Israel

The attack this week along the Israel-Egypt border poses dilemmas both for Israel and for the new Egyptian president. Should Israel accede to pressure to modify its 1979 peace treaty with Egypt and allow more Egyptian troops into the Sinai to quell the unrest there? For Egyptian President Mohamed… Read more »

Participants on a Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona-sponsored Birthright Israel trip hike in Ein Avdat in the Negev. (Courtesy Nicole Walters)

The Tucsonans on the first Birthright Israel trip sponsored by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona had heard rave reviews from friends who’d been on one of Birthright’s free, 10-day trips to Israel — and they were at least a bit skeptical. But this group came back believers. “Everyone… Read more »

(L-R) Tucsonans Donna Moser, Audrey Brooks, Marlyne Freedman and Deanna Evenchik at the Birthright Israel Mega Event at Haifa Naval Base July 12

The faces of our grandparents are with me in early July as I leave for the Jewish Federations of North America Campaign Chairs and Directors Mission to Odessa and Israel with my sister, Donna Moser. Grandpa Nathan and Grandma Sadie came to the United States in 1899 from Odessa;… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — This week, the Deferral of Military Service for Yeshiva Students Law, better known as the Tal Law, expires.  This law is the latest enactment of the so-called “status quo arrangement,” which frames the uneasy relationship between Israel’s Haredi and secular populations.  As such, the expiration… Read more »

Left to right, Ed Hofland, David Rosenblatt and Yosef Abramowitz, co-founders of the Arava Power Company. (Courtesy Arava Power Company)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Yosef Abramowitz is running out of time. With only minutes to go until he has to speak to a group of donors at the Jewish National Fund, Abramowitz looks like he just finished a workout. He’s wearing sneakers, shorts and a white T-shirt featuring an… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It was a weekend of Israel love politically that highlighted two approaches to showing affection for the Jewish state: Go to Israel, as Mitt Romney did, or go pro-Israel, as the Obama administration did. The pictures told the story, or as it were, stories: Romney in… Read more »

Danny Danon, chairman of World Likud and deputy speaker of the Knesset, owes his rapid political rise in part to his unapologetic Israeli nationalism. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – If there’s one thing Danny Danon doesn’t do, it’s shy away from controversy. Danon, a deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset and chairman of World Likud, has come under fire for describing African migrants in Israel as a “national plague,” for hosting controversial U.S. TV personality… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, meets with Mitt Romney in Netanyahu's office in Jerusalem,July 29, 2012. (Marc Israel Sellem/GPO/FLASH90/JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Mitt Romney’s policy speech in Israel covered plenty of bases: The presumptive Republican presidential candidate spoke about the status of Jerusalem, the threat of a nuclear Iran, the “tumult” of the Arab Spring and the “enduring shared values” that bedrock the U.S.-Israel relationship. But there was… Read more »

Israeli Olympian Alice Schlesinger practicing her judo moves with her coach, Olympic bronze medalist Oren Smadja, July 9, 2012. (Noam Moskowitz/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — One is nearing the end of his career, already has an Olympic medal and is eyeing another. The other is a decade younger, an up-and-comer who has enjoyed  some success but is aiming for her first medal at the Games. Ariel “Arik” Ze’evi, 35, and… Read more »

Kadima Party leader Shaul Mofaz speaks at a news conference in Petach Tikvah about Kadima's reasons for leaving the Israeli government coalition, July 17, 2012. (Flash90/JTA)

(JTA) – For the second time in just two months, the Israeli political universe was upended when Shaul Mofaz’s Kadima Party voted July 17 to quit Israel’s governing coalition. Kadima’s departure, the result of a breakdown in negotiations over reforming Israel’s military draft law to include haredi Orthodox Jews,… Read more »

Ze'ev Jabotinsky (Courtesy Rafael Medoff)

The popular image of the Jews who took part in battles for black civil rights is of liberal activists and idealistic college students. Yet several important early civil rights efforts in the United States and South Africa were undertaken by—of all people—officers of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the Jewish… Read more »

Young israelis carrying M-16 and Tavor assault rifles on Jaffa Street in the center of the city of Jerusalem. (Serge Attal/ Flash 90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — First-time visitors to Israel might be taken aback to see groups of armed teenagers walking through a city plaza on a weeknight, or surprised to walk into a public bathroom and see an M-16 laying across the sinks as a soldier washes his face. But… Read more »

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, January 13, 2011. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It’s foreign policy, stupid, at least for the next two weeks or so — and it’s the Middle East, especially. Mitt Romney’s planned trip to Britain, Poland and Israel beginning at the end of this week has shifted the presidential campaign debate for now from jobs,… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, left, shaking hands with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, with U.S. President Bill Clinton in the center at the Oslo Accords signing ceremony, Sept. 13, 1993. (Vince Musi / The White House)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Conflicting voices for and against renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks came to Capitol Hill as leading pro- and anti-voices gathered to recall the nearly 20 years since the dramatic signing of the Oslo Accords. The Oslo document, signed in Washington on Sept. 13, 1993, began the most… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Growing up outside of Chicago, Jillian Schwartz never expected that one day she would be an Israeli citizen. Now the hardest part of her immigrant experience is leaving Tel Aviv — with her roughly 17-feet-long Olympic equipment. “Trying to get out of here with poles… Read more »

Israeli President Shimon Peres, seated second from right, with his country's Olympic delegation for the London Games, July 9, 2012. (Noam Moskowitz/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – Israelis and their Summer Olympics athletes are eyeing the upcoming London Games with excitement and disappointment. The athletes are hoping that for the sixth straight summer Games, at least one of them will come home with a medal. Yet they are well aware that the… Read more »

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, January 13, 2011. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Mitt Romney’s announced trip to Israel, at the height of his campaign to wrest the presidency from Barack Obama, could be a twofer, drawing closer two critical constituencies: evangelicals and foreign policy hawks. A Romney campaign official confirmed to JTA a New York Times story this… Read more »

Guards carry the coffin of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir from the Knesset on the way to his funeral at Mount Herzl, Israel's national cemetery, July 2, 2012. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s leaders paid tribute to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at his funeral at Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery. An intimate but distinguished crowd sat opposite a military honor guard at the outdoor ceremony on Monday evening. Joining Shamir’s children and grandchildren in attendance were Prime… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Yitzhak Shamir, who served as Israel’s prime minister from 1986 to 1992, has died at the age of 96. Shamir had been living in a nursing home in Tel Aviv and had Alzheimer’s disease for several years. He died Saturday, June 30. “Yitzhak Shamir belonged to… Read more »

Family, friends and Israelis pay their respects to former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir as his coffin is seen displayed at the Israeli parliament prior to his funeral at Mount Herzl, Israel's national cemetery, July 2, 2012. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Yitzhak Shamir was Israel’s prime minister, he liked to point American visitors to a gift he received when he retired as director of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. It was a depiction of the famed three monkeys: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no… Read more »