North Korea refugee and human rights activist Shin Dong-hyuk demonstrating for human rights in North Korea outside the White House, July 10, 2012. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
BRUSSELS (JTA) — When guards dragged Shin Dong-hyuk from his North Korean cell in 1995, he was pretty sure the end was near. Dong-hyuk, then just 13, was born in the prison known as Camp 14, not far from Pyongyang. Camp 14 is part of a network of political… Read more »
Pro-choice supporters at a candlelight vigil in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Jan. 22, 2013. (Photo by Allison Shelley/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Liberal Jewish groups fired a verbal barrage against a restrictive abortion bill passed by the Republican-dominated U.S. House of Representatives, calling it “egregious,” “outrageous,” “an affront,” and “deeply disappointing.” Such strong language is unusual in any case for groups that must engage with Congress, but especially… Read more »
HIAS-assisted refugees in Chad (HIAS) (New York, NY – June 20, 2013) – HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees, today launched The Welcome Initiative, a campaign to raise awareness around issues surrounding the treatment and welcome of refugees. Central to the campaign is the Affirmation of Welcome, a call to action to… Read more »
Barbra Streisand hugs Israeli President Shimon Peres after performing at his 90th birthday celebration in Jerusalem, June 18, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO/FLASH90) JERUSALEM (JTA) — World leaders praised and serenaded Israeli President Shimon Peres in honor of his upcoming 90th birthday. The prime-time birthday celebration Tuesday night marked the start of the fifth annual Israeli Presidential Conference. Two of every three Israeli television viewers tuned in to the ceremony, which was… Read more »
Left to right, Geulah Elementary School classmates Avraham Siton, Ora Bogomolny and Mashiach Moshe Shem-Tov meet for lunch in Florida months before their 60th reunion in Israel. Siton would die two days before the June 12 reunion.(Courtesy Ora Bogomolny) The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Ora Bogomolny sounded subdued, as if the phone call to her Israel apartment had disturbed her sleep. Indeed, she had experienced a nightmare just hours before receiving the call from “Seeking Kin” on June… Read more »
Protester standing on top of a barricade during a demonstration near Taksim Square in Istanbul, Turkey, June 11, 2013. (Lam Yik Fei/Getty) TEL AVIV (JTA) – As the budding protest movement in Turkey against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan struggles to gain a foothold, Israel is watching the developments with some measure of ambivalence. On the one hand, Erdogan has led Turkey away from a close alliance with Israel, using his… Read more »
Hassan Rohani, Iran's president-elect, is a former national security adviser and ex-nuclear negotiator. (Creative Commons)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Former national security adviser, former nuclear negotiator, a decades-old friendship with the supreme leader — Hassan Rohani is as Iranian establishment as it gets. Which is why, some Iran watchers say, he may be an invaluable asset in the quest to reduce tensions between the Islamic… Read more »
Nathan Shapiro in his apartment at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, with a promotional flyer and photograph from his days as a boy cantor in New York. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP) Nathan Shapiro, 95, served in World War II, was married for 61 years and still drives his own car. “I’m a very lucky guy in many respects,” was the first thing he told the AJP in his apartment at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging. “If I have years,… Read more »
In a new initiative for 2013-14, Congregation Anshei Israel will offer free tuition and waive the registration fee for its religious school kindergarten. The offer is available to synagogue members and nonmembers alike. Classes will be taught by Renee Hulsey, who was recently named “Outstanding Judaic Educator” by the… Read more »
The Idan Raichel Project, known for its fusion of diverse musical styles and ethnicities, will perform at the Fox Tucson Theater on Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m., in a concert cosponsored by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona. The group, which rocketed to fame in Israel with its… Read more »
The Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona recently announced $179,517 in 21 grants to nonprofit organizations in Tucson and Israel. JCF manages 460 individual donor-advised funds, endowments, supporting foundations and agency custodial funds that enable donors to fulfill their own philanthropic visions, but the 2013 competitive grants are the… Read more »
The Steven A. Lightman Family Foundation has opened its 2013 call for grants. The Lightman Family Foundation distributes funds to further the Jewish Community Foundation’s charitable activities that promote health and wellness, on a local and national level, and foster creative and artistic endeavors. The areas of interest include,… Read more »
More than a dozen Americans and Israelis met recently in Israel to strategize plans for the TIPS (Tucson, Israel, Phoenix, Seattle) Partnership2Gether project for the coming year. Tucson volunteer Gail Ben-Jamin (known to her Israeli friends as Gila) and Oshrat Barel, the future shlicha or Israeli emissary to Tucson,… Read more »
Israeli couple hopes for change in U.S. immigration policy (Courtesy Immigration Equality Action Fund) A same-sex Israeli couple struggling against U.S. immigration laws are set to become the faces of the fight to extend one of the foundations of immigration policy to gays and lesbians. Adi Lavy and Tzila Levy have been caught in the bureaucratic red tape of the American immigration system… Read more »
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz (with binoculars) tours the Israeli border with Syria on May 21.
(Tal Manor/IDF Spokesperson/Flash 90/JTA) For much of the past two years, Israel has taken a singular approach to the Syrian civil war: Stay as far away as possible. But with a recent string of victories by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and the crumbling of the U.N. peacekeeping force that has kept… Read more »
Rose Goteiner believes that her sister, Ruth Konigstein, is shown in the middle of the bottom row of this 1946 photograph taken in Amsterdam. (Courtesy American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Global Archives) The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Picking up her mail about a year ago, 88-year-old Rose Goteiner stopped in her tracks upon seeing the photo on a newsletter cover. Posing shortly after the Holocaust ended, 21 people were standing before… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — How do you confront hatred when it has no fixed address? Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League national director, attempts to pin down an answer to the question in his latest book, “Viral Hate.” Co-authored with privacy lawyer Christopher Wolf, the book chronicles the complications of countering… Read more »
A Star of David in the architecture of the Van Ostade Jewish Housing Project in The Hague. (The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, www.cidi.tv) THE HAGUE, the Netherlands (JTA) — On a cold winter night in 2008, Wim Kortenoeven was startled by the crackling of a large fire raging near his home on the edge of this city’s last remaining Jewish enclave. Rushing from his apartment, Kortenoeven walked 70 yards and crossed the… Read more »
NEW YORK (Corriere della Sera Online) — His Wikipedia page remembers him, in at least 10 languages, as “the Italian police commissioner who saved thousands of Jews from being deported to Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War and for this was deported to the Dachau Concentration Camp,… Read more »
A Better Place customer charging his electronic vehicle in the company's headquarters in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, February 2010. (Roni Schutzer/Flash 90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — It was supposed to be the car of the future, a near-silent, battery-powered vehicle that would wean the West off its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and save the environment in the process. And an Israeli company seemed destined to build it. Better Place, founded… Read more »
