Israel

NEW YORK (N.Y. Jewish Week) — From the highest elevation in Itamar you can see everything but the future. On a clear day, says Rabbi Moshe Goldsmith, Itamar’s mayor, “We can see the three seas”: the Dead Sea, the Mediterranean and the Kinneret (Galilee). To the west, “We can… Read more »

President Obama and Israeli President Shimon Peres at their White House meeting talked about the Washington Post Op-Ed by U.N. investigator Richard Goldstone rescinding his conclusion that Israel had committed war crimes in the 2009 Gaza War, April 5, 2011. (Mark Neyman, Israel Government Press Office)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would launch an international campaign to cancel the Goldstone Report after its author, ex-South African Judge Richard Goldstone, wrote in an Op-Ed in the Washington Post that Israel did not intentionally target civilians as a policy during the Gaza War,… Read more »

Medical personnel clean the scene of where a bus exploded from a bomb, injuring 25 people, near the central bus station in Jerusalem, March 23, 2011. (Abir Sultan / Flash90/JTA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It happens almost like clockwork: Something happens in the Middle East, and it reverberates across the Atlantic with new letters from the U.S. Congress. With so many relatively new members looking to establish their pro-Israel credentials, the reaction in Congress to the recent violence in Israel… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — When David Portowicz was a new immigrant to Israel from Brooklyn in the 1970s, he began research on poverty in Jaffa that would lead to his life’s work: the creation of a nonprofit organization that now serves thousands of disadvantaged children and their families. A… Read more »

ZAKA volunteer holds a body bag containing one of the victims of the terror attack in the West Bank settlement of Itama, March 11, 2011. (Courtesy of ZAKA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Demonstrations in solidarity with settlers and a Cabinet committee’s approval for new housing in the West Bank are among the Israeli responses to the suspected terrorist attack that killed five members of a West Bank Jewish family. An estimated 20,000 people attended the March 13 funeral at a cemetery… Read more »

WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week) — When Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell sat down for an interview before a crowd of nearly 1,000 last year, his interlocutor, New York Times columnist David Brooks, wondered why the political heavyweight had agreed to openly discuss a matter as sensitive as his… Read more »

President Barack Obama meets with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in the State Dining Room of the White House, March 1, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

NEW YORK (JTA) – President Obama reportedly urged Jewish communal leaders to speak to their friends and colleagues in Israel and to “search your souls” over Israel’s seriousness about making peace. In an hourlong meeting Tuesday with about 50 representatives from the Jewish community’s chief foreign policy umbrella group,… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — A new campaign for clemency for convicted spy Jonathan Pollard has racked up a series of big name politicos in the last few weeks: former Vice President Dan Quayle, former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter and Chicago Rabbi Capers Funnye, a cousin of first lady Michelle… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel changed Gabrielle Giffords’ life when the budding politician first visited the country in 2001 and it drew her close to Judaism. After the Arizona congresswoman was shot in the head a month ago, an Israeli innovation invented by an American immigrant to Israel may have… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — This time there are maps — not that they necessarily will help. After the collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000, the Israeli and Palestinian sides bickered about who had offered what, and the competing historical narratives were adopted by either side and around the… Read more »

Hundreds showed up for a demonstration in Tel Aviv's Hatikvah neighborhood against African migrants who have moved into the area in recent years, Dec. 21, 2010. The sign says, "Israeli girls for the Jewish people." (Maariv/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) – For the tall 28-year-old from Sudan who calls himself Mike, life in Israel has become a game of survival. Most days, he earns enough money to buy food for dinner doing odd jobs at construction sites or cleaning houses. But with voices against illegal immigrants… Read more »

Israeli ex-pats were among those who showed up in Los Angeles for an Israel Independence Day celebration. (Courtesy Israeli Leadership Council)

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — The number of Israelis living in the United States grew by about 30 percent over the past decade, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau figures. Some 140,323 people living in the United States today were born in Israel, up from 109,720 in 2000. Of… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — Unless you’re a reader of Islamist websites, you’d probably be surprised to learn that the WikiLeaks trove of U.S. diplomatic cables is an Israeli conspiracy. Wonder why there was so much material about Arab regimes petitioning the United States to contain Iran’s nuclear program? How… Read more »

Women demonstrating outside the Tel Aviv courtroom where former Israeli President Moshe Katsav was convicted of rape and other sex crimes, Dec. 30, 2010. (Roni Schutzer/Flash 90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For years it was considered an open secret in Israeli political and media circles that Moshe Katsav had a habit of sexually harassing women who worked for him. In a nation at arms with a decidedly machismo bent, sexual encounters between powerful male politicians and… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A slight majority of Jewish Israelis has negative views of President Obama, but his supporters are more numerous than previously reported, according to a poll. The Brookings Institution poll of Jewish Israelis showed 51 percent responding with negative views of the U.S. president to 41 percent… Read more »

At least 40 Israelis have been killed in a forest fire in northern Israel described as out of control, Dec. 2, 2010. (Flash 90)

In the aftermath of the deadliest fire in Israel’s history, Israelis this week set to the task of burying the dead, cleaning up and figuring out what exactly went wrong — and who is to blame. Even before the blaze in the Carmel Mountains near Haifa came under control… Read more »

At least 40 Israelis have been killed in a forest fire in northern Israel described as out of control, Dec. 2, 2010. (Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — In a country always on guard to prevent the next tragedy born of terrorism or war, an out-of-control forest fire was the culprit in a tragic bus incident that left some 40 people dead in northern Israel. The bus, carrying police cadets from Israel’s prison service,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A combination of timing, diplomatic considerations and, above all, good old-fashioned noodging has culminated in the biggest push in years to free Jonathan Pollard. Insiders associated with the push, which resulted last week in a congressional letter to President Obama asking for clemency for the American… Read more »

The army conversion case of Alina Sardikov, shwon marrying husband Maxim earlier this year in a wedding officiated by ITIM director Rabbi Seth Farber, has gone to the Israeli Supreme Court. (ITIM)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For years, army conversions were seen by many as a convenient solution for resolving at least part of the “Who is a Jew?” question that hangs like a cloud over the lives of tens of thousands of Israelis. In the Israel Defense Forces, under the… Read more »

Noach Braun, left, and Gadi Yarkoni practice runningtied to each other in preparation for the New York Marathon, July 2010. (Courtesy of Michael J. Leventhal)

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Noach Braun and Gadi Yarkoni run this year’s New York City marathon on Nov. 7, they’ll be tied together at the hip — literally. Yarkoni, an Israeli who lost his sight during combat in Lebanon 15 years ago, will be tethered by a strap… Read more »