AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A few hours before he departed Amsterdam for Australia on July 17, Ithamar Avnon was praying for peace with his parents at their home in the Netherlands. That evening, pro-Russian separatists shot down Avnon’s flight, Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, over eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel rejected U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s cease-fire proposal. “We are not announcing that it has been achieved tonight,” Kerry said in Cairo on Friday night. “The world is watching tragic moment after tragic moment unfold and wondering when both sides are going to come… Read more »
Ira Forman, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, speaks at the Hungarian parliament in Budapest, October 2013. (Tom Lantos Institute)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration’s anti-Semitism monitor has added an issue to his office’s portfolio: defending circumcision in Europe. Circumcision has become a top focus for Ira Forman, the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. He has been using the pulpit his office provides to… Read more »
Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar putting teffilin on 102-year old David Barulya, a World War II veteran and Crimean Holocaust survivor, at a Holocaust commemoration ceremony in Sevastopol, July 10, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (JTA) — Until recently, Holocaust commemorations in this port city were generally low-key gatherings of a few dozen people reciting the Kaddish prayer for victims of the near-annihilation of Crimean Jewry in 1942. But on July 10, a memorial service at the Sevastopol Holocaust monument attracted hundreds of visitors, including a delegation of… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on flights to Israel after reviewing Israeli measures to keep flights safe from rockets. “Before making this decision, the FAA worked with its U.S. government counterparts to assess the security situation in Israel and carefully reviewed both significant new… Read more »
caption: A sign pointing to a bomb shelter on the runway at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv. Air France was among the many carriers that canceled flights to and from Israel after a rocket fired from Gaza struck near the airport on July 22, 2014. (Tsahi Ben Ami / Flash90 / JTA) LOD, Israel (JTA) — Natali Cohen and Snir Shahar discovered via email around midnight that their flight from Tel Aviv to Barcelona was canceled. They’d been looking forward to two weeks exploring the Catalan city and getting a break from the conflict in Israel. Shahar, 23, had just taken… Read more »
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on July 23, 2014, a day when many foreign carriers still had flight bans to Tel Aviv. (Haim Zach/GPO) (JTA) — When the Federal Aviation Administration announced a ban Tuesday on U.S. carriers flying to Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, prompting a slew of similar decisions by European carriers, the flight cancellations were more than just a major inconvenience to thousands of passengers on 160-plus canceled flights. They were a… Read more »
Over 30,000 people paid their respects to lone soldier Sgt. Max Steinberg at his funeral on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem this morning (see video). Steinberg was killed battling Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, July 20 and was among the 13 IDF soldiers who were killed when a Hamas anti-tank rocket… Read more »
The Tucson January 8th Memorial Foundation is launching a national search for a design team to create a permanent memorial to the January 8, 2011, mass shooting that wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, killed six people and injured 13 others. A Request for Qualifications (RFQ) was released today to select a… Read more »
Israelis attend the funeral of Israeli soldier and Texas native Sean Carmeli, who was killed in Gaza, at a military cemetery in Haifa, July 21, 2014. (Flash 90) TEL AVIV (JTA) — The soldiers walk past us, two single-file lines between the gravestones, their blank, sunken faces barely visible in the darkness. The coffin appears, hoisted on their arms and wrapped in an Israeli flag. We follow in its wake. Within minutes, some 20,000 people have massed… Read more »
On July 23, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona reported, the IDF discovered a massive terror tunnel extending from Gaza into the Israeli town of Netiv HaAsara. Netiv HaAsara is part of Tucson’s Partnership2Gether region of Kiryat Malachi/Hof Ashkelon. Tucson and the region have a longstanding relationship, and several families… Read more »
Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, attends a panel discussion during the 50th Munich Security Conference in Germany, Feb. 2, 2014. (Joerg Koch/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — The issue of Iranian uranium enrichment remains as stubborn an obstacle to a nuclear deal as it was at the launch of the talks six months ago. Iran and the major powers, led by the United States, agreed July 18 to extend the talks another four… Read more »
Fares Alhozael, 55, says the Israeli government has failed to provide a bomb shelter near his home on the outskirts of the Bedouin city of Rahat. (Ben Sales) RAHAT, Israel (JTA) — Fares Alhozael doesn’t want much from the Israeli government. The roads in his neighborhood aren’t paved, and earlier this year Israel destroyed his cousin’s house for having been built illegally. Slumped on a faded bed in the bare, beige, tin-roofed house he shares with his six children… Read more »
BALTIMORE (JTA) — Sean Carmeli, a sergeant in the Israeli army, was stationed in Israel’s South awaiting possible orders to enter Gaza. He was exchanging Facebook messages with his friend Ian Benisti, a U.S. Marine reservist who was visiting Israel from California. The two had planned to get together,… Read more »
In the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, pro-Palestinian rioters broke shop windows and set fires on July 20, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) SARCELLES, France (JTA) – Shortly before their synagogue became shrouded by tear gas and smoke, 100 Jews wielding baseball bats and clubs were singing the French national anthem in front of the synagogue’s heavy metal gate. They had gathered outside the main synagogue in this Paris suburb Sunday to defend it against a… Read more »
The wife and young daughter of Sergeant Major Bayhesain Kshaun cry at his gravesite during the funeral ceremony at the Netivot military cemetery, July 22, 2014. Kshaun, 39, was killed by an anti-tank missile fired at the force responding to a terrorist infiltration incident on July 21. (Hadas Parush/Flash90) TEL AVIV (JTA) — The air war has become a ground war. The Israeli population, always on edge, has become a nation in mourning. And a military operation that nearly ended after eight days has become a bloody invasion of Gaza that could last weeks and has Israeli officials divided over how it ought to end.… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — The Federal Aviation Administration prohibited all U.S. airlines from flying to Israel for at least 24 hours. All three U.S. carriers with nonstop flights to Israel – United, U.S. Airways and Delta Airlines — canceled their flights to Tel Aviv on Tuesday. El Al, which is not bound by the FAA… Read more »
sraeli paratroopers inspecting the entrance of a tunnel they discovered in the northern Gaza Strip, July 18, 2014. (IDF Spokesperson/Flash 90) (JTA) — Until this latest war, if you asked most Israelis about the threat from Gaza, they would probably start talking about Hamas rockets. But that has changed over the last few days of fighting, for two reasons. One, the much-heralded success of the Iron Dome missile defense system… Read more »
The Saint Petersburg company Tzar Caviar used molecular engineering to produce a kosher caviar substitute now available in New York and Paris. (Courtesy Tzar Caviar) PARIS (JTA) — In a penthouse office with a view of the Eiffel Tower, Olivier Kassabi uses a ceramic spoon to extract a small scoop from a jar labeled as Russian caviar. Placing a clutch of black globules on the base of his thumb, Kassabi licks it off, savoring… Read more »
Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz hangs out the porch of the Chilmark General Store in the Martha's Vineyard town of Chilmark, Mass. (Anthony Weiss/JTA) CHILMARK, Mass. (JTA) — Alan Dershowitz’s house is a bit of a mess.Most of the rooms in his Martha’s Vineyard home are cluttered with half-unpacked boxes filled with items from his Cambridge house, which he and his wife emptied recently and sold after he retired from his Harvard… Read more »
