Israel

(JTA) — Arab-Israeli lawmaker and political leader Ayman Odeh refused to meet with the umbrella foreign policy body for American Jews because it shares office space with the Jewish Agency, an abrupt and dissonant end to a trip that was aimed at promoting greater Arab-Jewish cooperation. “I came here… Read more »

(JTA) — Avigail Alfatov eats her pizza upside down and has funny hiccups. Her favorite food is falafel and she makes her face shine by wiping it with green tea bags. How do we know this and, perhaps more important, why do we care? Well, Alfatov is the reigning… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The teeming blocks around this city’s New Central Bus Station are anything but scenic. Packed with humanity at every hour of the day, they are dizzying monuments to urban blight: equal parts graffiti, chaotic traffic and bustling, black-market commerce. So on a sunny Friday last… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When Israel discovered two massive natural gas fields off its coast five years ago, it was billed as a goldmine that would shift the balance of energy exports in the Middle East and fill Israel’s coffers. Five years later, drilling in the biggest field, known as Leviathan,… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Sitting in front of a computer at the center of Israel’s largest army base, a soldier stares at the screen, moving pixel by pixel over a satellite photograph, picking out details and finding patterns. A few years ago N.S., who has autism, thought the Israel Defense Forces wouldn’t take him.… Read more »

Jewish culture and connection were the focus of a recent Tucson Jewish Community Center staff trip to Israel. The group of 10 returned to Tucson from their 12-day trip on Nov. 19 with a renewed sense of purpose. The Tucson J staff joined with delegations from the Shimon and… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, sat kiddy-corner in armchairs at this week’s international climate summit near Paris, talking and laughing. “We have the best of relations, and they can be made even better,” Netanyahu told Modi at the meeting. To which Modi… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) – The Israeli government has approved entry of the “last” group of Ethiopian Jews awaiting immigration to Israel. The move comes two years after the arrival of 450 Ethiopian Jews then deemed to be the “last” such group. Indeed, there have been several groups said to… Read more »

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — His best friend remembered him starting up a children’s game on their senior school trip. His teacher retold the time he made Hebrew jokes on a whiteboard during class. His rabbi recalled him committing to study the entire Bible this year. His parents wrote… Read more »

“When we train for mass casualty incidents, we know that the blood isn’t real and when the training is over, everyone is going to stand up and walk away. How does Israel deal with real mass casualty incidents that can happen every day?” That question by Tucson Fire Department… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – In the mind of Israel’s opposition leader, Labor Party chief Isaac Herzog, the array of threats in the Middle East these days present Israel with a historic opportunity. Yes, Palestinians are stabbing Israelis daily. Yes, Israel arguably has its most right-wing government since Benjamin Netanyahu’s… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — To Israel and many of its supporters, the new European Union regulations requiring separate labeling for settlement goods are discriminatory measures reminiscent of Europe’s long history of institutionalized anti-Semitism. In a harshly-worded statement Wednesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that by ignoring other territorial disputes around the world, the EU… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Irina Nevzlin didn’t know she was Jewish until she was 7, and even then she wasn’t quite sure. So it’s pretty remarkable that the Moscow native — who grew up in Soviet Russia under the dual shields of privilege and protection — is now the… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of tampering with the status quo on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. He railed against Jews defiling the holy site with their “filthy feet.” He claimed, falsely, that Israeli security forces had killed a 13-year old Palestinian boy. It’s that… Read more »

(JTA) — I remember the assassination like it was yesterday. Yitzhak Rabin was dead, and so was the peace process. Hope on both sides was extinguished. The country was not only in mourning — it was in shock, paralyzed by the magnitude of one of our own killing a national… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – When America’s main modern Orthodox rabbinical association voted last week to ban the hiring of clergywomen by its members, the question wasn’t whether to endorse women rabbis. It was whether to widen the group’s well-established repudiation of female clergy or keep quiet and focus on finding common ground with modern… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Some 100,000 people joined together in central Tel Aviv on Saturday to pay tribute to slain Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, but they were divided over what exactly they were rallying for. The demonstration, which marked the 20th anniversary of Rabin’s assassination by a Jewish extremist… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — By now it should be obvious how absurd it is to call President Barack Obama Israel’s “best friend” ever, as Thomas Friedman of The New York Times has claimed. A Blame Israel Firster, Obama won’t use his moral authority to try stopping the instigators of this… Read more »

(TPS) – Last week, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) approved a resolution in which it listed Rachel’s Tomb, located just south of Jerusalem and the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, as Islamic sites. The resolution not only stirred up a firestorm of protests from many in… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (Tazpit) – Bandura Games, a computer gaming company based in San Francisco, California, is set to launch a new mobile game app that would bridge gaps, build connections and create empathy between people from different sides of conflict zones. Initially interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Justin Hefter,… Read more »