Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

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 »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Rep. Shelley Berkley pitched her bid for the U.S. Senate to pro-Israel donors, the Nevada Democrat reportedly told them it came down to math. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the leading pro-Israel lawmaker said, she was one of 435. In the Senate she’d be… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – For the past four years, Jewish conservatives have been working hard to paint President Obama as too willing to press Israel on Palestinian issues. But the latest Washington buzz could throw a wrench in that line of attack — if, as some Washington insiders are suggesting… Read more »

(N.Y. Jewish Week) — Forty years after Sally Priesand became the Reform movement’s first woman rabbi, Reform women rabbis continue to dramatically trail their male counterparts in pay. A study conducted by the movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis found that women earn as much as $43,000 less annually.… Read more »

Israelis understandably feel imperiled by the misnamed “Arab Spring.” Their country’s three-decade peace treaty with Egypt is under assault, its strategic alliance with Turkey has dissolved, and its closest regional ally, Jordan, is withering from domestic protests. The breakdown in political authority has flooded Israel’s borders with a slew… Read more »

When I was a girl, I was a motor mouth. How do I know this? Because Ms. Levin, my second grade teacher told me so. Seriously, my nickname in second grade was Motor Mouth, a moniker craftily created by my teacher at the time, who occasionally relented to my… Read more »

I’ve taken a liking to Twitter. It took me three years of pretending to like Twitter to finally like it. But I do. And now I have fallen out of rank and file with the folks who spend all day commenting on friends’ kids’ photos on Facebook, but sneer… Read more »

The VIP bloggers sit for a photo opp with President Shimon Peres (I'm sitting on the right)

In another lifetime, I was a budding talking head. I arrived in Washington, DC, as an undergrad with the intention of studying political communications. But one boring “History of Journalism” class later I switched to archaeology. And one boring “Introduction to Archaeology” class after that I switched to international… Read more »

They say an oleh is truly settled here when he starts buying Israeli deodorant instead of importing American roll-on via generous relatives, or when he finally settles for chunk light tuna instead of white albacore. For sure, a girl’s showing signs of improvement when she commits to an Israeli… Read more »

There is so much I didn’t know or understand about Israel until I lived here. That may sound obvious, but it wasn’t obvious to me. After all, I had visited this country six times before I lived here. I majored in International Politics with a concentration in Middle Eastern… Read more »

New language acquisition is a journey that is part concentration, part commitment, and part willingness to look stupid. Do not move to a non-English speaking country if you are proud. Until you master the native language, you spend most of your interactions with locals looking or acting like the… Read more »

So I was thinking about the zombie apocalypse the other day after reading the story about the Florida man who was shot while attempting to eat another man’s face. I was tweeting about it with comedian Rachel Dratch (okay fine, I was retweeting Rachel Dratch, who doesn’t know I exist…yet), and felt once… Read more »

My barefoot daughter walking along the sidewalk of our kibbutz

Ode to Found Love on Kibbutz Flowers, dirt, and stray cats Dogs that bark at midnight The cow-infused downwind from the refet at 4:30 pm… My children at 4:30 pm… My husband at 4:30 pm… Taking the trash out in my pajamas Dressing up in grownup clothes for Shabbat… Read more »

Israeli children at gan, Shavuot

I have a theory about Israeli men. The reason they’re so secure in their masculinity is not due to months of paratrooper training or mandatory military exercises out in the desert. It’s because, from a very young age, boys are formally taught and encouraged to dance. And wear leafy… Read more »

(Photo: J. Whine)

Every once in a while, someone says to me, “I don’t know how you do it – work full time, parent, and still have the energy to blog.” I smile bashfully (but secretly pleased), and explain that “writing is not a choice for me.” I’m compulsive. When I get… Read more »

President Obama, flanked by Nathan Diament, left, and Dr. Simcha Katz of the Orthodox Union, displays the framed reproduction of President George Washington’s letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., that he was given at the conclusion of his Oval Office meeting with Orthodox Jewish leaders.(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Nathan Diament learned two things 22 years ago while watching Barack Obama play pickup basketball at the Harvard Law School gym. “He was a generous passer,” he said of the school’s Law Review editor and the future U.S. president. “He was competitive, but at an appropriate… Read more »

Duhenah Reveaka of Bobruisk, Belarus is among those survivors who rely on Claims Conference funding for aid. (Sarah Levin/JDC)

NEW YORK (JTA) — The first sign that something was amiss at the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany happened to fall on an auspicious date on the Jewish calendar: Nov. 9, 2009, the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Greg Schneider had been at the helm of the Claims Conference,… Read more »

Alan Kaufman, owner of The Pickle Guys, the only pickle store in the once pickle-filled Lower East Side of Manhattan, June 2012. (Josh Lipowsky/JTA)

TEANECK, N.J. (JTA) — Walk into a kosher deli and a big bowl of pickles is typically waiting at the table. Ever wondered why? “Pickles are vital to the deli experience,” says Rabbi Gil Marks, author of “The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food.” Deli mavens know that the tastiest cuts… Read more »