Kiryat Malachi youth perform in an Art City production. (Jewish Agency for Israel)
Each year, Art City provides more than 200 youth in Kiryat Malachi and Hof Ashkelon, Israel, an opportunity for professional development in the performing arts. The program contributes to the community and region with cultural and social activities, empowering youth with a sense of belonging, and using creativity to… Read more »
(L-R): Chava, Isaac, Jacob, Maria, Rachel, Elisaveta, and Raya Sher in 1931 in Kirensk, a village in Siberia. (Shore Family)
The recent Weintraub Israel Center annual mission to Israel did not only build community bridges; it also mended a bridge between a local family and long-lost family members with origins in Russia. Bonnie Shore-Dombrowski, a Tucson attorney, was joined on the October trip by her two sisters, Debby Shore… Read more »
An El Al plane at Ben Gurion International Airport, Aug. 5, 2013. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An El Al plane bound for Israel that was delayed from taking off in New York was diverted to Athens on Friday to allow Sabbath-observant passengers to disembark. That’s what we know for sure. What happened on the plane? That’s another story. The flight, which had… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the Knesset in Jerusalem for a faction meeting, Nov. 19, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — “It’s Hard to Say Goodbye If You Won’t Leave” was the title of an old episode of “Frasier.” It could also describe the latest chapter in a coalition crisis that threatens to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The Israeli prime minister narrowly avoided having to… Read more »
Mischael Modrikamen at his home near Brussels holds up an anti-Semitic caricature favored by anti-Israel circles in Belgium, Oct. 26, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
BRUSSELS (JTA) — Europe has pro-Trump populists far more powerful and better known than Mischael Modrikamen, the leader of Belgium’s small People’s Party. There is Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front, who clinched more than a third of the votes – about 10 million of them — in the 2017 presidential elections with… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defended the decision to reach a cease-fire with Gaza terror groups during his address at a state memorial ceremony for David Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister. “In normal times, a leader must be attentive to the hearts of the people,… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian terror groups in Gaza reportedly have agreed to commit to a cease-fire of hostilities that have seen more than 400 rockets bombard southern Israel and Israeli retaliation in a 25-hour period. Four mediators — Egypt, the United Nations, Norway and Switzerland — helped achieve the… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — One person was killed and two seriously injured after a rocket fired from Gaza landed on an apartment building in southern Israel as the country remained under siege from rocket fire for a second day. The rocket hit the upper floors of a four-story apartment in… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — More than 200 rockets and mortars fired from Gaza rained down Monday evening on southern Israel, including one that hit a bus, seriously injuring a young man. The Israel Defense Forces responded by launching attacks on Hamas sites in Gaza. The man, 19, was on the… Read more »
Weintraub Israel 2018 multifaith mission group in the Old City of Jerusalem, Oct. 20. Front row (L-R): Ricki Shore, Mary Cochran, Jill Feldhausen, Dawn Gunter, Oshrat Barel, Michael Solan, Susan McMahon, Debe Campbell, Steve Wool, Jarrod Rulney (University of Arizona graduate student at Hebrew University), Gil Alvidrez; middle row: Andrea Crane, Debby Shore, Sara Ross, Bonnie Shore-Dombrowski, Dina Rosengarten, Grace Hartman, Theresa Dulgov, Florence Solan, Gayle Marrett, Pam Sorock, Michele Canney, Jacquelyn Feller, Ron Feller, Wendy Weinberg; back row: Harry Crane, Janice Brundage, Robert Wolk, Marshall Humphrey, Richard Hartman, Muki Jankelowitz (tour educator), Jeff Weinberg, Britt Feldhausen, David Zeinfeld, Lawrence Kinet, Todd Rockoff, Marsha Kinet, Jim Dever, Vicky Lunday, Michelle Kroeger, Richard Canney. (courtesy Weintraub Israel Center)
Weintraub Israel Center hosted its second annual multifaith mission to Israel in mid-October. A group of 43 participated in the nine-day journey from Tucson to Tel Aviv and around the nation’s interior. “We believe the most effective way to fulfill our mission to build living bridges is for participants… Read more »
Bat-Galim Shaer The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona will kick off its 2019 Community Campaign by hosting three summits on Nov. 13 and 14. Bat-Galim Shaer, the mother of one of three Israeli teens kidnapped and murdered in 2014, will speak on “One People, One Heart: The Strength of the Jewish… Read more »
Israeli parliament member Avraham Neguise, shown in 2015, chairs the Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Committee, which recently held a meeting about anti-Semitism in America. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — In the wake of the deadly shooting Oct. 27 at a Pittsburgh synagogue, Israeli lawmakers gathered for a special meeting for a discussion of anti-Semitism in America. It was dialogue that at times grew heated: Politicians yelled at each other and argued about the definition of… Read more »
This doll is Lore Mayerfeld's direct link to the events of Kristallnacht. (Yad Vashem/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – For decades as an adult, Lore Mayerfeld kept a doll on a chair in an off-limits bedroom or high on a shelf. Her children – and later her grandchildren and great-grandchildren – knew not to play with the toy for fear of breaking it. Dressed in… Read more »
Michael Oren speaks at a conference in the Israeli parliament in 2016. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The deadly shooting at a Conservative synagogue in Pittsburgh has underlined tensions in Israel over the haredi Orthodox rabbinic establishment’s disenfranchisement of the Diaspora’s non-Orthodox Jewish streams. Following Saturday’s rampage by a gunman that left 11 worshippers dead, an Israeli government minister and the country’s opposition… Read more »
An Israeli firefighter views a wildfire that broke out near Jerusalem, Nov. 25, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Six firefighters from Tucson will head to Israel next month to share their expertise in handling wildland fires. Since spring, incendiary kites and balloons launched from Gaza have burned thousands of acres of Israeli land. The trip is part of the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation’s Firefighters Beyond Borders program.… Read more »
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Oct. 22, 2018. (Amos Ben-Gershom/Israeli Government Press Office)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, touring Israel on one of her final overseas trips as a congresswoman, is being feted as one of the Jewish state’s best friends in Congress. Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1989, met Monday… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, is interviewed onstage by Jewish Federations of North America Chairman Richard Sandler at the General Assembly in Tel Aviv, Oct. 24, 2018. (Kobi Gideon/Israeli Government Press Office)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled that he supported a Palestinian “state-minus,” wherein Israel would maintain a military presence across Israel and the West Bank. Netanyahu also said in a question-and-answer session Wednesday at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America that… Read more »
Jerry Silverman, CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America, speaks at its General Assembly in Tel Aviv, Oct. 23, 2018. (Eyal Warshavsky/JFNA)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — On Sunday, a day before thousands of American Jews descended on this Israeli city to air their differences with the nation’s government, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin had a listening session. Rivlin invited a select group of about 100 American Jews to his official residence in… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Ten Jewish-American baseball players gained Israeli citizenship and can now help the country’s national team in international competition leading up to the 2020 Olympics. The players together applied for and received citizenship on Wednesday at the Bureau of Population and Immigration office in Jaffa. They and… Read more »
NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 24: United States Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley attends a media briefing during the United Nations General Assembly on September 24, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Nikki Haley said on Tuesday that she would be stepping down as U.N. ambassador by the end of this year, the Israeli and pro-Israel laments poured out swiftly. Haley didn’t simply defend Israel and its government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as her predecessors… Read more »
