Tagged Yizhar Hess

Regarding “New Israeli shinshinim bring youthful energy to Tucson” (AJP 8/11/17),å how lucky we are that Tucson is one of the cities participating in the shinshinim (Israeli teen volunteers) program, the goal of which is to make connections between Israel and worldwide communities. Our first shinshinim, Leah Avuno and… 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 »

Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is tasked with finding a solution to the growing battle over women’s prayer restrictions at the Western Wall. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — He brought unprecedented attention to the plight of Soviet Jewry. He stood up to the KGB. He survived nine years in Siberia. He served in Israel’s fractious government. Now, Natan Sharansky is facing his next challenge: finding a solution to the growing battle over women’s… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Growing up secular in Tel Aviv, Gilad Kariv often would spend Saturdays hiking around rural Israel with his family, appreciating its nature and telling its history. But one Shabbat early in his childhood, Kariv decided to go to his neighborhood Orthodox synagogue. “To the place my… Read more »

Israeli police arresting Anat Hoffman after she said the Shema Israel prayer at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Oct. 16, 2012. (Women of the Wall)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Last week’s episode was hardly the first time Israeli police stopped activist Anat Hoffman while she was leading a women’s prayer service at the Western Wall in violation of Israeli law. But this time, police actually arrested Hoffman — a first, she says — and… Read more »

Last month, a contingent of leaders from the North American Conservative movement returned to the United States. All the members of this mission, rabbis, congregation leaders and philanthropists, had already been to Israel dozens of times. They are major activists in Jewish Federations, AIPAC, Hadassah, you name it. They… Read more »

Yizhar Hess, executive director of the Masorti movement in Israel, right, with then-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in Jerusalem at the Bar Mitzvah of Emanuel’s son, Zach, on May 30, 2010

Yizhar Hess is the executive director and CEO of the Masorti (Conservative) movement in Israel. He is a former community shaliach and director of the Israel Center in Tucson.… Read more »