By Linda Gradstein, The Media Line [Beersheva, Israel] — The eager students and their projects are all over campus — some with posters, some with models, and some with prototypes. “This system works in conjunction with your air conditioning system,” Idan Admon, a student in electrical engineering said Line enthusiasticallyContinue Reading
By Abdullah H. Erakat and Linda Gradstein, The Media Line As thousands of Israeli soldiers comb every inch of the West Bank in an intense search for three kidnapped Israeli teenagers, Palestinian security forces say they are doing everything they can to help find the boys. Despite anger in theContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Cabinet agreed to reduce the presence of the country’s military in the West Bank and limit its incursions into Palestinian areas 12 days after the kidnapping of three Israeli teens. The operation to locate and return the teens, called Operation Brother’s Keeper, now will focus moreContinue Reading
(JTA) — An American dentist who said he is of Spanish-Jewish heritage is suing British Airways for flying him to Grenada rather than Granada. Edward Gamson and his partner believed they had first-class tickets to fly from London to Granada, in Spain, but once off the ground they discovered thatContinue Reading
Last Friday, June 22, the Presbyterian church announced its intentions to divest from companies that do business with Israel in the West Bank. Several Jewish organizations have spoken out against the divestment, and today in Netanyahu’s address to journalists from all over the Jewish world, he gave his own response to theContinue Reading
By Felice Friedson, The Media Line “Most Palestinians want the [kidnapped Israeli] kids to be alive and to be found,” says Dr. Nabil Kukali, the founder and president of the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, in an exclusive interview. “This will help the Palestinian cause.” Dr. Kukali spoke with TheContinue Reading
(JTA) — Jewish groups predicted a rupture with Presbyterians in the wake of a close vote favoring divestment from three companies that deal with Israel’s security forces in the West Bank. The Presbyterian Church-USA biennial General Assembly approved the measure 310-303 late last Friday evening after hours of at timesContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News TEL AVIV (JTA) — At 3:30 Shavuot morning, more than 100 people are seated on folding chairs singing in Yiddish as men walk around with shots of vodka and cups of coffee. Up front, a man in a black frock coat and black hatContinue Reading
By Sean Savage, JNS.org For most Westerners, Iraq is a foreboding and dangerous place that is filled with extremists and daily violence. Yet as little as 75 years ago Iraq was a vibrant country that was home to many different ethnic and religious minorities, including large Jewish and Christian populations.Continue Reading
TORONTO (JTA) — Canadians were evenly split in their support for Israel and the Palestinians, according to a new poll. The survey by the Toronto-based Forum Research found that 17 percent of respondents sided with Israel in the Middle East conflict, while 16 percent favored the Palestinians. Fully 64 percentContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World NewsTEL AVIV (JTA) — Since the three teenagers were abducted last week, Israel’s goals have been simple: Find them and punish their kidnappers.Realizing those goals, though, is far from a simple task.The international community has condemned the kidnappings, and Israel has spread its forces acrossContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Arab-Israeli Knesset member said the kidnappers of three Israeli teenagers are not terrorists.“They are people that cannot see any way to change their reality, and they are forced to use these means until Israeli society wises up a bit and sees and feels the suffering ofContinue Reading
By JNS.org As the days pass following the abduction of three Jewish teenagers near Hebron, the boys’ families are refusing to succumb to despair despite the uncertainty surrounding the situation. Hamas terrorists kidnapped Gilad Shaar, 16, Eyal Yifrach, 19, and Naftali Frenkel, 16, Thursday night while they were hitchhiking homeContinue Reading
As the World Cup begins its first week of intense competition, a group of Argentinian Jews are not just focusing on the soccer fields of Brazil, but on a greater mission. For Mariano Schlez, Maxi Klein and Damian Beker, the World Cup is the perfect opportunity to make a three-day, 1,700-mileContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News TEL AVIV (JTA) — Blocks away from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and the headquarters of two major banks, in the corner of the lobby of a boutique hotel, Nimrod Gruber sticks his hand into an ATM. A few seconds later, a QR codeContinue Reading
By Abdullah H. Erakat, The Media Line [AL-QUDS UNIVERSITY] — The Palestinian professor who touched off a maelstrom of controversy by taking a group of students to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps in Poland is now at odds with his former employer after the school accepted his resignation. Dr. MohammedContinue Reading
Linda Gradstein/The Media Line Israel’s 120-seat parliament today chose long-time Likud member Reuven Rivlin as the country’s next president who will succeed the popular Shimon Peres, who retires next month at the age of 90. Rivlin, who served two terms as speaker of the Knesset, has been a member ofContinue Reading
By Linda Gradstein, The Media Line Israel has no constitution. The reason, according to local lore, is that the secular majority and the ultra-Orthodox minority could not agree on how to refer to God so they never wrote an actual constitution. Instead there are a series of 13 “Basic Laws”Continue Reading
The oldest man alive of record has passed at 111. Alexander Imich was a Holocaust survivor born in Poland in 1903 who lived through a Soviet Gulag and emigrated to the US in the 1950s. He died peacefully at his home in New York peacefully on Sunday. He had turnedContinue Reading
TORONTO (JTA) — A Canadian judge has invalidated the will of a man who bequeathed his estate to a U.S. neo-Nazi group. A court in New Brunswick ruled June 5 that the National Alliance, an American hate group, may not inherit the estate of Robert McCorkill because such a bequestContinue Reading
