Members of HaNoar Ha'Oved V'HaLomed, a left-wing youth group, attending the rally in memory of the slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in Tel Aviv, Oct. 27, 2012. (Roni Schutzer/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — About a year before Guy Ben-Simon was born, his parents attended the Tel Aviv rally where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. It was a night of shock and sadness, they recalled for him while he was growing up. They had called all of their friends, telling… Read more »
Walter Ferguson’s childhood encounter with birds piqued a lifelong interest. Road kill, for most people, is something you try not to look at too closely and leave behind. But for Walter Ferguson these misfortunate animals could be a prized treasure. Ferguson, one of the world’s preeminent wildlife artists, would never wish for a little creature to be maimed. However,… Read more »
Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, of Likud and Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beiteinu holding a joint news conference announcing that their two parties are joining forces ahead of the upcoming Israeli general elections, Oct. 25, 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Political pundits have long debated who is the real Benjamin Netanyahu. Is he a pragmatist handcuffed by his right-wing support base and fealty to his late father’s nationalist vision? Is he a true right-wing ideologue whose apparent concessions to Israeli-Palestinian peace are but feints? Or… Read more »
Israeli police arresting Anat Hoffman after she said the Shema Israel prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Oct. 16, 2012. (Women of the Wall) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Last week’s episode was hardly the first time Israeli police stopped activist Anat Hoffman while she was leading a women’s prayer service at the Western Wall in violation of Israeli law. But this time, police actually arrested Hoffman — a first, she says — and… Read more »
A projection of what Rambam Hospital’s underground hospital will look like once it is completed. (Rambam Hospital, Haifa) When missiles rained down on northern Israel from Lebanon six years ago, surgeons at Rambam Hospital in Haifa worked, terrified, on the building’s eighth floor. That summer, missiles had struck fewer than 20 yards away, endangering the staff and patients of northern Israel’s largest hospital and the central facility… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Facebook page of PlayArt Labs, an Israeli gaming startup, looks more like the homepage of an art museum than the profile of an emerging technology company. It features an article about Johannes Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” an animation of Vincent van Gogh’s… Read more »
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing early elections in Israel at a news conference at his office in Jerusalem, Oct. 9, 2012. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — It wasn’t Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call for early elections that was unusual. After all, only a few governments have served a full term in Israel’s 64-year history. What was unusual was that seemingly everyone on Israel’s political spectrum — from left to right — appeared to… Read more »
U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during an offsite bilateral meeting as part of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Sept. 28, 2012. (Avi Ohayon/GPO/Flash90/JTA) WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not meet, but they ended up sounding not so far apart. Netanyahu’s address to the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 28 in many ways echoed Obama’s speech there on Sept. 25, with both ratcheting up the heat… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at a joint news conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in Jerusalem, Sept. 11, 2012. (Itay Beit-On/GPO) WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the U.S.-Israel relationship, “daylight” is back, but this time it’s Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is being called on to draw down the shades. Netanyahu’s recent sharp rebuke of the Obama administration’s Iran policies has drawn equally pointed pushback from Jewish Democrats. The back… Read more »
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaking at a rally in Nashua, N.H., Sept. 7, 2012. (Marc Nozell via Creative Commons) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Mitt Romney’s pessimistic take on Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects drew some media attention but not much noise from centrist Jewish groups. Only groups on the right and the left ends of the communal spectrum issued statements in response to the revelations this week of Romney’s remarks, respectively… Read more »
(Jewish Ideas Daily) — For those who have been taught—by Peter Beinart or some other recent chronicler of Israel’s history—that Zionism only began to go awry after 1967, Patrick Tyler’s new book, “Fortress Israel: The Inside Story of the Military Elite who Run the Country—and Why They Can’t Make Peace,”… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The debate over an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has heated up in recent weeks, with several current and former Israeli security chiefs coming out against an attack. Here are some of the debate’s most prominent figures, plus what President Obama and his Republican challenger,… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — On the ground floor of a building on a leafy residential street in southern Jerusalem, two men squeeze past each other in a crowded foyer. One is wearing a small, flat, glistening black hat and a long coat, the typical dress of some Chasidim even in… Read more »
Left to right, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyah, President Obama and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the U.N. General Assembly in 2011. Israeli officials told the Israeli media that Obama's refusal to meet with Netanyahu at this year's General Assembly is a sign of tension over Iran policy. (Courtesy U.N./design by Uri Fintzy) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Between the red lines, the deadlines, the diplomacy and the dress downs, the vaunted cooperation between Israel and the United States on whether and when to strike Iran seems to be in a free fall. In an unusually blunt outburst, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sept.… Read more »
French citizens in Israel voting at the French consulate in Tel Aviv during the first round of a presidential election. April 22, 2012. (Gideon Markowicz/FLASH90) NETANYA, Israel (JTA) — On a street off Independence Square, storefronts advertise “La Creperie Galette,” “Nouvel’hair” and “Agence Immobiliere.” Families lounging under parasols at cafe tables chat in French and enjoy a sunny afternoon, Nearby, the Mediterranean waves lap up against tranquil beaches. But in the local language, Independence… Read more »
Palestinians demonstrating against the high costs of living in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Sept. 11, 2012. (Issam Rimawi/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) – Could the Palestinian Authority’s budget woes end up costing Israel? Growing economic protests in the West Bank could lead to increased regional instability and perhaps even the end of the Palestinian Authority, experts are warning. At this point, however, they say the protests are unlikely… Read more »
American Physicians and Friends for Medicine in Israel will hold an Emergency and Disaster Preparedness Course, Nov. 3-8, in Israel. In conjunction with the Ministry of Health and the medical corps of the Israel Defense Forces, the course offers emergency and peacetime preparedness techniques. Local physician Ken Brandis,… Read more »
The remains of the Dar Bishi Synagogue in Tripoli, Libya. (Courtesy Meir Kahaolon) TEL AVIV (JTA) – Naim Reuven was only 8 when he left Baghdad more than 50 years ago, but he still remembers going with his father to catch fish in the Tigris River. His dad worked in a laundromat, a middle-class father of six and one of Iraq’s more… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin apologized to Jamal Julany, one of the victims of a racist attack in Zion Square, during his visit to the 17-year-old. “We are sorry,” said Rivlin, a Likud Party leader. He went on to say, “It is hard to see you hospitalized… Read more »
Cyber security developers like those seen here from Elbit, an Israeli defense electronics company, will need to play an increasingly integral role in halting more complicated computer viruses. (Courtesy Elbit Systems) TEL AVIV (JTA) — As the frequency of suicide bombings increased in the 1990s, Israelis began to realize that their conflicts had shifted from the conventional battlefield to their streets, buses and cafes. Now the country — along with the rest of the world — is adapting to a… Read more »
