates (closed)

Warning of Omicron’s high contagion, PM suggests 4th vaccine dose is on the way

Ministers convene cabinet meeting to discuss new COVID regulations and restrictions after first Omicron death reported in Israel

7:28 pm

Health minister says flight bans cannot remain in effect indefinitely
7:18 pm

Intel tells unvaccinated employees they will face unpaid leave next year
7:12 pm

Hamas praises West Bank attempted ramming attack

Ra'am party leader Mansour Abbas holds a press conference in the Knesset, on October 25, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Arabs should move past contesting Israel’s Jewish identity, Ra’am chief Abbas says

By Aaron Boxerman

‘Israel was born a Jewish state… and so it will remain,’ Islamic party chief tells Hebrew media conference, echoing remarks he’s also made in Arabic-language media

MK Mazen Ghnaim speaks during a committee meeting, in the Knesset, October 27, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Ra’am MK warns coalition in peril as it pushes to connect Arab homes to power grid

A man wearing a protective face mask walks in Jerusalem, December 2, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Daily COVID-19 caseload jumps to 1,306, highest in two months

Transmission number climbs to 1.28; ministers, health officials to formulate plan for tightening restrictions on gatherings, public activities

As Omicron wave looms, Bennett says next 2 weeks critical to get kids vaccinated

Health officials push more COVID restrictions in meeting that ends with no decision

Sweeping across America, Omicron now accounts for 73% of all new cases

From the blogs

Ending 2021 on a high: 12 Israeli secrets captured from above

It’s the Israel you’ve never seen before, from a little-known shipwreck 15 minutes from Tel Aviv to the middle of the desert under the Milky Way

Will you help us support this work?

When wounded IDF soldiers need rehabilitation, they all go to Israel’s National Center For Rehabilitation of injured soldiers, at SHEBA MEDICAL CENTER

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Oct. 26, 2021. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

US national security adviser set to arrive in Israel for talks on Iran

By Jacob Magid and ToI Staff

Gantz urges Vienna negotiators to toughen stance against flailing Iran

By Stuart Winer and ToI Staff

AnalysisIran, unlike West, is upbeat about nuclear talks, experts say

Iran’s Guard fires cruise missiles, drones in major military exercise

By AP and ToI Staff

IDF begins allowing troops to shoot at fleeing rock-throwers

By Judah Ari Gross

Military says soldiers are still directed to first try to make an arrest without using deadly force, but experts raise questions about legality of new guideline

Palestinian demonstrators hurls stones at Israeli forces amid tear gas during clashes, as they protest Israeli Jewish settlements, in the Jordan Valley of the West Bank, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020. (AP/Majdi Mohammed)

Illustrative. Prison guards during anti-riot training at Ketziot Prison, April 2019. (Israel Prisons Authority)

Prison guard stabbed by Palestinian inmate, lightly hurt

ToI podcast

Daily Briefing Dec. 21 – Local renewable energy tech offers environmental hope

Environmental reporter Sue Surkes discusses energy conference; Arab affairs correspondent Aaron Boxerman reports on Omicron in Gaza and West Bank, and the recent spate of stabbings

Shas party leader Aryeh Deri speaks during a meeting of the right-wing and religious opposition parties at the Knesset, June 14, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Deri said set to sign plea, quitting Knesset for second time over corruption charges

By Raoul Wootliff

Shas head, an ex-con, expected to admit to tax offenses that won’t bar him from running for office in next election; party says he’ll remain at helm; decision awaits AG signature

Then-defense minister Benny Gantz and then-outgoing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in the Knesset plenum, June 13, 2021. (Noam Moskowitz/Knesset)

Coalition flogs Netanyahu over English-language attack ad

A view of the archaeological site at Tel Tsaf, in the Jordan Valley (Courtesy University of Haifa)

First evidence of social beer consumption found in 7,000-year-old Israeli town

Archaeologists say discovery at Tel Tsaf in the Jordan Valley is first known instance of alcohol being imbibed inside a community in the ancient Middle East

They jailed him for insulting Hitler on an unopened envelope

Convicted in Poland for insulting the head of a friendly nation, Jewish hero Nahum Halberstadt was freed on Christmas Day

Rachel Sharansky Danziger

A way out of the narrow places

With the full significance of the Omicron variant still uncertain, I find freedom from the panic inside me by looking outside myself – at you

Comment

‘The Masked Singer’ and the curious nature of celebrity in Israel

Why do former lawmakers, health officials and even famous ex-cons populate reality TV in the Jewish state?

Former Health Ministry deputy director Itamar Grotto is revealed as the "Pea" on Israel's "Masked Singer" on October 25, 2021. (Keshet 12)

Chilean President-elect Gabriel Boric waves to supporters as he arrives to La Moneda presidential palace for a meeting with President Sebastian Pinera in Santiago, Chile, December 20, 2021. (AP Photo/ Matias Delacroix)

Chile’s new president is bitter Israel critic, whose win has many local Jews worried

By Cnaan Liphshiz

Gabriel Boric has publicly called for Chilean Jewish community to condemn Israeli policy; Jews fear he will also promote a Palestinian supporter accused of antisemitism

People take cover from the rain as they walk on Jaffa Road in the city center of Jerusalem on December 20, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)

Winter storm ‘Carmel’ wreaks havoc with heavy rains, wind

One death blamed on storm, as woman crashes car into pole; weather system brings down trees and poles, causes fires and floods

Police officers during a raid in the ultra orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim, Jerusalem, April 20, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Father arrested after 5-year-old found walking alone in Jerusalem cold

Israel said to arrest over 100 Hamas members in Hebron area in major sweep

TV reporter, who accompanied troops, says cell operating out of southern West Bank hoped to carry out several attacks in area and inside Israel, directed from Turkey

IDF soldiers seen carrying out arrest raids in the Hebron area (Screencapture/Channel 13)

A still image of surveillance footage showing a suspect in the stabbing of an Israeli woman in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah on December 8, 2021. (Israel Police)

14-year-old Palestinian girl charged with attempted murder for stabbing attack

Palestinian girl Rama al-Deek tells official Palestinian Authority television that Palestinians will one day 'trample the necks of the Zionists' in a Palestinian Media Watch report from December 20, 2021. (screenshot: PMW)

PA television broadcasts girl calling to ‘trample the necks of the Zionists’

Stressed mother holding smartphone (iStock)

Israeli study: Mothers’ smartphone use could damage toddler development

By Stuart Winer

Tel Aviv University research finds key interactions with child are reduced to a quarter when mom is distracted by phone or reading magazines; same likely true of fathers

British Jews marching in protest of the 1918-1921 pogroms. (Courtesy of Jeffrey Veidlinger)

Interview'It was intimate violence, they often knew each other'

20 years before the Holocaust, pogroms killed 100,000 Jews – then were forgotten

By Rich Tenorio

‘In the Midst of Civilized Europe’ by Jeffrey Veidlinger revisits the brutal violence in 1918-1921 that portended a genocide of Europe’s Jews, and was soon overshadowed by it

Illustrative: Two samples of laboratory grown meat in separate petri dishes. (microgen/iStock by Getty Images)

Fast food: Israeli team stumbles upon speed boost for slow-growing cultured meat

By Nathan Jeffay

Researchers were focused on helping people after injury when they realized their findings could assist artificial meat producers to turn muscle into fiber in a fraction of the time

Aleph VC founders from right: Michael Eisenberg, Eden Shochat, Yael Elad, Aaron Rosenson and Tomer Diari. (Aleph VC)

Israeli venture capital firm Aleph raises $300m fund for early-stage investments

By Ricky Ben-David

More Headlines

Polish lawyer Roman Giertych, left, poses for a portrait in Rome, and Polish prosecutor Ewa Wrzosek, right, is photographed in Warsaw, December 16, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, left, Czarek Czarek Sokolowski)

Polish opposition duo hacked by Israeli NSO Group’s spyware, watchdog says

By Frank Bajak and Vanessa Gera

Egyptian activist and blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah gives an interview at his home in Cairo, May 17, 2019. (Khaled DESOUKI / AFP)

US ‘disappointed’ as Egypt jails key revolution figure Abdel Fattah for 5 years

By AFP

A man checks his damaged home due to Typhoon Rai at Dinagat islands, southern Philippines on December 19, 2021. The death toll continues to rise following the strongest typhoon to batter the Philippines this year, with several central towns and provinces still grappling with downed communications and power outages and pleading for food and water, officials said Monday. (Office of the Vice President via AP)

Israelis in Philippines call for urgent aid as typhoon death toll climbs to over 375

By Glenn Cloarec, Ricky Ben-David and Agencies

Palestinians walk past monument to a Kassam rocket in Gaza City, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. (AP Photo/ Khalil Hamra)

With Israel’s tacit approval, Hamas only grows stronger in Gaza

By Joseph Krauss and Fares Akram

Syrian Kurd Bushra, who only gave her first name, poses for a photograph in Minsk, Belarus, Sept. 22, 2021 (Bushra via AP)

New Syrian migrants seek Europe, driven by post-war misery

By Sarah El Deeb and CHRISTOPH NOELTING

A Palestinian man receives financial aid at a supermarket in Gaza City on September 15, 2021, as part of the UN's Humanitarian Cash Assistance program, supported by the state of Qatar. (MAHMUD HAMS / AFP)

ExplainerWhere do the billions of dollars in foreign aid to Gaza really go?

A photo said to depict illegal missile development for an unnamed Asian country, released February 11, 2020. (Shin Bet)

10 Israelis set to be indicted for illegally exporting missiles to China

Yair Netanyahu, son of then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, arrives for a court hearing at the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court in Tel Aviv on March 10, 2021. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Yair Netanyahu again fails to show up in court for libel case, is fined NIS 2,000

Former president Shimon Peres during an interview with The Associated Press in Jerusalem, November 2, 2015. (AP Photo/ Dan Balilty, File)

Peres PlaceManhattan intersection to be named after Shimon Peres

From 'Summer Snow' by Ella Rothschild, part of a trilogy that includes a dance work, website and illustrated book, created for the Batsheva Dance Company in 2021 (Courtesy Ascaf 12)

The full pictureChoreographer says: You’ve seen the dance. Now, ‘read’ the book

By Jessica Steinberg

In this courtroom sketch, Ghislaine Maxwell, left, sits at the defense table with defense attorney Jeffrey Pagliuca, while listening to testimony in her sex abuse trial, December 16, 2021, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

In closing argument, prosecutor alleges Ghislaine Maxwell was a dangerous predator

By Larry Neumeister and Tom Hays

Shirley Zussman was a pioneering sex therapist who continued to see patients past her 100th birthday. (Dignity Memorial via JTA)

ObituaryPioneering sex therapist Shirley Zussman dies at 107

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