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 »
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — “My son, the doctor.” Why does every Jewish mother have to have a doctor in the family? It might be because the immigrant mentality desperately desires a secure and well-paid profession, but in fact, there is a deeper reason why Jewish mothers want a doctor son.… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Hezbollah may have landed a strike against Israel with last week’s bus bombing in Bulgaria, but the Lebanese terrorist faction faces an uncertain future as one of its main sponsors — Syria’s Assad regime — faces a serious revolt and weakening support from once Arab… 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 »
WASHINGTON (JTA) – It began two years ago as an idea by volunteers at a suburban Jewish community center and turned into a major international campaign, galvanizing everyone from President Obama to the mayor of London. And in case you haven’t heard yet about the movement to get the… Read more »
Over the past few days, we find ourselves grappling with the concept of silence in two contrasting ways. First, a silence of indifference, acquiescence and complicity, and second, a silence of strength, principle and memory. In the case of the Penn State tragedy, Coach Joe Paterno and others committed… 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 »
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 »
