Yearly Archives 2012

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When President Bill Clinton chose in January 2001 to unveil his Clinton Parameters for Arab-Israel peacemaking, he chose an Israel Policy Forum gala to do it. Four years later, then-Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sought the same audience to announce then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s willingness… Read more »

We Jews have been victimized by persecution and hateful rhetoric throughout our history. We of all people need to stand up against the McCarthy-like attacks of Michelle Bachmann and her hate-filled cohorts against Muslim Americans. The hatemongers’ primary target has been Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin. During her… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Hezbollah may have landed a strike against Israel with last week’s bus bombing in Bulgaria, but the Lebanese terrorist faction faces an uncertain future as one of its main sponsors — Syria’s Assad regime — faces a serious revolt and weakening support from once Arab… Read more »

May their memory be a blessing: A list of the fallen Munich Olympics Israeli team members to read during the Summer Olympics and at Tisha b'Av. (Photo via Just One Minute)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — This year, Tisha b’Av marks not only the destruction of both Temples, but with the opening ceremony of the London Olympics just a night earlier, the 40th anniversary of the Munich massacre. On this day of mourning and fasting, which begins at sundown on Saturday,… Read more »

Ze'ev Jabotinsky (Courtesy Rafael Medoff)

The popular image of the Jews who took part in battles for black civil rights is of liberal activists and idealistic college students. Yet several important early civil rights efforts in the United States and South Africa were undertaken by—of all people—officers of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Jewish… Read more »

Young israelis carrying M-16 and Tavor assault rifles on Jaffa Street in the center of the city of Jerusalem. (Serge Attal/ Flash 90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — First-time visitors to Israel might be taken aback to see groups of armed teenagers walking through a city plaza on a weeknight, or surprised to walk into a public bathroom and see an M-16 laying across the sinks as a soldier washes his face. But… Read more »

Former Penn State University President Graham Spanier was forced to resign following criticism of his response to the sexual abuse scandal at the school. (via Creative Commons)

NEW YORK (JTA) — One unlikely venue for fallout from the Penn State University sex abuse scandal is the campus Hillel, for which now ousted university president Graham Spanier — the school’s first Jewish leader — was a fundraiser and vocal supporter. On Monday, the Penn State community was… Read more »

Canoers in the Tikvah program at Camp Ramah in Palmer, Mass., which accommodates youngsters with special needs. (Camp Ramah)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — Solomon Krishef was thrilled to learn that this summer he could go to his Jewish sleepaway camp for eight weeks — twice as long as the previous four summers. It was not to be for the Michigan teenager. Ultimately the blind almost 16-year-old was told he… Read more »

Thousands gather outside the Aurora Municipal Center in COlorado to remember the victims of the theater shooting, July 22, 2012. (wscottbloyer/Twitter)

(JTA) — As Colorado and the nation tried to absorb the tragic massacre in a suburban Denver movie theater, local synagogues conducted special prayers and the Allied Jewish Federation of Colorado launched a response fund for the victims and their families. Early Friday morning, James Eagen Holmes allegedly walked… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It began two years ago as an idea by volunteers at a suburban Jewish community center and turned into a major international campaign, galvanizing everyone from President Obama to the mayor of London. And in case you haven’t heard yet about the movement to get the… Read more »

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, January 13, 2011. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It’s foreign policy, stupid, at least for the next two weeks or so — and it’s the Middle East, especially. Mitt Romney’s planned trip to Britain, Poland and Israel beginning at the end of this week has shifted the presidential campaign debate for now from jobs,… Read more »

MINNEAPOLIS (JTA) — As July ends and we wind down the Three Weeks before Tisha b’Av, we mourn the destruction of both Holy Temples. Unfortunately, this is not the only destruction that bears remembrance. This August marks the 67th anniversary of the only time that nuclear weapons were ever… Read more »

Over the past few days, we find ourselves grappling with the concept of silence in two contrasting ways. First, a silence of indifference, acquiescence and complicity, and second, a silence of strength, principle and memory. In the case of the Penn State tragedy, Coach Joe Paterno and others committed… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, left, shaking hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, with U.S. President Bill Clinton in the center at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony, Sept. 13, 1993. (Vince Musi / The White House)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Conflicting voices for and against renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks came to Capitol Hill as leading pro- and anti-voices gathered to recall the nearly 20 years since the dramatic signing of the Oslo Accords. The Oslo document, signed in Washington on Sept. 13, 1993, began the most… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — At the end of the month, Mitt Romney will visit Jerusalem. It has become a ritual of American politics for presidential candidates to pay a visit to Israel, but this is certainly not Romney’s first trip to Israel — this will mark his fourth visit — and… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Throughout a half-century of international diplomatic work, I have learned to tell the politicians from the friends and the charlatans from the statesmen. Charlatans scream. They tell you what you want to hear and call other people names. Friends and leaders need not rely on rhetoric… Read more »

Israeli ZAKA emergency rescue team examining the remains of the bus at the scene of the terrorist attack in Burgas, Bulgaria, July 19, 2012. (Dano Monkotovic/FLASH90/JTA)

SOFIA, Bulgaria (JTA) — Until this week, leaders of Bulgaria’s small, generally placid Jewish community said felt untouched by hate crimes or terrorism. But after Wednesday’s apparent suicide bombing of a bus carrying Israeli tourists in the Black Sea city of Borgas, Jews in the country are speaking of… Read more »

Graphic from the official Palestinian Olympic Facebook page, featuring the five Palestinian Olympians for the 2012 Summer games in London. (Palestinian Olympic Facebook page)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (JTA) — A portrait of the two most prominent Palestinian leaders — current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and former President Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004 — hangs in the conference room of the Palestinian Olympic Committee headquarters. The background of the portrait is a… Read more »

Survivors of the terror attack on the Israeli tour bus in Burgas, Bulgaria, returning to Israel with the help of the Israeli Air Force, July 19, 2012. (Yossi Zeliger/FLASH90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Vered Kuza was standing with her daughter, Amit, on an airport shuttle bus at Sarafovo International Airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, when she suddenly heard a blast. “It’s an attack!” Kuza, 54, shouted at Amit, 26. “We need to get out of here!” She pushed her… Read more »

Ruth Protas

Ruth Protas (nee Kimmel), age 100, died July 14, 2012. Born in Poland, Mrs. Protas emigrated to New York in 1920, where she met her husband, David Protas, with whom she raised a family.  After David’s death in 1973, she moved from North Bergen, N.J., to Phoenix, Ariz., where… Read more »