Israel

Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) delivers remarks during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Policy Conference on March 3, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The battle between members of Congress and the State Department over tourist visas for Israelis features two competing archetypes of the young Israeli traveler. The lawmakers paint a picture of a world traveler, matured by service to country, who deserves a break from the stresses of the… Read more »

Col. Dr. Eyal Fruchter, head of the IDF Mental Health Department, said he does not see increased violence among members of the Israeli army, but his recent work in attention bias modification supports other research by Professor Golan Shahar about Israeli desensitization to violence.

Fifteen seconds. That’s how long a resident of Sderot has from the time a Code Red alert is announced until a Palestinian rocket strikes the town or is intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system. In other southern Israeli communities, one might have 30 seconds, maybe even a… Read more »

A wounded individual os transported to a waiting plane, where he will be flown to Israel to receive medical care. (Shimon Briman)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For 17-year-old Bolodimir Bedyuk, a Ukrainian who was severely wounded in clashes with Ukrainian police on Feb. 18, Israeli medical care may be his only hope. After a pitched battle with Ukrainian police forces on Institutskaya Street in Kiev, Bedyuk suffered chest wounds and extensive… Read more »

A woman lays tefillin at the entrance to Tel Aviv's Carmel Market. Women of the Wall offered women in Tel Aviv the chance to put on a tallit or tefillin on Friday. (Ben Sales/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — They were standing in a public square in a major Israeli city, laying tefillin on women amid shouts of protest and quizzical looks from nearby men in black hats. It has become an occasional morning routine for Women of the Wall. Except this time, they… Read more »

Hundreds of thousands of haredi Orthodox Jews protesting a measure to draft them into the Israeli military, March 2, 2014. (Yaakov Naumi/FLASH90)

 JERUSALEM (JTA) — Beneath banners invoking historic calamities from the Egyptian enslavement to the Holocaust, hundreds of thousand of haredi Orthodox men gathered on the streets of Jerusalem to recite psalms and penitential prayers as they inveighed against an enemy they consider on par with Hitler and the ancient… Read more »

Delta, the nom de guerre of the Jewish commander of a Ukrainian street-fighting unit, is pictured in Kiev in February. (Courtesy of 'Delta')

(JTA) — He calls his troops “the Blue Helmets of Maidan,” but brown is the color of the headgear worn by Delta — the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution. Under his helmet, he also wears a kippah.… Read more »

The protagonist of the Oscar-nominated "Omar" is on the run from Israeli agents who are pursuing the Palestinian murderer of an Israeli soldier. (Adopt Films)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — For cinematic observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this is a banner year, with both sides choosing Oscar submissions that center on the Israeli occupation. Israel’s “Bethlehem,” which pits Shin Bet agents against diverse Palestinian factions eager to blow up the Jewish state, was eliminated early… Read more »

Chris Mutune, a geenhouse caretaker for Amiran Kenya, working in one of the company's sample greenhouses. (Ben Sales)

NAIROBI, Kenya (JTA) — Bags of seeds from the Israeli seed company Hazera Genetics line the shelves of one warehouse. Another houses rolls of plastic from StePac, an Israeli firm whose bags can keep vegetables fresher for longer. In a third warehouse are rows of coiled hoses, each pricked… Read more »

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual policy conference on March 5, 2013 in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The highlight of AIPAC’s year is the final day of its annual policy conference, when thousands of activists ascend Capitol Hill to lobby for the passage of the organization’s legislative priorities. But just three weeks before the conference, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is facing… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — In the years after he moved to Israel from Uruguay in 1995, Rabbi Mauricio Balter brought nearly 500 South American families to the Jewish state, some of whom settled near his home on the northern coast. A handful of the new arrivals were not Jews by… Read more »

KFAR SABA, Israel (JTA) — Michelle Kolath-Arbel squeezes a nipple, rolling it in her fingers with a look of mild disgust. This model, which Kolath-Arbel ordered from China two years ago for $50, is thick and crude and took three months to arrive in the mail. “It was hard,… Read more »

Martin Indyk, the U.S. special envoy for Ben Gurion International Airport on Jan. 5, 2014. (Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As the Obama administration prepares to unveil a framework plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Jewish groups have responded by laying low. In contrast to the noisy Iran sanctions contretemps between the administration and much of the pro-Israel community, the leading centrist Jewish groups… Read more »

Yakov Burg, CEO of Psagot Winery in the Israeli West Bank settlement of Psagot, says boycotts of settlement goods haven't affected profits in a major way. (Courtesy Psagot Winery)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Of the 200,000 wine bottles Yakov Burg produced last year, 16,000 went to Europe. The possibility of a boycott and repeated rumblings that Europe is planning to label goods produced in the settlements could decrease that number, but Burg isn’t worried. The CEO of Psagot… Read more »

Israel's Sochi-bound figure skaters who train in New Jersey: from left, Alexei Bychenko, Andrea Davidovich and Evgeni Krasnapolsky. (Hillel Kuttler)

HACKENSACK, N.J. (JTA) — Evgeni Krasnapolsky and Andrea Davidovich glide around the ice, shadowing one another to the accompaniment of Nino Rota’s “Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet.” At a rink in this New York City suburb, the figure-skating pair are refining their long program a few weeks before… Read more »

When the Israeli mobile maps start-up Waze accepted a buyout from Google for more than $1 billion in June, each of the company’s 100 employees walked away with an average of $1.2 million from the sale. An even bigger check, though, went to Baruch Lipner, a Canadian Israeli who… Read more »

Fifty-eight Israeli lawmakers marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day at Auschwitz, Jan. 27, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — Watching thousands of Poles dance to Klezmer music just 50 miles from the Auschwitz death camp, Johnny Daniels could feel an ambitious plan taking shape. The experience last year at Krakow’s annual Jewish Culture Festival prompted Daniels, a 28-year-old Israeli and Holocaust educator, to organize… Read more »

Mosab Hassan Yousef, right, is the subject of "The Green Prince" by filmmaker Nadav Schirman, left, a documentary about Yosef's work spying for Israel and his friendship with his Israeli handler Gonen ben Itzhak, center. (Larry Busacca/Getty Images)

PARK CITY, Utah (JTA) — Perhaps the most difficult thing about watching the new documentary “The Green Prince” is feeling that you should not be there, that everyone in the theater should be asked to leave before any more Israeli intelligence secrets are divulged. When the Israeli newspaper Haaretz… Read more »

The Taglit-Birthright Israel program has expanded eligibility for its free 10-day trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18-26, JNS.org has learned. Teenagers who went on an educational trip to Israel during high school were previously not eligible for Birthright trips, but can now participate, confirmed Noa Bauer,… Read more »

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Ottawa in 2012.

TORONTO (JTA) — It took seven years, but one of Israel’s staunchest allies among world leaders has made his maiden voyage to the Jewish state. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in Israel on Sunday with his wife, Laureen. On Tuesday, Harper and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed… Read more »

(JTA) — A timeline of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s life. 1928 — Born Ariel Sheinerman in Kfar Malal, near Tel Aviv. 1942-48 — Member of the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish fighting force. 1948 — Wounded while serving as an infantry commander in Israel’s War of Independence. 1952-53… Read more »