Tagged HEADLINES

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 »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — At the end of the month, Mitt Romney will visit Jerusalem. It has become a ritual of American politics for presidential candidates to pay a visit to Israel, but this is certainly not Romney’s first trip to Israel — this will mark his fourth visit — and… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Throughout a half-century of international diplomatic work, I have learned to tell the politicians from the friends and the charlatans from the statesmen. Charlatans scream. They tell you what you want to hear and call other people names. Friends and leaders need not rely on rhetoric… Read more »

Graphic from the official Palestinian Olympic Facebook page, featuring the five Palestinian Olympians for the 2012 Summer games in London. (Palestinian Olympic Facebook page)

RAMALLAH, West Bank (JTA) — A portrait of the two most prominent Palestinian leaders — current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and former President Yasser Arafat, who died in 2004 — hangs in the conference room of the Palestinian Olympic Committee headquarters. The background of the portrait is a… Read more »

Ruth Protas

Ruth Protas (nee Kimmel), age 100, died July 14, 2012. Born in Poland, Mrs. Protas emigrated to New York in 1920, where she met her husband, David Protas, with whom she raised a family.  After David’s death in 1973, she moved from North Bergen, N.J., to Phoenix, Ariz., where… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Rep. Shelley Berkley pitched her bid for the U.S. Senate to pro-Israel donors, the Nevada Democrat reportedly told them it came down to math. In the U.S. House of Representatives, the leading pro-Israel lawmaker said, she was one of 435. In the Senate she’d be… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – For the past four years, Jewish conservatives have been working hard to paint President Obama as too willing to press Israel on Palestinian issues. But the latest Washington buzz could throw a wrench in that line of attack — if, as some Washington insiders are suggesting… Read more »

(N.Y. Jewish Week) — Forty years after Sally Priesand became the Reform movement’s first woman rabbi, Reform women rabbis continue to dramatically trail their male counterparts in pay. A study conducted by the movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis found that women earn as much as $43,000 less annually.… Read more »

Israelis understandably feel imperiled by the misnamed “Arab Spring.” Their country’s three-decade peace treaty with Egypt is under assault, its strategic alliance with Turkey has dissolved, and its closest regional ally, Jordan, is withering from domestic protests. The breakdown in political authority has flooded Israel’s borders with a slew… Read more »

President Obama, flanked by Nathan Diament, left, and Dr. Simcha Katz of the Orthodox Union, displays the framed reproduction of President George Washington’s letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., that he was given at the conclusion of his Oval Office meeting with Orthodox Jewish leaders.(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Nathan Diament learned two things 22 years ago while watching Barack Obama play pickup basketball at the Harvard Law School gym. “He was a generous passer,” he said of the school’s Law Review editor and the future U.S. president. “He was competitive, but at an appropriate… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Call it the age of “playlist Judaism.” That’s how Rabbi Kerry Olitzky describes engagement in Jewish life for the seemingly ever-increasing group showing up as “other” or “just Jewish” on recent American Jewish identity surveys. “I no longer have to buy the entire package in order… 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 »

Aaron Sorkin, the playwright, television writer and Oscar-winning screenwriter of “The Social Network,” is causing a stir with his new HBO series, “The Newsroom,” about the inside antics of a cable news show and its commentary on American journalism. Sorkin’s “The West Wing” and “Sports Night,” among others, have… Read more »

CHISINAU, Moldova (JTA) — To tour the largely empty Jewish communities of Moldova and its capital, Chisinau — once known by Jews the world over as Kishinev — is not to wonder where did all the Jews go but why there are any remaining. Overgrown cemeteries are all that… Read more »

Chief Justice John Roberts, an appointee of President George W. Bush, surprised many in voting to uphold President Obama's Affordable Care Act. (United States Supreme Court)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — American Jewish groups — with the notable exception of the Republican Jewish Coalition — were largely satisfied with the U.S. Supreme Court’s vote to uphold President Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 vote. Nancy Kaufman, CEO of the National Council for Jewish Women, was “thrilled”… Read more »

Michael Levin

I took my twin ten-year-old sons to a couple of Angels games this week, and I was shocked—shocked!—to discover just how little they knew about baseball. I don’t mean to criticize my sons. They know an awful lot about things that I’ll never know. Juggling. Magic. Origami. And technology,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Swedish rescuer Raoul Wallenberg was born 100 years ago this summer, and his centennial is being commemorated with events in many cities across Europe and North America. On July 26, a symposium in his memory will be held at Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — There is a solution to get us beyond the seemingly endless stalemates and complications that continue to characterize the ongoing debate over Holocaust-era insurance claims. And I do not believe it can be found in the well-intentioned bill before the U.S. Congress. This different approach… Read more »

Israel's national lacrosse team practices as it prepares for the European Lacrosse Championships, its first tournament. (Israel Lacrosse Facebook Page)

(JTA) — Israel’s national lacrosse team is clinging to a one-goal lead with 20 seconds remaining when the referee blows his whistle — the Wales coach wants a stick check on an Israeli player. The challenge fails, the stick is legal and the Israelis go on to upset heavily… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — My “Spidey Sense” is tingling! Almost half a century after the comic book superhero Spider-Man was conceived by Jewish writer Stan Lee, a Jewish actor named Andrew Garfield will don the red and blue Spandex for the forthcoming cinematic reboot of the Spider-Man franchise. As… Read more »