By Hellen Zaboulani

As Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, prepares for its entry into the U.S. market, it will start first by launching manufacturers from Brooklyn onto the platform. Shortly after the company announced that it would allow U.S. companies to open digital storefronts on its Alibaba.com business-to-business platform, its first outreach event was held last week in none other than Brooklyn. The event was held last Tuesday the 23rd at Industry City. Other follow up events have been set up for Los Angeles and Chicago. The goal of the meetings was to invite and entice small and medium sized companies to join the site as sellers. Previously, U.S. companies were only able to purchase goods from China on the business-only marketplace. Now, for annual fees of about $2000, U.S. manufacturers, wholesalers and distributers with limited marketing power or online presence, can be part of the world’s largest global online B2B marketplace. Alibaba will teach will teach small businesses how to source and sell on their site.

As reported by Crain’s NY, Alibaba approached officials at the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce a few months before the launch, engaging it as a local partner for New York. The fact that Brooklyn was the location selected for the initial launch speaks well for the borough. It’s a reassuring sign that Brooklyn is taking back its place as a manufacturing stronghold.

“We weren’t surprised they wanted to launch in Brooklyn,” said Samara Karasyk, interim president and chief policy officer of the 2,000-member Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce. “We have the talent, the people and the diversity of businesses and neighborhoods,” said Karasyk. “That’s what makes Brooklyn such a known brand throughout the world.” “The Brooklyn name carries a lot of weight,” she added. “Our job with this partnership is to make sure businesses can take advantage of that weight.”

John Caplan, head of North America B2B at Alibaba Group, addressed the crowd of small business owners at the event, naming the reasons he decided to launch the effort in Brooklyn. “Because I love the Brooklyn Nets,” he joked. “But number two, I care about us getting close to manufacturers and wholesalers who are building real businesses in their communities.”

As per MSN, Alibaba estimates that the global B2B e-commerce market could reach $24 billion. Last year, B2B e-commerce sales in the U.S. were a total of $1.134 trillion. Alibaba, founded in 1999 in Eastern China, currently spans throughout 190 countries with a network of 150,000 sellers and 10 million buyers. Alibaba’s entry into the B2B market, will finally give Amazon a worthy opponent. “Alibaba has a significant opportunity to become the anti-Amazon and anti-Walmart,” said Brittain Ladd, a former Amazon executive and an e-commerce consultant, in a Linkedin post. “In addition, Alibaba has the potential to leverage its platform and logistics prowess to help companies avoid using established players like FedEx and UPS.”

By: Harry Yelkowitz

The revelation that “Safe Deposit Boxes Aren’t Safe,” as the New York Times recently pointed out in a headline, can come as a shock to many – and potentially prevent disaster from happening.

There are, as the piece by the Times Stacy Cowley noted, an estimated 25 million safe deposit boxes in America, “and few protections for customers. No federal laws govern the boxes; no rules require banks to compensate customers if their property is stolen or destroyed.”

Safe deposit boxes “operate in a legal gray zone within the highly regulated banking industry,” the piece continued. “There are no federal laws governing the boxes; no rules require banks to compensate customers if their property is stolen or destroyed. Every year, a few hundred customers report to the authorities that valuable items — art, memorabilia, diamonds, jewelry, rare coins, stacks of cash — have disappeared from their safe deposit boxes.”

“The big banks fight tooth and nail, and prolong and delay — whatever it takes to wear people down,” David P. McGuinn, the founder of Safe Deposit Specialists, an industry consulting firm, told the Times. “The larger the claim, the more likely they are to battle it for years.”

The problem is a large one, since safe deposit boxes hold the valuable and often irreplaceable objects people hope to protect. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which provides deposit insurance to depositors in U.S. commercial banks and savings institutions, explains on its web site that “Over time, your valuables change, and so do your options to protect them. Here are a few choices, including safe deposit boxes and home safes, along with suggestions on how to assess each option for your specific needs.” Among the steps is recommends:

* “Think about what should or should not be kept in a bank’s safe deposit box. Good candidates for a safe deposit box include originals of key documents, such as birth certificates, property deeds, car titles and U.S. Savings Bonds that haven’t been converted into electronic securities. Other possibilities for the box include family keepsakes, valuable collections, pictures or videos of your home’s contents for insurance purposes, and irreplaceable photos.”

* “Be mindful not to use your bank safe deposit box to store anything you might need to access quickly or when the bank is not open. That could include passports and originals of your “powers of attorney” that authorize others to transact business or make decisions about medical care on your behalf. For guidance on where to store your original will, check with an attorney about what is required or recommended based on state law.”

* “You’re better off stashing your cash in a bank deposit account, like a savings account or certificate of deposit, than in a home safe or a safe deposit box. Among the reasons: “Cash that’s not in a deposit account isn’t protected by FDIC insurance,” noted Luke W. Reynolds, Chief of the FDIC’s Community Outreach Section. That’s because, by law, the FDIC only insures deposits in deposit accounts at insured institutions and only in the rare instances when a bank fails. A safe deposit box is not a deposit account. It is storage space provided by the bank, so the contents, including cash, checks or other valuables, are not insured by FDIC deposit insurance if damaged or stolen.”

Additional warnings are proffered by Investopedia. “While safe deposit boxes have been offered by banks for about 150 years—with various other types of safekeeping offered long before that—fewer people today are renting safe deposit boxes, opting instead for digital storage and home safes,” it noted. “This can make it easier to find an available box—or more difficult if your bank no longer offers them. Betty Riess, a Bank of America spokeswoman, said demand for boxes has dropped “significantly,” especially among younger customers who are more likely to rely on digital storage, adding that fewer than half of its safe deposit boxes are rented.”

Additional advice was recently offered by the web site tiphero.com, including:

* “Store copies of important documents in multiple locations. Don’t leave the only copy of an important document such as a will, mortgage, title, or insurance policy in your safe deposit box.

* “Seal documents in a zip lock bag or Tupperware for added protection. According to a few articles I’ve read, flooding is one of the most common hazards to safe deposit boxes.

* If given the choice, choose a box that is higher up off the floor to give you greater protection from flooding.”

Though safe deposit boxes are supposed to be a more secure way to protect your valuables, they are not immune to all disasters, noted valuepenguin.com. “Take extra precautions to protect the contents of your box. For example, it is a good idea to seal documents and other items susceptible to water damage in ziplock bags.

The site also urged those with boxes to “keep an inventory of the box’s contents and take photos of belongings you place inside the box. This way, it will be easier to recover your items should there be an unexpected incident. Unlike money in your bank deposit account, the contents of your safe deposit account are not FDIC protected. Therefore, it may be in your best interest to insure the contents of your box as well.”

By: Quentin Karismo

The New York Times recently chronicled the dangers of Instagram by telling the story of photographer Marcus Hyde, who has been accused by several women of engaging in inappropriate behavior, “including soliciting nude photographs from models in exchange for shooting them.”

Hyde’s story, which the Times said has played out almost entirely on Instagram,” reveals “just how much the platform, beloved of the fashion and visual art worlds, has enabled bad behavior within those industries. Amid all the conversations around privacy and the dangers of data use, less attention has been paid to the ways social media can be used by predators.”

Suffice it to say that in the wake of his actions, Instagram decided to disable Hyde’s account “for violating our sexual solicitation policies,” according to Stephanie Otway, a spokeswoman, who said he violated its policies. “We want to keep our community safe, and we are focused on putting every measure in place that we can to protect people on Instagram. Expression is at the heart of what we do, and people will only express themselves if they feel safe and supported.”

Tony Liu and Lindsey Schuyler, the pair behind Diet Prada, told the Times via email that “Social media has changed the landscape of the traditional modeling industry, enabling anyone to create public personas and navigate independent modeling work or carve nonconventional image-based career paths.”

Many are quick to point out that social media, including Instagram, is rife with opportunities for some users to get into trouble. As Business Insider recently noted, “Some millennials say they’re sinking thousands of dollars into crafting perfect Instagram photos.”

Last year, the New York Post recounted the unfortunate tale of Lissette Calveiro, a 26-year-old who dug herself into a $10,000 hole on Instagram. “Calveiro says she splurged on designer handbags, expensive clothes, and luxurious vacations while working low-salary jobs, including an internship in New York. She told the Post that she would shop for clothes “to take the perfect ‘gram” and that she was living above her means. “I was living a lie,” she said, adding: “Debt was looming over my head.” Calveiro said a lot of the travel she did “was strictly for Instagram.”

Model Sydney Lima told British Vogue magazine her own story last year about what the publication called “The Dark Underbelly Of Instagram.” An email from a man who had seen her photos on Instagram – and wanted to know about her availability as an escort – made her afraid for her own safety.

“Women are constantly expected to be flattered by or brush off abusive messages,” Lima wrote. But a single such event “can have a long-lasting effect on a woman’s self-worth and mental health. In a survey taken last year, 66 per cent of women who have experienced online abuse stated that they felt a feeling of powerlessness in their ability to respond to abuse or harassment online.”

By: Tristan Wojowski

The late singer Amy Winehouse’s ex-husband – the man who reportedly got her started with heroin – wants $1.4 million from her estate, according to the British website Metro.

The singer, who was not only Jewish but regularly wore a Star of David medallion on stage, died eight years ago at the age of 27 as a result of alcohol and drug addiction.

The former husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, 37, was married to Winehouse from 2007 to 2009. The singer’s family objects to Fielder-Civil’s claim. They told Fox News in an interview that “He deserves nothing.” He is insisting on a lump sum payout as well as a monthly allowance.

A friend of the family reportedly told Fox: “This is someone who spent a lot of Amy’s money during their time together. He also spent a lot of their marriage in prison, bringing nothing but pain to everyone. To give him another penny would be too much. To say that it would be inappropriate for him to benefit from her estate would be an understatement.”

Winehouse left no will, according to The Jerusalem Post. “Her after-tax assets of $3.64 million went to her parents, Janis and Mitch. Since her death, the value of her estate is believed to have grown considerably from song royalties.”

The paper continued, “Fielder-Civil said he has a valid claim because he was with her for six years during which she released some of her best-selling material. In a 2013 interview, Fielder-Civil said he regretted introducing Amy to heroin.”

Winehouse wowed the music industry in 2003 with her debut album, Frank. Three years later, Back to Black won five Grammys and turned her into a superstar. Yet she battled addiction throughout, referring to her problems in the song Rehab.

Winehouse’s parents founded the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which describes its mission this way on its web site: “The Amy Winehouse Foundation works to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on young people. We also aim to support, inform and inspire vulnerable and disadvantaged young people to help them reach their full potential.”

As the page explains, “Amy supported a wide range of charities and organizations, particularly those working with disadvantaged children and young people. When she tragically passed away on July 23rd 2011, aged only 27, it broke the hearts of not only her family and close friends, but of people across the world. As part of her legacy and to continue her charitable work, Amy’s family set up the Amy Winehouse Foundation on 14th September that same year, on what would have been Amy’s 28th birthday.”

By: Zahava Rosenheim

It’s not every day that the chief U.S. envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations publicly denounces an op-ed by the leader of a small American Zionist organization.

But the author of that op-ed doesn’t mind at all.

Moshe Phillips, director of the U.S. division of Herut North America, says that the public debate into which he has been drawn by American Mideast negotiator Jason Greenblatt represents “a healthy airing of serious issues that American supporters of Israel need to consider.”

Phillips is all about airing serious issues. In recent months, the activist has repeatedly stirred controversy with a series of blunt op-eds in the Israeli and American media that have propelled Herut USA from the margins into the big leagues of the American Zionist world.

Herut was the political party that Menachem Begin created when he first emerged from the Jewish underground and ran for the Knesset in 1949. In the 1960s, it expanded to become “Gahal,” and in the 1970s it expanded further and became “Likud.”

The territorial and other concessions that Likud made in response to American pressure disappointed a core group of its longtime supporters. In 1999, Likud activists led by then-Knesset Members Benny Begin and Michael Kleiner left the party and started a new faction using the Herut name.

Until recently, Herut’s activities in the United States were not well known. But that’s starting to change.

QUESTIONING TRUMP’S “DEAL”

Right-of-center American Zionists have lavished praise on the Trump administration’s policies toward Israel. Phillips and Herut have praised many of those policies, too. But while other groups on the right have said little or nothing about Trump’s forthcoming Israel-Palestinian peace plan, Phillips is openly skeptical about some recently-leaked aspects of the plan.

In a July 19 op-ed on the Israeli news site Arutz 7, Phillips challenged Greenblatt’s proposal to establish a land corridor between Hamas-run Gaza and the Palestinian Authority-ruled parts of Judea-Samaria.

“Such a land corridor, slicing across Israel’s middle, would connect and thereby significantly strengthen two hostile anti-Israel regimes,” Phillips wrote.

Noting that Hamas has used Israeli medical treatment permits as a way of smuggling terrorists into Israel, Phillips argued: “If Hamas is already taking advantage of every current opportunity to send terrorists from Gaza to Judea-Samaria, just imagine what it would do if it is given a highway and railway across which it could send whatever it wants.”

“If Hamas starts sending camouflaged truckloads of missiles across the corridor, will American inspectors be on hand to intervene?,” Phillips asked. “Would the war-weary American public accept the stationing of US personnel in such a dangerous situation?”

Phillips was just hoping to stir some discussion. “The corridor issue is extremely important, and nobody in the American Zionist community has been talking about it,” he told the Jewish Voice. “I just wanted to stir some debate.”

The Herut leader got much more than he bargained for. The same day that the op-ed appear, it triggered a rejoinder from Greenblatt himself.

“This op-ed got it wrong & only used 1/2 my quote,” Greenblatt declared in a tweet. He criticized Phillips for not quoting his statement that such a corridor “can only be a part of a comprehensive deal if it is acceptable to Israel & all security issues can be thoroughly addressed.”

Phillips was not impressed by Greenblatt’s complaint. Responding in a second op-ed for Arutz 7, Phillips said that U.S. officials have a long history of pressuring Israel into making concessions and then declaring that the concessions were “acceptable to Israel.”

As examples, Phillips pointed to Henry Kissinger pressuring Israel to refrain from a pre-emptive strike in the 1973 war and to give parts of Sinai in 1975, Jimmy Carter’s pressure for an Israel retreat from southern Lebanon in 1978, and Barack Obama’s pressure that brought about Israel’s freeze on Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria in 2009-2010.

“We all hope it will be different this time,” Phillips concluded. “But when we hear Jason Greenblatt using the same kind of language and arguments that Kissinger, Carter, and Obama used to undermine Israel, we have reason to worry.”

Greenblatt has not yet responded.

HONORING KISSINGER

Phillips’ mention of Kissinger was no accident. He’s had Kissinger on his mind a lot in recent days.

In a recent op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, Phillips criticized the Jewish Leadership Conference, a conservative think tank in New York, for choosing Kissinger as the featured speaker for its upcoming conference.

Citing accounts by Kissinger’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, and then-Jerusalem Post reporter David Makovsky (who was later an Obama Mideast adviser), Phillips wrote that Kissinger pressured Israel not to strike first in the Yom Kippur War, and the engineered the week-long delay in sending U.S. arms to the Jewish state.

Kissinger told colleagues that he wanted Israel to get “a little bloodied” so that it would be more willing to make territorial concessions after the war. To which Phillips responded: “A ‘little bloodied’? Try 2,656 dead Israeli soldiers.”

Phillips also reminded readers of the 1974 White House tape recording, released in 2010, which revealed Kissinger advising President Richard Nixon that the persecution of Soviet Jewry “is not an American concern,” and even “if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern.”

Kissinger also told Nixon it was “traitorous” for American Jews to try to link US trade to Soviet concessions on Jewish emigration.

“Henry Kissinger is responsible for causing grave damage to Israel and Soviet Jewry,” Phillips asserted. “He does not deserve the honor of being the featured speaker at Jewish communal events. The Jewish Leadership Conference should withdraw the invitation before it permanently tars its own good name and reputation.”

The Phillips op-ed has been widely quoted by Jewish bloggers and other pundits. The Jewish Leadership Conference has not publicly commented on the controversy.

PULLING NO PUNCHES

The sharp-tongued Phillips is earning a reputation among American Zionists as somebody who is willing to address topics that others are reluctant to tackle.

After the shooting attacks on Jews in Pittsburgh and Southern California, Phillips wrote that American Zionists should be talking about Aliya to Israel as a response to arising antisemitism in the United States.

“I am not proposing that the Jews of Beverly Hills and Boro Park should be selling their houses and buying their plane tickets,” he asserted. “All I am saying is that we should at least be…discussing both the positive and negative reasons for moving to Israel. We should be frank about the reasons we give our children for why we love Israel but live here. We should have a serious discussion about what traditional Jewish sources say about the subject.”

Phillips also recently took on historian Deborah Lipstadt. The Emory University scholar publicly criticized Israel’s leaders for “giving cover to” and “sleeping with” the governments of Poland, Hungary, and Lithuania, “who have rewritten the history of their countries’ role in the Holocaust.”

The Herut leader said that while he agrees with Lipstadt regarding those regimes, she is employing a “double standard” by failing to likewise criticize Mahmoud Abbas, whose attitudes regarding the Holocaust are even worse.

“Those European governments are Holocaust-distorters, but Abbas is an actual Holocaust-denier,” Phillips told the Jewish Voice. “Yet Lipstadt has never called for America or Israel to end their relations with him.”

In his 1982 doctoral dissertation, Abbas wrote that only several hundred thousand Jews died at the hands of Nazis, and they were the victims of a secret collaboration between Hitler and David Ben-Gurion.

A FORGOTTEN VICTIM OF TERRORISM

Phillips, a Pennsylvania business executive, is also busy with an issue closer to home: justice for a Philadelphia woman who was murdered by Palestinian Arab terrorists.

Rita Levine, a well-known Philadelphia attorney, was murdered in an attack on an Israeli bus in 1989. The Islamic Jihad terrorist who carried out the attack, Abdel Hadi Ghneim, was released in a prisoner exchange, and the masterminds of the attack have never been apprehended.

The State Department maintains a “Rewards for Justice” program that offers monetary rewards for information leading to the capture of terrorists who have harmed Americans around the world. But Palestinian attacks were not included.

Fifteen years ago, following complaints by the Zionist Organization of America and other groups, the State Department announced that it would include American victims of Palestinian Arab terrorism in the rewards program.

Since then, however, the State Department rewards website has listed only a handful of the nearly 150 victims of Palestinian terror. Now Herut USA is taking up the cause. In a recent op-ed, Phillips blasted State for not including the Levine case, and Herut activists recently collected hundreds of signatures on their “Justice for Rita” petition at a local community event.

“People were coming over to our table all day long, to express their shock that other Jewish organizations have not been pushing for justice for Rita,” Phillips said. “We will fill that vacuum.”

TEST AT THE BALLOT BOX

Will Herut USA’s new high profile translate into votes at the ballot box?

Early next year, American Zionists will cast their ballots for delegates to the 2020 World Zionist Congress. In the previous election, in 2015, Herut won enough votes for just one seat.

Herut’s share of the vote is likely to increase this time around, although just how much it will rise remains to be seen. Phillips and his colleagues will face competition on the right from several older, more established Zionist groups.

Phillips doesn’t mind being the new kid on the block. “Today’s Herut represents a fresh young face in the American Zionist movement,” he says. “We say things that others are afraid to say, and we raise ideas that the Jewish community needs to hear.”