Jewish Holocaust Victims Honored By Pope

Pope Benedict XVI decided to weather the rain in order to honor those who had fallen during one of humanities darkest hours.

(Jerusalem Post) Braving pelting rain, the German-born pontiff joined Vienna's chief rabbi, Paul Chaim Eisenberg, in quiet prayer before an austere stone memorial honoring the 65,000 Viennese Jews who perished in Nazi death camps and others burned at the stake in the 1400s after refusing to convert.

Earlier Friday, Benedict told reporters on his flight to Austria that the poignant and highly symbolic stop at Vienna's Judenplatz, or Jewish Square, was intended to show "our sadness, our repentance and our friendship to the Jewish people."

The Vatican has been taking enormous strides to court the Jewish people, with Pope Benedict having previously met with President Peres as well as knighting a Jewish man.

Hopefully Benedict could follow this up by actually visiting Israel, as I am sure many people would welcome his visit to the holy land.

Jahah VoIP Gets Kosher, Could Challenge Skype

It looks as if another VoIP company has entered the arena, which enables users to connect to one another half way around the world without the need to download any software. Called Jajah, this internet company's goal is enable average people to connect to each other around the world at a very low rate.

But what makes this Austrian company really unique is the fact of who they chose to turn to in order to handle "virtually everything."

(Israel 21^st Century) Jajah enables computer users to make free or minimal cost phone calls using VOIP (voice over Internet protocol) without the cumbersome use of headphones, microphones, and software downloads. It doesn't even require high speed Internet connections. [...]

What's unusual about this Austrian startup headed by two successful non-Jewish founders is that it chose to turn to Israel for its research and development, customer support, and quality control. Jajah now employs over 40 people in its development center in Ra'anana, and Scharf and his partner Daniel Mattes regularly travel to Israel from their native Austria for business consultations.

"In Israel we found the right people with invaluable know-how regarding Internet and mobile phone technology. We are happy to have such a motivated team here and we are constantly looking for new employees," Scharf says[.]

They already have stolen away a few Skype customers, as the voice quality on the device is extraordinarily clear. They even have some extensions for Firefox users, as well as the Google personalized page (which is now in Hebrew!).

This service seems to be very similar to GrandCentral (purchased by Google), with the one major difference being that they are open to international users (including Israel!).

Jajah could potentially challenge Skype, although I am waiting for them to create a web button before I consider making the switch.