Israeli Olympian Alice Schlesinger practicing her judo moves with her coach, Olympic bronze medalist Oren Smadja, July 9, 2012. (Noam Moskowitz/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — One is nearing the end of his career, already has an Olympic medal and is eyeing another. The other is a decade younger, an up-and-comer who has enjoyed some success but is aiming for her first medal at the Games. Ariel “Arik” Ze’evi, 35, and… Read more »
LONDON (JTA) — Typically on high alert, London’s Jewish community organizations are being advised to take additional security measures during the Olympics. The Community Security Trust, the charity that represents and recommends the community on matters of security, has told Jewish groups to implement or increase patrols around their… Read more »
Jason Lezak, second from right, after winning the gold medal for the U.S. 400-meter medley relay team at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, August 2008. (Creative Commons) BALTIMORE (JTA) – Jason Lezak — no newcomer to Olympic glory — recognizes the difficulty in returning to the medal stand at the London Games. “I definitely would hope to … get onto the podium there and win a medal for the USA,” Lezak, a seven-time Olympic medalist, told… Read more »
Kadima Party leader Shaul Mofaz speaks at a news conference in Petach Tikvah about Kadima's reasons for leaving the Israeli government coalition, July 17, 2012. (Flash90/JTA) (JTA) – For the second time in just two months, the Israeli political universe was upended when Shaul Mofaz’s Kadima Party voted July 17 to quit Israel’s governing coalition. Kadima’s departure, the result of a breakdown in negotiations over reforming Israel’s military draft law to include haredi Orthodox Jews,… Read more »
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 »
