WASHINGTON (JTA) – When Benjamin Netanyahu faces the Congress next month, two things are unlikely to come up in his speech: a consideration of diplomatic protocol and an analysis of the efficacy of sanctions. Media attention ahead of the speech has focused on the diplomatic crisis set off by… Read more »
Posts By Jigsaw Digital
Candidates go head to head on Israel’s future — and in English, too
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Labor Chairman Isaac Herzog won’t be debating each other ahead of Israel’s March election, but English speakers in Tel Aviv who packed an event hall here got the next best thing: Candidates from five parties came out for a panel-style… Read more »
For Orthodox, tax-defined ‘upper’ incomes are often stretched
WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) – For Orthodox Jews, President Barack Obama’s proposed tax reforms present a numbers-crunching paradox: Income he designates as well-off may mean just getting by for large families. Obama’s 2015 budget, which was introduced Monday, aims to offset economic breaks to upper-income families to… Read more »
Gas chamber discovery at Sobibor spurs calls to review museum project
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082334/haimi-460x299.jpg)
SOBIBOR, Poland (JTA) — After he uncovered the path that two of his uncles followed to the gas chambers at Sobibor, Yoram Haimi thought the complex he had worked years to unearth would be preserved for posterity. So when Polish authorities announced in 2011 that they would build a… Read more »
Islamic radicalism poses dilemma for Jews in interfaith dialogue
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082335/peresgutow-460x300.jpeg)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last month, Kari Alterman heard from every one of her Detroit-area Muslim dialogue partners, all of them calling to express their sadness and concern. They just didn’t do so publicly. Statements condemning violence are normally made after formal dialogues… Read more »
In Tel Aviv, it’s Super Bowl Early Monday Morning
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082335/Super-Bowl-celebration-460x306.jpg)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — There were wings, beers, giant TV screens, and football fans wearing New England Patriots sweatshirts and Seattle Seahawks jerseys. If not for the fact that it was 1 a.m. and former Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid stood in the center of the bar, it could… Read more »
Long suppressed, ‘Censored Voices’ speaks out about Six-Day War
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082336/oz-460x259.jpg)
PARK CITY, Utah (JTA) — In the wake of Israel’s seemingly miraculous triumph in the Six-Day War in 1967, the country’s victorious soldiers were lionized as heroes. But in private, even just one week after the conflict, many of them didn’t feel that way. One describes feeling sick to… Read more »
The man who’s saving Karachi’s lone Jewish cemetery
(Jewniverse via JTA) – It might seem that the only Jews left in Pakistan are underground – in Karachi’s lone Jewish cemetery. But that’s not quite so. Faisal (Fishel) Benkhald, the son of a Muslim father and Iranian Jewish mother, dares to call himself a Jew in a country… Read more »
What Jewish ethics tell us about ‘Deflategate’
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082336/brady-460x307.jpg)
(JTA) – “Deflategate,” the controversy surrounding the New England Patriots that has made national news, made its way to a Houston business conference led by a rabbi. Rabbi Yossi Grossman, dean of the Jewish Ethics Institute, on Monday transformed the football prattle into a high-minded look at ethics on… Read more »
World Zionist Congress elections: a voter’s guide
(JTA) — World Zionist Congress elections began earlier this month and run through April 30. Here’s a primer on what the congress is, how (logistically) to vote, who’s on the ballot, and why you just might want to sign up for PayPal before casting your vote. What is it?… Read more »
Netanyahu’s planned speech roils Jewish lawmakers, pro-Israel community
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Israel wants something from the United States, it typically makes three stops: the pro-Israel lobby, Jewish members of Congress and the White House. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ignored all three when he accepted an invitation from House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to address Congress about… Read more »
Is Rahat the Ferguson of Israel?
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082336/rahat1-460x300.jpg)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — In an economically depressed town populated largely by a minority group, a young man is killed under disputed circumstances. In the days that follow, riots consume the town, pitting frustrated and angry residents against the police, who maintain their officers acted in self-defense. But activists… Read more »
At Tu b’Shvat, bidding to save a beloved tree
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082337/lemon-tree-460x490.jpg)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — If Tu b’Shvat is such a happy New Year for Trees, why am I sucking lemons? The holiday, usually a time for planting — except this year in Israel, where many are observing the shmitta year by not planting — for me may be a… Read more »
Israeli left resurgent as campaign rhetoric escalates ahead of March elections
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082337/shaffir2-460x273.jpg)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Stav Shaffir was angry. The 29-year-old firebrand is known for her outbursts, which have gotten her kicked out of multiple Knesset hearings in the past year. But when she rose in the Knesset on Jan. 21 to answer Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett’s charge… Read more »
When the office is a death camp
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082338/auschwitz-conservation-460x300.jpg)
OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — Seventy years ago this month, Germany evacuated 58,000 prisoners from the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau, burning documents and blowing up gas chambers and crematoria. On Jan. 27 — the day now celebrated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day — the Soviet Red Army arrived,… Read more »
Sanctions bill founders again on Obama veto threat
WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week) — For the second year running, a bid to pass a bill intensifying sanctions against Iran appears to be foundering on threat of a presidential veto. In his State of the Union address Tuesday, President Obama vowed to veto further sanctions legislation, saying it would… Read more »
What does the International Criminal Court action mean for Israel?
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082338/bensouda-460x300.jpg)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — On Jan. 16, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, launched a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.” Here is a review of what that means based on interviews with experts on international law and statements by the ICC and Israeli and U.S. officials. Has… Read more »
Beth Alexander’s custody battle in Vienna generating international uproar
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082342/schlesinger-460x299.jpg)
VIENNA (JTA) — In an apartment in the Austrian capital, Beth Alexander is deleting hundreds of photos of her 5-year-old twin boys from Facebook. In one picture, Benjamin and Samuel are laughing as they hold a toy. In another they are waiting to be served lunch in their native… Read more »
For Jewish Republican donors mulling 2016, it’s electability, stupid
WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week) — The key consideration for Jewish Republicans in what appears to be a burgeoning race for the party’s presidential nod is electability, top party donors said. Whereas in the past, a donor’s closeness to a particular candidate or his embrace of a favored policy may… Read more »
Nisman mystery: Hezbollah, Argentine gov’t fingered in death of AMIA prosecutor
![](https://cdn-15011.jigsawanalyticsgroup.cloud/20240223082343/im-Nisman-IM-the-republic-460x307.jpg)
(JTA) – The mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman seems ripped straight out of a crime thriller. Nisman — the indefatigable prosecutor collecting evidence of culpability in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people — was found dead in his… Read more »