Oded Revivi (Courtesy of Avi Hyman Communications)
EFRAT, West Bank (JTA) — The Yesha Council has represented Israel’s settlement of the West Bank for nearly five decades. They’ve helped create what appears to be an irreversible reality to both critics and champions: Some 400,000 settlers live in settlements, where they enjoy their own wineries, Israeli chain stores,… Read more »
Hasia Diner (Screenshot from YouTube)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Hasia Diner is one of the most acclaimed American Jewish historians in the country. A product of the Habonim Dror Zionist youth movement, she is a former Fulbright Professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. Now, she’s calling Zionism a “naive delusion” and says… Read more »
Noses buried in their smart phones, armies of Pokémon Go players are scouring neighborhoods in search of elusive cyber monsters lurking in real locations identified by the wildly popular game. Seeing a way to lure customers, some retailers are already using a paid feature in the game to attract… Read more »
New Ben-Gurion University of the Negev robot has applications in medicine, homeland security and search and rescue BEER-SHEVA, Israel — The first single actuator wave-like robot (SAW) has been developed by engineers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). The 3D-printed robot can move forward or backward in a… Read more »
Members of Knesset Zehava Galon (L) (Meretz) and Shuli Mualem (R) (Jewish Home) (Hillel Maier/ TPS)
Jerusalem (TPS) – The Education, Culture and Sports Committee decided to recognize the Armenian genocide on Monday at a meeting initiated by Meretz Chairwoman MK Zehava Galon. “It is our moral obligation to recognize the holocaust of the Armenian nation,” said the committee’s chairman and Shas MK Yaakov Margi.… Read more »
Israel Broadcasting Authority
Jerusalem (TPS) – The Israeli political spectrum lit up with debate after an extremely heated Knesset session about the new Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (IPBC) on Sunday evening. Several public figures from inside and outside the government alleged that Prime Minister Netanyahu is harming freedom of press. Both left-wing and… Read more »
Aly Raisman competes in the floor exercise at the 2016 U.S. Women's Gymnastics Olympic Trials in San Jose, Calif., July 10, 2016. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
(JTA) — There are athletes, and then there are Olympic athletes. And then there are Jewish Olympic athletes. When the 2016 Summer Olympics open Friday, we’ll of course be cheering the American athletes — all 555 of them — and we’ll be rooting for Israel, too, which this year is… Read more »
Israeli gymast Neta Rivkin competes in the women's rhythmic gymnastics all-around individual final at the Baku 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, June 19, 2015, is one of Israel's best hopes to medal. (David Ramos/Getty Images for BEGOC)
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) – When the 2016 Olympic Games open here on Friday evening, Israel will proudly show off its largest delegation ever, with 47 athletes competing in 17 sports. Among them are golfer Laetitia Beck, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor; Lonah Chemtai, a Kenyan-born marathoner, and Ron Darmon, the first triathlete to represent… Read more »
The shoe collection bin at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona was overflowing last week.
The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has chosen the Sister Jose Women’s Center, a grassroots nonprofit serving homeless women in our community, as the focus for its 70th anniversary mitzvah project. Bruce and Jane Ash will lead a group of past Federation chairs, JCRC leaders and others on the… Read more »
"Zore" gun-lock cartridge (Hillel Maeir/TPS)
Jerusalem (TPS) – Jerusalem-based startup Zore has developed a unique lock for weapons that would prevent them from being used by any unauthorized personnel. The founders of the company have already raised almost half a million dollars and argue that the product is more efficient and user-friendly than traditional… Read more »
Rabbi Denise Eger, center, reads the Torah during her installation as CCAR president, March 16, 2015. Eger contributed an essay, "Creating Opportunities for the “Other”: The Ordination of Women as a Turning Point for LGBT Jews," in a new book on women rabbis. (David A.M. Wilensky)
It’s a really big book. “The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate” is 776 pages, plus LVI pages of frontmatter (translated from Roman numerals and publisher’s jargon, that’s 56 pages of introductory material before page 1) and eight blank ones at the end. It’s a paperback,… Read more »
Hillary Clinton acknowledges the crowd during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, July 28, 2016. (Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)
It was Hillary Clinton’s night, but the Rev. William Barber II was the sleeper star. The self-described “theologically conservative, liberal, evangelical biblicist” drew repeated, enthusiastic applause –including when he described Jesus as a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew and declared that “when we love the Jewish child and the Palestinian child… Read more »
Hillary Clinton arrives on stage during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 27, 2016. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — After Tim Kaine, Biden, Bloomberg, Bernie, Bill and both Obamas, it’s finally Hillary’s turn. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, will close out a Democratic National Convention centered on highlighting America’s diversity, touting her qualifications and bashing her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Clinton’s address will be… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the launch of a new innovation center at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa, July 21, 2016. (Yair Sagi/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Israeli prime minister is being investigated, and the media is atwitter. The probe is preliminary and no details have been released. But reports sayBenjamin Netanyahu is suspected of money laundering. His former chief of staff was interrogated recently and held under house arrest, reportedly in connection… Read more »
Pope Francis, left, greets the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, during a papal visit to the city’s synagogue, Jan. 17, 2016. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
(JTA) — This week, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Poland, visiting Auschwitz – the notorious death camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is comprised of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau. Birkenau is the actual… Read more »
David M. Elcott (Courtesy of Elcott)
NEW YORK (JTA) — We met Demoz Deboch at services in Gondar, Ethiopia. It was Friday night in June of 2013 and we were surrounded by hundreds of white-clad Falash Mura, the descendants of Jews who were now living a Jewish life in neighborhoods near the Jewish compound set up by… Read more »
A French flag flies at half mast at an empty beach on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice a day after a terrorist attack in the French city killed 84, July 15, 2016. (David Ramos/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — To the millions of tourists who visit Nice annually, the city in southeast France is an ultimate holiday destination that offers inviting beaches and luxury casinos, stunning architecture and world-class museums. Sandwiched between the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean Sea, Nice is France’s largest tourist destination after Paris, with 5 million… Read more »
Israeli soldiers check Palestinian IDs at the Qalandia checkpoint between the West Bank city of Ramallah and Jerusalem, July 1, 2016. (Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — “Lone wolf” terrorism in Europe is making headlines around the world. But in Israel, the phenomenon of angry or troubled individuals taking up arms is old news. Since October, Israelis have endured a wave of violence that has been carried out largely by individual Palestinians without backing from terrorist… Read more »
Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona will hold a free ethical wills workshop for the Jewish community on Thursday, Aug. 11, from 1-3 p.m. at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging. Rabbi Stephanie Aaron of Congregation Chaverim will lead the workshop, which was originally scheduled for July.… Read more »
British Prime Minister Theresa May, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel speak to the media following talks at the Chancellery in Berlin, July 20, 2016. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(JTA) — When the late Austro-Hungarian aristocrat Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi attended church on Good Friday, his father would famously cause a scene, storming out when the liturgy came to the anti-Semitic exhortation “Let us also pray for the faithless Jews.” Such protest was unusual in 19th-century Austria-Hungary, where anti-Semitism and other forms of racism were de… Read more »
