Students in the Tafnit program at the Amit State Religious High School in Kiryat Malachi, Tucson’s Partnership2Gether sister city, eat dinner during a study marathon.
While Arizona high school students have to take a test called AIMS, Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards, Israeli students need to face bagrut matriculation exams in at least eight subjects to finish high school with a degree recognized by the Israeli university system and used by the army and… Read more »
Ghada Zoabi, founder of Bokra, an Arabic Israeli news site, says the best way to improve the lives of Israeli Arabs is to make them better informed about their government's actions. (Courtesy of Bokra.net). NAZARETH, Israel (JTA) — After Israel’s 2006 war with the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah devastated the country’s northern region, most Israelis focused on rebuilding their towns and creating better defense infrastructure. Arab-Israeli journalist Ghada Zoabi turned her focus to the media. Though Israel has well-established protocols for civil defense… Read more »
“You do not come to Israel to learn. You come to Israel to feel,” said a speaker at Israel Independence Hall. My feelings were so deep and profound that tears welled up uncontrollably often on Congregation Or Chadash’s mission to Israel, March 5 to 12. Let me try to… Read more »
Secretary of State John Kerry testifies during aSenate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on April 8, 2014. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration is sticking with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process for now despite a crisis that has threatened to scuttle talks. That’s the message U.S. officials were peddling as a top State Department team was in the region turning over the engine attempting to restart the… Read more »
Yair Lapid says he would leave the coalition if the Israeli government did not "exhaust all options" in its peace negotiations with the Palestinians. (Elad Gutman) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid said he supports freezing settlement growth to help jump-start peace negotiations and vowed that his centrist Yesh Atid party would leave Israel’s governing coalition if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were responsible for the collapse of the peace process. In an… Read more »
Israelis calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard during President Obama's visit to Jerusalem, March 19, 2013. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Possibilities raised during efforts to resolve the current crisis over Israeli-Palestinian peace talks include freeing Jonathan Pollard, a partial settlement freeze, guarantees that Palestinians won’t push for international recognition and a mass prisoner release. Officials close to the talks confirmed to JTA that U.S. Secretary of… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Obama administration is scrambling to salvage Israeli-Palestinian talks threatened by disputes over core identity issues for each side: recognition of the state’s Jewish character for Israel, the release of prisoners for the Palestinians. Martin Indyk, the peace process envoy for U.S. Secretary of State John… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) – In the lead-up to last year’s Knesset elections, the pro-settlement Jewish Home party released a controversial ad showing party chairman Naftali Bennett smiling alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The message was clear: Netanyahu will be prime minister, but a vote for Jewish Home would… Read more »
Yuriy Yukhatsov has been trying to immigrate to Israel for three years, but has been denied due to what he says in an error he made filling out a form. (Ben Sales/JTA) LOD, Israel (JTA) — Sitting in his sister’s living room in this town outside Tel Aviv, Yuriy Yukhatskov says he’s glad to be far from his home city of Kiev. Yukhatskov, 44, says that what he sees as the pervasive anti-Semitism in Ukraine’s capital would grow only worse with… Read more »
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 »
