Here’s what we’re reading: Jerry Seinfeld tells “The Daily Show” about Israelis; U.S. already bars West Bank products from saying “Made in Israel”; Japan considering a replacement for a Swastika-like symbol.
Haaretz brings our attention to this clip of Jerry Seinfeld being interviewed by “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah. Seinfeld, recently returned from his first performances in Israel, had something to say about Israelis:
“Everything you ask them is either ‘it’s no problem’ or ‘that’s impossible’,” said Seinfeld to laughter. “There’s no middle — it’s all or nothing.”
After all the hand-wringing over new European Union regulations that require West Bank products to be labeled as such, it turns out that the United States has had a similar law on the books since 1995 — though it’s rarely enforced, according to the Forward in an in-depth report:
Even as Israel and many of its supporters decry new European Union rules that require clear labeling for products made in exclusively Jewish West Bank settlements, few are focusing on this American regulation — and for understandable reasons: Though it has been on the books for two decades, the law on which this Customs regulation is based appears to be barely enforced, if at all.
Should an ancient religious symbol be censored because of its resemblance to the Nazi flag? A petition on Change.org address just that question, and seeks to stop the Japanese government from changing the symbol it uses to denote temples. The symbol, called a manji, resembles the Nazi swastika symbol, but is actually unrelated. Here’s a reason to keep the symbol, one of several the petition provides:
The Japanese manji symbol is a sacred and auspicious symbol in both Hinduism and Buddhism and has been around for thousands of years, whereas the Hakenkreuz [a German term for the swastika] exists less than 100 years. Giving priority to the symbol associated with Nazism and white supremacy, in deciding whether the Japanese manji should stay or not is preposterous as well as disrespectful.