Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz (with binoculars) tours the Israeli border with Syria on May 21.
(Tal Manor/IDF Spokesperson/Flash 90/JTA) For much of the past two years, Israel has taken a singular approach to the Syrian civil war: Stay as far away as possible. But with a recent string of victories by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and the crumbling of the U.N. peacekeeping force that has kept… Read more »
Rose Goteiner believes that her sister, Ruth Konigstein, is shown in the middle of the bottom row of this 1946 photograph taken in Amsterdam. (Courtesy American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Global Archives) The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Picking up her mail about a year ago, 88-year-old Rose Goteiner stopped in her tracks upon seeing the photo on a newsletter cover. Posing shortly after the Holocaust ended, 21 people were standing before… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — How do you confront hatred when it has no fixed address? Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League national director, attempts to pin down an answer to the question in his latest book, “Viral Hate.” Co-authored with privacy lawyer Christopher Wolf, the book chronicles the complications of countering… Read more »
A Star of David in the architecture of the Van Ostade Jewish Housing Project in The Hague. (The Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, www.cidi.tv) THE HAGUE, the Netherlands (JTA) — On a cold winter night in 2008, Wim Kortenoeven was startled by the crackling of a large fire raging near his home on the edge of this city’s last remaining Jewish enclave. Rushing from his apartment, Kortenoeven walked 70 yards and crossed the… Read more »
NEW YORK (Corriere della Sera Online) — His Wikipedia page remembers him, in at least 10 languages, as “the Italian police commissioner who saved thousands of Jews from being deported to Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War and for this was deported to the Dachau Concentration Camp,… Read more »
A Better Place customer charging his electronic vehicle in the company's headquarters in Ramat Hasharon, Israel, February 2010. (Roni Schutzer/Flash 90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — It was supposed to be the car of the future, a near-silent, battery-powered vehicle that would wean the West off its dependence on Middle Eastern oil and save the environment in the process. And an Israeli company seemed destined to build it. Better Place, founded… Read more »
Mimi Gold, an Israeli Reform rabbi who won a Supreme Court case entitling her to a state salary, has yet to receive a paycheck a year later. (Facebook) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s plans to move ahead with the funding of non-Orthodox rabbis appeared to be a landmark achievement for Reform and Conservative leaders, who have long chafed at their second-class treatment by the Israeli government. But even as they welcomed last week’s news that the Ministry… Read more »
Demonstrators in Berlin protesting the deaths of pro-Palestinian activists in a clash with Israeli commandos aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, June 2010. (Sean Gallup/Getty) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israel’s settlement building is increasingly isolating the country in Europe, leading to European Union policies that could reinforce Israel’s delegitimization, according to the top EU representative to the peace process. Andreas Reinicke, the EU’s special envoy for the Middle East peace process, said increasing frustration with… Read more »
Samantha Power, recently nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, listens to President Obama as he announces the nomination of Susan Rice to be the next National Security Advisor at the White House, June 5, 2013. (Alex Wong/Getty/JTA) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Samantha Power brings to foreign policy an activist impulse that many in the pro-Israel community wish was more prevalent among American diplomats. Except Power, a former White House national security council staffer nominated this week by President Obama to represent the United States at the United… Read more »
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, who is to be named national security adviser, meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem, October 2009. (Moshe Milner/GPO/Getty) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Susan Rice has said that a “huge” portion of her work at the United Nations was defending Israel’s legitimacy. Her new job will likely be no less Israel-centric. President Obama plans Wednesday to name Rice his national security adviser and replace her at the U.N. with… Read more »
Dr. Cyril Karabus with his wife, Jennifer, three days after returning home to South Africa from nine months of detention in the United Arab Emirates, May 2013. (Moira Schneider) CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) — Cyril Karabus stepped into the arrivals hall at Cape Town International Airport to a rapturous welcome. A multiracial crowd numbering in the hundreds had turned out to greet him. A minstrel troupe was singing “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem.” And a rabbi stepped forward to… Read more »
Confetti falling over Arvind Mahankali of Bayside Hills, N.Y., after he won the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee in National Harbor, Md., May 30, 2013. (Alex Wong/Getty Images) (JTA) — An Indian-American boy spelled the Yiddish-derived word “knaidel” correctly to win the 2013 Scripps National Spelling Bee. Arvind Mahankali, 13, of Bayside Hills, N.Y., defeated 10 other finalists on Thursday in National Harbor, Md., after spelling the word for a traditional Jewish dumpling. Mahankali won $30,000 in… Read more »
Sen. Frank Lautenberg attending a Holocaust memorial ceremony in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, May 1, 2008. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty) WASHINGTON (JTA) — In 1982, Frank Lautenberg was running for New Jersey’s U.S. Senate spot at a time when Democrats in the state were down on their political fortunes. The Jewish community knew and liked Lautenberg, a data processing magnate who died Monday at 89 after serving more than… Read more »
Chaim Cohen wearing his Google Glass. (Matthew Hersh/Hub City Communications) HIGHLAND PARK, N.J. (JTA) — Over the past few weeks, strangers have begun stopping high school computer science teacher Chaim Cohen on the street. A few accuse him of recording them without their knowledge. Even fewer blame him for all of society’s ills. But many just want an answer… Read more »
Holocaust survivor Bill Kugelman, a Tucson resident (right, in blue), and Bryan Davis, director of the Holocaust Education and Commemoration Project of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, speak to students at the Tucson High Magnet School gallery after they viewed a poster exhibit, “Echoes of the Holocaust.” (Photo: Michelle Fealk/Tucson High Magnet School Gallery) Updated May 31, 2013 What’s not being told in posters depicting the Holocaust? That’s the question Bryan Davis, director of the Holocaust Education and Commemoration Project of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, asked students at the Tucson Magnet High School gallery on May 6 to ponder. The poster… Read more »
Matthew Schwartz has joined News 4 Tucson as an investigative reporter. (Sheila Wilensky/AJP) Investigative reporter Matthew Schwartz’s dream was to be on TV in New York by the time he was 30. The first time he reported on air in 1984 was on his 30th birthday on WWOR-TV News in New York City, says Schwartz. He stayed for 20 years, until Fox… Read more »
The Jewish History Museum will present Abbie Rosner, author of “Breaking Bread in Galilee: A Culinary Journey into the Promised Land” on Thursday, June 6 at 7 p.m. Rosner, an American, moved from Washington, D.C. to Israel’s lower Galilee in the late 1980s. In the process of exploring local… Read more »
The Southwest Torah Institute, the educational and outreach arm of Congregation Chofetz Chayim, has been awarded the Goldman Family Israel Scholarship by the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona and the Elliot S. Goldman and Goldman Family Israel Scholarship Funds. The $2,500 grant will support a scholarship for one… Read more »
Jacob Ostreicher is despondent, his wife says, after spending nearly two years under house arrest in Bolivia. (Courtesy Miriam Unger) (Washington Jewish Week) — Jacob Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox father of five who remains under house arrest in Bolivia, does not believe he will ever be free and often unplugs his home phone because he is too depressed to speak with his family, according to his wife, Miriam Ungar.… Read more »
Anna Greenberg at her brother Isaac's wedding in February 2012. Anna Cela Greenberg, 28, lost her courageous battle with cancer on Tuesday, May 28, 2013. She died as she had lived – surrounded by the love and support of her family and innumerable friends. In the last few days before her death, friends who visited her at Carondelet St.… Read more »
