Buzz Aldrin arriving at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., Jan. 17, 2014. (Gabriel Olsen/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israelis seeking an escape from this week’s daily terror attacks couldn’t fly to the moon, but they had a chance to hear from someone who did — Buzz Aldrin. In Israel’s terror-riven capital, the Israel Space Agency — the country’s version of NASA — is hosting this year’s… Read more »
Matisyahu performing in Moscow, Dec. 7, 2014. (Shutterstock)
(JTA) — With his clean-shaven face and hip clothing, it’s easy to forget that Matisyahu was a Hasidic icon before he was just a Jewish one. But on a segment of HuffPost Live on Tuesday, the Jewish reggae singer called leaving the Hasidic community “one of the hardest things… Read more »
African asylum seekers protest outside the US embassy in Tel Aviv, 06 January 2014. Thousands of African migrants, including many from Eritrea and Sudan, held a protest outside European and North American embassies in Tel Aviv against Israel's refusal to grant them refugee status and the opening of 'Holot', the new detention facility in the country's south. Thousands demonstrated outside the US embassy at Tel Aviv's beach front on the second day of a three-day strike and protest campaign. Photo by Tomer Neuberg/FLASH90
TEL AVIV (JTA) — In the days since an Eritrean migrant was shot to death by an Israeli security guard and then beaten by a mob at Beersheba’s central bus station, a fellow migrant named Awat Ashever has insisted to other Eritreans that the killing was just a terrible mistake. It’s… Read more »
Raed Salah, leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement, in Jerusalem, March 26, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – In assigning blame for the recent wave of violence in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has turned to the usual suspects – Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. But he has also accused a lesser-known group that operates within Israel’s borders: the Islamic Movement, a religious political… Read more »
Israeli Border Police guard a checkpoint in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, Oct. 15, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — “No pepper spray, no tear gas, no nightsticks,” sighed Itzhak Mizrahi to three disappointed men, as if it were a mantra he’d recited dozens of times. The glass-topped display case in Magnum, the central Jerusalem gun shop that Mizrahi has owned for three decades, featured a… Read more »
A Palestinian protester during clashes with Israeli security forces in the West Bank, Oct. 8, 2015. (Ilia Yefimovich/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israelis have become accustomed to dismal news in the past few weeks – mornings and evenings punctuated by stabbings, car attacks and rock throwing. The cycle of random violence has left dozens of Israelis and Palestinians dead, and many fearing the worst: The start of a third… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — At least three Israelis have been killed and more than 20 wounded in a rash of terrorist attacks throughout the country. In the wake of two of the attacks on Tuesday morning in Jerusalem, roads into eastern Jerusalem were closed. Three people were killed in two… Read more »
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, greeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow, Sept. 21, 2015. (Israeli Embassy in Russia/Flash90)
(JTA) — As a defiant Russia again flexes military muscles in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, Cold War analogies are, perhaps, unavoidable. The deployment last month of Russian warplanes in Syria laid bare Moscow’s readiness to use force to punish leaders who would challenge its authority — as in… Read more »
Palestinian protesters in the West Bank throwing stones and burning tires during clashes with Israeli security forces over the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Sept. 30, 2015. (Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — First it was clashes on the Temple Mount. Then a mother and father were shot before the eyes of their four children. Then two men were killed in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem’s Old City. Now Israelis fear the wave of conflict will only rise.… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the U.N. General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York City, Oct. 1, 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
(JTA) – All anyone attending the United Nations General Assembly opening seemed to want to talk about was the threat posed to the world by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. That was much to the consternation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who argued in his speech… Read more »
Natan Sharansky, left, head of the Jewish Agency, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the latter's Jerusalem office, June 18, 2013. (Kofi Gideon/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — With a budget reaching $300 million, it was conceived as a broad partnership between the Israeli government and leading Diaspora Jewish groups. Its goal: to create a stronger connection between global Jews and Israel. But nearly two years after its launch was announced with much… Read more »
A dinghy carrying refugees arriving at a beach on the island of Lesbos in northern Greece. (Boaz Arad/IsraAid)
LESBOS, Greece (JTA) — As the small rubber dinghy crowded with Syrians and Afghans emerged from the midnight-black sea to land on a desolate pebble beach, the first people to greet the bewildered and frightened refugees were two Israelis. “Does anyone need a doctor?” Majeda Kardosh, 27, a nurse… Read more »
Palestinians throwing rocks at Israeli police during clashes in eastern Jerusalem, Sept. 18, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — For Israelis, the Ten Days of Repentance from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur have turned into days of violence. Unrest has swelled in Jerusalem following an Israeli ban on a protest group at the Temple Mount, the holy site known to Muslims as the Haram… Read more »
Haredi Orthodox Israelis protest in Jerusalem against compulsory military service for men, Aug. 25, 2015. (FLASH90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Secular and haredi Orthodox Israelis differ on many things, but there’s one thing both sides agree on: When it comes to religious affairs, the government is failing. That’s one of the findings of an annual survey of Israeli religious identification and attitudes toward religious policy released… Read more »
(TAZPIT) – A statistical survey conducted by Smith Consulting Co. for the NGO, ‘Hiddush – For Religious Freedom and Equality’ has revealed the changes in the distribution of Israeli Jewish citizens according to the different religious denominations they identify with. The Hiddush NGO publishes its annual Religion-State Index every… Read more »
Rabbi Shlomo Neeman, left, founder of the Kiev-based Zionist Seminary, and staff at the Tchelet summer camp in the Republic of Georgia, Aug. 19, 2015. (Eliyahu Yurovsky)
TBILISI, Georgia (JTA) — Until April of last year, Julia Podinovskaya felt like she had a pretty good handle on where her life was going. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Podinovskaya, who is in her 20s, was volunteering with the local Jewish community… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — When Issamar Ginzberg enters his Jerusalem office on a sweltering summer day, he’s wearing a long black coat tied at the waist and a black hat. His long, scraggly beard and sidecurls, or payos, offer no relief from the heat. The office — thank God —… Read more »
U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter, left, shaking hands with his Israeli counterpart, Moshe Yaalon, before boarding a military aircraft at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv, July 21, 2015. (Carolyn Kaster/Pool/AP Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The moment the Iran nuclear deal becomes law, as seems increasingly likely given growing congressional support for the agreement, the focus of the U.S.-Israel conversation will shift to the question of what’s next. What more will Washington do to mitigate the Iranian threat and reassure… Read more »
Rep. Martha McSally on the 2015 Republican congressional trip to Israel, after a briefing about the operation of an Iron Dome missile defense battery, seen behind her. (Courtesy Office of U.S. Rep. Martha McSally)
U.S. Rep. Martha McSally joined 25 Republican legislators on a whirlwind trip to Israel earlier this month. McSally, who was elected to represent Arizona’s Second Congressional District last fall and serves on the Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, said she chose to participate in the trip to get… Read more »
Yigal Amir, who assassinated former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, appearing before the Israeli Supreme Court in Jerusalem, Sept. 8, 2004. Amir allegedly has received funds from Honenu, an Israeli nonprofit with tax-exempt status in the United States. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) – Taxpayer dollars in the United States and Israel are subsidizing Jewish terrorism against Arabs, a complaint filed with the New York state Attorney General’s Office alleges. The accusations follow a recent expose by Israel’s Channel 10 about the work of the 13-year-old Israeli nonprofit Honenu, which provides financial support to… Read more »
