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WASHINGTON (JTA) — Tell us what you want. Now listen to what your partner wants. Now tell us what your partner wants. In slow, almost excruciating increments, talks between Israelis and Palestinians are taking on the dimensions of counseling sessions moderated by the United States. Heading into a White House dinner Wednesday evening with President [...]
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WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s a peace conference where nothing is off the table — or on it, for that matter. The Obama administration’s invitation to Palestinian and Israeli leaders to launch direct talks on Sept. 2 attempts to reconcile Israeli demands for no preconditions with Palestinian demands that the talks address all the core issues: [...]
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U.S. Jews and Presbyterians say they have salvaged a fragile unity of purpose from an assembly that was poised to create a rift between the two faiths. The outcome of last month’s General Assembly in Minneapolis of the Presbyterian Church (USA) was remarkable in that all sides in the contentious debate — Jewish groups and [...]
Read More »NEW YORK (JTA) — If Haim Shani has his way, the titans of Wall Street will start moving more of their business to Dizengoff Street. Shani, the director general of Israel’s Finance Ministry, was in New York late last month on a mission to promote Israel as a center for research and development for the [...]
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BEERSHEBA, Israel (JTA) — Moshe Zohar’s hands are rough and callused, his face lined with the dust of the desert he farms half an hour outside this southern Israeli city. Eleven years ago Zohar, his wife, Hilda, and their three children settled on this harsh land to build Nahal Boker Vineyards, one of the first [...]
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JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli tour guide Yossi Weiss was leading two busloads of American Christian pilgrims on a tour of Jerusalem’s Old City when he noted how difficult it was to move around. The Jewish Quarter was so crowded and busy Monday as the group visited the Temple Mount, Robinson’s Arch and other famous sites, [...]
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NEW YORK (JTA) — It was an otherwise wholly unremarkable stump speech before a friendly audience in New York. On the evening of July 7 at Manhattan’s Plaza Hotel, the Israeli prime minister addressed a roomful of more than 300 Jews on the subjects of Iran, his government’s eagerness for direct peace talks with the [...]
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JERUSALEM (JTA) — Actress Meg Ryan’s decision to cancel her appearance at this week’s Jerusalem Film Festival didn’t garner the same attention in Israel as British rocker Elvis Costello when he nixed his Israel concert this spring. Both, however, were a reminder to Israelis that in the eyes of much of the world, Israel’s politics [...]
Read More »More than a year after a massive natural gas find in the Mediterranean Sea off the Israeli coast sparked hopes in Israel of a new era of energy independence, the project is running into concerns about how the gas can be delivered safely. The BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico has raised concerns in [...]
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On a barren, 60-acre tract of land overlooking the Gulf of Guinea, bulldozer operators turn the earth while sweaty construction workers take a lunch break in the shadow of an improvised Zim shipping container. Inside an air-conditioned trailer nearby, Tel Aviv native Zvi Blum sits at his desk under a colorful poster showing how Malabo’s [...]
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