Israeli soldiers leaving the Gaza Strip seen near the border between Israel and the Hamas-controlled coastal area, Aug. 4, 2014. (Flash90) (JTA) – Now that the latest Gaza conflict appears to be over — or nearly so — it’s time to take stock of the winners and losers. Who won the war? Perhaps more than the other two Gaza conflicts in the last six years, Israel is the clear winner… Read more »
Prime Minister Rami Al-Hamdallah, at head of table, attends his first meeting of the new Palestinian unity government cabinet in the West Bank city of Ramallah, June 3, 2014. (Issam Rimawi/Flash90) WASHINGTON (JTA) — The new Palestinian unity government brought together rivals Hamas and Fatah, but it has opened a divide between allies Israel and the United States. “I’m deeply troubled by the announcement that the United States will work with the Palestinian government backed by Hamas,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu… 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 »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — What happens when the rabbi who delivered the invocation at your nomination inveighs against you? Three controversies in quick succession have earned President Obama opprobrium from some of his most steadfast liberal supporters, including Rabbi David Saperstein, who directs the Reform movement’s Religious Action Center. The… Read more »
Hannah Rosenthal, center, the anti-Semitism monitor for the United States, meeting with English language micro-scholarship students in Azerbaijan, March 2011. (U.S. Embassy Baku) WASHINGTON (JTA) – Anti-Semitism overseas is being noted with increasing frequency by U.S. State Department human rights reports, and Hannah Rosenthal says that’s a good thing. Rosenthal, the State Department’s second anti-Semitism monitor, says increased reporting reflects burgeoning awareness of the problem among U.S. diplomats. “The not-so-sexy part of… Read more »
Jacob Ostreicher (Courtesy Miriam Ungar) NEW YORK (JTA) – Supporters say he’s an innocent man caught up in the tentacles of a corrupt Latin American regime. Authorities in Bolivia, however, allege that he’s a shady businessman with ties to drug dealers and money launderers. What’s certain is that Jacob Ostreicher, a 53-year-old Chasidic Jew… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Famed attorney Alan Dershowitz, former Canadian Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel — three prominent Jewish activists who have joined with other prominent people in a bid to remove a group with a blood-soaked history from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.… Read more »
Alan and Judy Gross at the Western Wall in the spring of 2005. (Courtesy of the Gross family) WASHINGTON (JTA) – For the Jews of Cuba, it was the ultimate Internet connection. The high-tech equipment that U.S. contractor Alan Gross brought with him to Cuba in 2009 to help connect local Jews to the Internet reportedly included a SIM card that makes it almost impossible to track… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — New sanctions targeting Iran’s financial sector and its sale of crude oil give President Obama leeway to moderate their possible impact on oil markets and to use carrots as well as sticks to sway third parties into isolating the Islamic Republic. The sanctions target any foreign… Read more »
Alan and Judy Gross at the Western Wall in the spring of 2005. (Courtesy of the Gross family) DENVER (JTA) — Alan Gross is a Jewish-American contractor who is serving a 15-year prison sentence in Cuba for “crimes against the state.” Gross, now 62 and in ill health, was arrested in 2009 as he was leaving Cuba. His family and U.S. State Department officials say that Gross… Read more »
