Israel

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — He was an outspoken politician with little military experience, appointed by a rival and promising to bring a new approach. Current and former officials at the Defense Ministry called his appointment an “enigma,” fretting that “it will take some time until he understands how things work”… Read more »

(JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sissi to discuss how to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, along with other shared concerns. Meeting in Cairo Wednesday, Kerry “expressed his appreciation for recent statement of strong support for advancing Arab-Israeli peace,” State Department spokesman… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The unity government was about to form: Likud and Labor, right and left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog. Then, according to media reports, Netanyahu swung to the right and instead embraced an old partner: Avigdor Liberman, head of the hard-line… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For a leader often accused of not wanting to talk peace with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sure does a lot of talking about wanting to talk to the Palestinians. In a series of three statements this month, Netanyahu repeatedly stressed the need… Read more »

The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. JERUSALEM (JTA) – On a pleasant evening in this capital city, through the near darkness, I caught his wave from a half-block away. Soon we were standing together, smiling and clasping hands, two men who hadn’t seen… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When a pro-Israel U.S. lawmaker greeted a member of Israel’s Knesset here last week, the former may not have anticipated the candor of the latter. “Give me good news,” Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., told Merav Michaeli on April 13, a typical request when the ranking Democrat on the… Read more »

Israeli Opposition and Zionist Union Chairman MK Isaac Herzog has been at the center of political outrage in Israel after being filmed saying at a meeting with Zionist Union party activists in Ashkelon on Tuesday about his own party that “we need to stop giving the impression that we… Read more »

The European Union released a statement earlier today in which it condemned the military courts in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip for sentencing to death five convicts accused of collaborating with Israel. “The EU Missions in Jerusalem and Ramallah condemn the five death sentences issued by military courts in the… Read more »

Jerusalem (TPS) –  Neshama Spielman, a 12-year-old Israeli girl, made a rare archaeological discovery while sifting earth illegally discarded from the Temple Mount. She found an ancient amulet, more than 3,200 years old, bearing the name of the Egyptian ruler Thutmose III, Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty who reigned from… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — During the five-plus years of Syria’s civil war, Israel has striven to stay neutral — supporting neither the government of President Bashar Assad nor the rebels, and certainly not the Islamic State. But on one issue, senior Israeli politicians have gladly taken sides: Israel keeping the… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — At least 21 people were injured in a bus bombing in Jerusalem, police said, in the first such attack in Israel in years. A city bus exploded and went up in flames Monday evening on a major thoroughfare in the southern end of the capital. The blast… Read more »

Tel Aviv (TPS) – A torrent of Israeli taxes are about to hit the global tech giants Google, Facebook, Amazon, and eBay as new directives were announced on Monday by the Israel Tax Authority (ITA). The new policy follows civil protests against the tax rate paid by the large… Read more »

MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (JTA) — In a ramshackle village off a dirt road in the West Bank’s central hills, near an inhabited shack with a cloth roof and tin walls, stands an outhouse bearing a peeling sticker with the European Union flag. The text below the flag reads “Humanitarian… Read more »

(JTA) — The Israeli Supreme Court’s recent landmark ruling on conversion is a truly historic decision – for Israeli and American Jewry. While the case only concerns a few individuals, the general rules and unequivocal language have wide significance for both Israeli and American Jewry. The ruling represents another… Read more »

Jerusalem (TPS) ‒ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took advantage of his meeting with the Czech foreign minister to challenge Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday. “President Abbas said on Israeli television a few days ago that if I invite him, he’ll come,” Netanyahu told Czech Foreign Minister Lubomír Zaorálek,… Read more »

KFAR SABA, Israel (JTA) — One family lost their son in late July 2014. The other lost theirs on the first of August in the same year. One family has lobbied the United Nations and crossed an ocean in hopes of bringing their son’s remains back. The other mostly stays… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Israeli Supreme Court decision on Jewish conversion changes almost nothing. But down the line, it could change a lot. Under the March 31 ruling, the state of Israel must recognize Jewish conversions performed in private Orthodox conversion courts not run by its Chief Rabbinate.… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — He’s crude. He’s blunt. He’s inauthentic. He is not a man of peace. Left and right, religious and secular, Arab and Jew, Israelis don’t have many kind words for Donald Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner. In interviews this week, several prominent Israelis described Trump as an… Read more »

HAIFA, Israel (JTA) — Tamim Zoabi knew that if he and his classmates could win at the Young Engineers’ Conference, it could mean a ticket to a better life – a coveted university scholarship for this truck driver’s son from a poor village in northern Israel. But no Arab team… Read more »

Shay Yossef and his wife, Efrat, with their children at their West Bank home in Har Bracha. (Beit Hatfutsot)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Orli Malassa doesn’t remember ever feeling anything but Israeli. To her parents, who came to Israel from Ethiopia in 1983 when she was 5 years old, Malassa’s accent-free Hebrew, fluent use of Israeli slang and effortless assimilation into the Jewish state has felt nothing short… Read more »