Tagged Israel

The Weintraub Israel Center and the Tucson Jewish Community Library will present “Israel to Go,” an event designed to help participants plan a trip to Israel, on Sunday, March 27 from 4 to 5:30 p.m. in the library, located in the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Guy Gelbart, director of… Read more »

Hadar Susskind

J Street, a pro-peace, pro-Israel lobbying group and political action committee, is often presented in the media as a left-wing counterweight to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. But that’s not J Street’s mission, Hadar Susskind, J Street policy and strategic planning director, told a lunch crowd of about… Read more »

Michael Lerner

NEW YORK (N.Y. Jewish Week) — Revolutions belong to the young, and Michael Lerner is growing old. Tikkun, the magazine he founded and still edits, turns 25 as he turns 68. Lerner wonders how long he can keep doing this. Tikkun is “the largest circulation progressive Jewish magazine in… Read more »

The detractors of J Street, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying organization, like to portray the organization’s leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, as so far to the left of mainstream American Jewish opinion as to be out of bounds. If they think Ben-Ami is too much of a lefty on Israel, just wait… Read more »

Although the 10-month moratorium on building in Jewish settlements in the West Bank was lifted last September, settler leaders complain that no construction is being allowed in the large urban areas and warn that a de facto freeze on all Jewish building in the West Bank is looming. The… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Desert Caucus will lead a “Focus on Israel” mission, Oct. 23 to Nov. 2, 2011. The joint mission will offer an insider’s view of Israeli-U.S. politics “with extraordinary access to Israeli leaders and insiders from all sides of the political spectrum,”… Read more »

Gil Hoffman

Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent and analyst for The Jerusalem Post, will present “Peace, Politics and Plutonium: An Israeli Insider’s Look at the Efforts to Prevent a Nuclear Iran and Advance Mideast Peace” at the University of Arizona on Tuesday, March 29 at 3 p.m. The lecture, which will… Read more »

Members of the AIFL Tucson chapter’s Israel mission visit a youth village in central Israel.

When it feels like your community has grown to include ­people who were previously strang­ers, you know you’ve had a worthwhile trip, says Amy Hirshberg Lederman, one of three co-leaders of a recent America-Israel Friendship League mission to Israel. “What I loved most about this group was that I… Read more »

BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) — It’s March, which means the days get longer and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heats up on campuses across North America with the annual staging of Israel Apartheid Week. Last year, pro-Israel activists countered Apartheid Week events ranging from anti-Israel speeches to the staging of mock Israeli… 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 »

Demonstrator with an anti-Gadhafi sign outside the Libya Embassy in Cairo shows his solidarity for Libyans protesting their leader, Feb. 22, 2011. (Sierragoddess via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — They were the devils they knew. Though Israel lives in a dangerous neighborhood, surrounded by countries whose leaders or people wish its destruction, over the years it had adjusted to the status quo, more or less figuring out how to get by while keeping an eye… Read more »

Guy Gelbart

A wind of change has been blowing through the Middle East. What this wind will bring us is yet to be seen. Will it bring democracy to the Arab world? Will it push the Arab world into the hands of dark fundamentalist Islamic movements? Will extreme ideological regimes like… Read more »

The rapid changes in the Middle East are leading many in the American Jewish community to suffer from “analysis paralysis.” We have become so mesmerized by events in Cairo that we have stopped doing vitally important work to advance American interests and stability in the Middle East, as well… Read more »

\NEW YORK (JTA) — Hosni Mubarak’s resignation Feb. 11 from Egypt’s presidency following three weeks of intense street demonstrations raises a host of questions not just for the future of Egypt and its peace treaty with Israel, but for the entire Middle East. The most remarkable feature of the… Read more »

An Egyptian flag flies from an army outpost on the Egyptian side of the border with Israel near the moshav of Kadesh Barnea. (Dina Kraft)

BE’ER MILKA, Israel (JTA) — Driving along the Israel-Egypt border near this southern Israeli town, rusted metal posts strung with barbed wire give way to sand dunes and an exposed, open border as wide open as the question of what will become of the countries’ relations now that Egypt… Read more »

Smoke from a burning government building fills the sky above the Eyptian Museum in Cairo, Jan. 29. The photograph was taken from a tour bus window. (Joan Elder)

When Tucsonan Joan Elder signed up for a 10-day late-January trip to Egypt to celebrate her 70th birthday, she had no idea that her adventure would be interrupted by massive anti-government demonstrations. Apparently, the Egyptian people were just as stunned by the uprising. “No one expected anything like this… Read more »

Guy Gelbart

On Jan. 13, Israeli Minister of Education Gideon Saar awarded Kiryat Malachi the Israel Education Prize for this year. Kiryat Malachi, a town of 23,000 residents linked to the Jewish Federations of Tucson, Phoenix, and Seattle, was one of 14 municipalities considered in the final selection for the prize.… Read more »

Knesset legislation calling for an investigation of Israeli human rights groups has sparked a fierce argument over who is doing more to hurt Israel’s reputation: Human rights organizations critical of the Israeli government and army, or the politicians who want to investigate them for allegedly going too far. By… Read more »

Not so long ago, few Israelis had heard of Rabbi Chaim Amsellem, a soft-spoken Shas backbencher in the Knesset. Over the past few weeks, however, Amsellem has emerged as a maverick in Israeli politics. Having broken ranks with the Orthodox-oriented Shas and its haredi leaders, he is talking about… Read more »

Reading and watching the news about the devastating forest fire in Israel, I found myself profoundly confused: There were so many reversals, so much was wrong with the picture. We are used to thinking of Israel as being so adept, so professional at looking after its citizens — but… Read more »