Aymen Odeh heads the Joint List of Arab political parties. (Courtesy of Odeh's office)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Aymen Odeh has a tough job. He is the first person to represent all of Israel’s Arab political parties in the Knesset, or parliament. The parties, whose members range from secular communists to pious Muslims, came together as the Joint List to run in the… Read more »
Members of the New York City Police Department stand guard in Manhattan's Herald Square, near where a bomb was set off the previous evening, Sept. 18, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Donald Trump wants to profile likely terrorists the way Israel does it. The problem is, Israel and the United States already profile in similar ways – and neither in the way Trump prefers. The Republican presidential nominee’s proposal to blanket-profile entire communities would be unwieldy and… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving at the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Sept. 11, 2016. (Marc Israel Sellem/Pool/Flash90)
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JERUSALEM (JTA) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued earlier this month that the Palestinian leadership is supporting “ethnic cleansing” by refusing to accept Israeli settlers in its future state. “Yet the Palestinian leadership actually demands a Palestinian state with one precondition: No Jews. There’s a phrase for… Read more »
Jacob Nagel, left, Israel's acting national security adviser, signing a Memorandum of Understanding for $38 billion of U.S. defense assistance over 10 years with Undersecretary of State Tom Shannon, Sept. 14, 2016. (Embassy of Israel)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – President Barack Obama’s near parting gift to Israel, a guarantee of $38 billion in defense assistance over a decade, distills into a single document what he’s been saying throughout eight fraught years: I have your back, but on my terms. The agreement signed Wednesday in the… Read more »
Ramat Gan (TPS) – The medical condition of former Israeli President Shimon Peres has improved to the level where he is stable and responsive, according to the most recent update from Sheba Medical Center where he is receiving care. “After 24 hours of evaluating the ninth president, Mr. Peres,… Read more »
Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Tsachi Miri/TPS)
Herzliya (TPS) – Education Minister and Chairman of the Jewish Home Party Naftali Bennett told a counter-terrorism conference Monday that Israel is the world’s “front post” in the battle against terror. “No nation is as threatened by terror as we are,” Bennett told the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism annual… Read more »
Shimon Peres in Tel Aviv, Nov. 30, 2015 (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)
Updated 9/13/16 at 1:18 p.m. MST. JERUSALEM (JTA) — Former Israeli President Shimon Peres was hospitalized after having a stroke. Peres’ office said in a statement Tuesday evening that the 93-year-old statesman “is stable and fully conscious.” The office later announced that Peres’ doctors decided to sedate him and… Read more »
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton celebrating their respective victories in the New York primaries in New York City, April 19, 2016. (Spencer Platt and John Moore/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Most Israeli Jews would prefer Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump as the next president of the United States — even though more of them think Trump would be better for the “Israeli government’s policy.” According to a poll released Wednesday, 43 percent of Israeli Jews prefer… Read more »
Mira Marcus, the city of Tel Aviv's director of international press, with her dog Shani at the Kelaviv dog festival in Tel Aviv, Aug. 26, 2016. (Andrew Tobin)
It’s not every day you see a dog getting a massage. But in this Israeli city, somehow it seems expected. At Tel Aviv’s first official dog festival, hundreds of dogs took over Yehoshua Park and its dog park on Friday afternoon. As canine customers wandered among vendors selling dog-related… Read more »
Sunset over the Old City of Jerusalem, as seen from the Mount of Olives in East Jerusalem. ( Andrew McIntire/TPS)
Jerusalem (TPS) – The Jerusalem Municipality has been promoting a unique initiative to build a cable car that would connect the city’s western neighborhoods with the Old City and Mount of Olives in its east. While the city intends for the project to serve its residents as well as… Read more »
The Khirbet Qeiyafa Archaeological Site. (Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem Spokesperson)
Biblical archaeology was revolutionized several years ago when evidence of the existence of the alleged kingdom of David was brought to light in the form of a fortified Iron Age town excavated in the Elah Valley by Hebrew University Professor Yosef Garfinkel and Israeli Antiquities Authority archaeologist Saar Ganor.… Read more »
Israeli sailors marching in Manhattan during the 1976 festivities for the bicentennial and Operation Sail. (Courtesy of Hadar Shalev)
The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost friends and relatives. (JTA) – The Israeli missile boat Tarshish had just returned home in June 1976 when crew members learned near midnight that they would be heading back to sea two days later for another couple of months. They… Read more »
The Turkish government ship Lady Leyla in Mersin before being sent to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza following the completion of the reconciliation deal between Turkey and Israel, July 1, 2016. (Sezgin Pancar/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel and Turkey ought to be friends, geopolitically speaking. As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan put it in January: “Israel needs a country like Turkey in this region. We, too, should admit that we need a country like Israel.” But the regional powers often can’t seem… Read more »
Israeli soldiers seizing dozens of illegal weapons in the West Bank, Aug. 23, 2016. (Courtesy of IDF Spokesperson’s Unit)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli security forces shut down six illegal weapons manufacturing factories in the West Bank in what the army said was the biggest such operation of an ongoing crackdown. The raids conducted jointly by the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet security service and Israel Police… Read more »
Florida State Sen. Dwight Bullard, wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh, or headscarf, at the Democratic National Convention, July 2016. (Ben Sales)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Pro-Israel activists in the Miami area plan to protest a Florida state senator active in the Black Lives Matter movement who visited the West Bank as the guest of a group that backs the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Organizers of the protest against Dwight Bullard… Read more »
Shaul Ladany in his suburban Beersheba home with a prized piece of his Theodor Herzl collection, left. (Hillel Kuttler)
OMER, Israel (JTA) – Shaul Ladany, a two-time Olympian, acknowledged that he was “very happy” that the International Olympic Committee finally held an official memorial for the 11 Israelis who were killed in a terrorist raid at the 1972 Munich games. But Ladany, an Israeli racewalker who… Read more »
Andrea Murez recalls Israelis telling her at the 2013 Maccabiah Games that she should swim for Israel -- and now she is. (Hillel Kuttler)
NETANYA, Israel (JTA) – Andrea Murez steps on the diving board, adjusts her goggles, swings her long arms and propels herself into the water at the Wingate Institute athletic complex here. Murez is training with a dozen other swimmers. She is the one preparing for the Summer Olympics a… Read more »
Oded Revivi (Courtesy of Avi Hyman Communications)
EFRAT, West Bank (JTA) — The Yesha Council has represented Israel’s settlement of the West Bank for nearly five decades. They’ve helped create what appears to be an irreversible reality to both critics and champions: Some 400,000 settlers live in settlements, where they enjoy their own wineries,… Read more »
New Ben-Gurion University of the Negev robot has applications in medicine, homeland security and search and rescue BEER-SHEVA, Israel — The first single actuator wave-like robot (SAW) has been developed by engineers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU). The 3D-printed robot can move forward or backward… Read more »
Members of Knesset Zehava Galon (L) (Meretz) and Shuli Mualem (R) (Jewish Home) (Hillel Maier/ TPS)
Jerusalem (TPS) – The Education, Culture and Sports Committee decided to recognize the Armenian genocide on Monday at a meeting initiated by Meretz Chairwoman MK Zehava Galon. “It is our moral obligation to recognize the holocaust of the Armenian nation,” said the committee’s chairman and Shas MK Yaakov Margi.… Read more »
