By Ben Cohen, JNS.org To properly understand how the Holocaust has been seared onto Israel’s collective consciousness, one should visit the country on the 27th of Nisan, a date in the Hebrew calendar that falls in either April or May in the solar one. On that day, Yom HaShoah,Continue Reading
By Jacob Kamaras, JNS.org Settlements or Jewish communities? West Bank or Judea and Samaria? East Jerusalem or eastern Jerusalem? Those are some of the language choices that journalists covering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are faced with each day—and those choices should not be taken lightly, experts say. “It’s the terminologyContinue Reading
(JTA) — Israeli security services uncovered a Hamas plot to carry out several large-scale terror attacks on Israeli targets. More than 30 Hamas members involved in the plot were arrested in September, according to the Shin Bet security service and the Israel Defense Forces, which released information about the plotContinue Reading
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — A town in central Poland is reconsidering a development plan that would turn a Jewish cemetery into a residential complex with underground parking. The Jewish community of Warsaw and local activist Robert Augustyniak, who is not Jewish, had protested the plan. The City Council in GrodziskContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel and the Palestinians held secret back-channel peace negotiations, the New Republic reported. The secret negotiations created substantial progress toward an agreement but collapsed when it became clear the Palestinian negotiator did not have the backing of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, according to the article publishedContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA) – If they buy it, they will come. That’s the philosophy behind a new luxury apartment project in Israel called The Hamptons in Herzliya Pituach that’s attempting to link two very swanky locales in the service of strengthening Diaspora Jews’ connectionsContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service JERUSALEM (JTA) — Rawan Masalha and Inbar Shaked-Vardi were in their ninth-grade geography class earlier this year when a fight began over the name of their textbook, “Israel: Its People and Area.” “The Palestinian students started saying, ‘Why Israel? Why not Palestine?’ TheyContinue Reading
(JNS.org) Yemenite Minister of Culture Arwa Othman is giving away Human Rights Watch’s Alison Des Forges Award, which she received in September, to Yemen’s dwindling Jewish community. The award honored Othman for her work promoting women’s rights and fighting extremism. On Nov. 20, she called for “tolerance,” dedicating her award to “brothers and friends from the Jewish community,”Continue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A shipment of knives, swords, fireworks and Tasers bound for eastern Jerusalem was intercepted by Israel Police. Police seized the two containers of weapons last week addressed to residents of the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, which has a large population of Christian Arabs. They wereContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israel Antiquities Authority has launched a free app to introduce archaeology to children using games and puzzles. The app Dig Quest: Israel is available through the App Store beginning Thursday. The games were developed in collaboration with Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists and researchers. As they play,Continue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News TEL AVIV (JTA) — On Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet is set to advance a controversial bill that if passed by the Knesset would enshrine into law Israel’s status as a Jewish state. The nation-state law, as it is being called, has support from much ofContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — They all lived on the same street. They had all moved there from abroad. They were all rabbis. They all prayed at the same synagogue. And it was at that Jerusalem synagogue that they were all murdered on Tuesday morning. MoshehContinue Reading
(JNS.org) Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonvitch ordered a probe to examine easing restrictions on gun laws following the gruesome terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue that left four dead and eight injured on Tuesday. According to a spokesperson for Aharonovitch, the minister would examine easing restrictions for security personnelContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — After a gruesome attack by two Palestinian cousins left four dead at a Jerusalem synagogue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu singled out one person for blame: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. In a statement issued by his office, Abbas denouncedContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Five Israelis were killed in a terror attack during morning prayers at a Jerusalem synagogue, including one Druze policeman who died hours after being injured in a shootout. Two Palestinian assailants entered the synagogue and rabbinical seminary in the Har Nof neighborhood of western Jerusalem and attacked worshippers onContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Knesset committee vote on a law to officially make Israel the nation-state of all Jews was postponed. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Hatnua party, on Sunday postponed her ministerial committee for legislation’s vote on the bill known as the Nationality Law. “The explosiveContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Jewish man was stabbed with a screwdriver in central Jerusalem. The victim, 32, was treated on the scene for stab wounds to his upper body before being taken to Shaarey Zedek Medical Center in the city. The assailant reportedly was a Palestinian youth who was seenContinue Reading
By Abraham H. Foxman NEW YORK (JTA) — Each year on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we recall the opening salvo of the violent assault on Jews that foreshadowed the Holocaust and ask ourselves what should have been done at that moment. In thinking about Kristallnacht, we should also consider the outpouringContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Palestinian man suspected of running over three Israeli soldiers with a van turned himself in. Hamam Mesalmeh, of the West Bank village of Beit Awa, near Hebron, surrendered at the West Bank’s Etzion District Coordinating Office, which coordinates activities between Israeli and Palestinian security forces, atContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The International Criminal Court said it will not open a war crimes case against Israel in the Mavi Marmara incident. The Hague court on Thursday reportedly closed a preliminary investigation into the May 2010 incident in which nine Turkish passengers, including one U.S. citizen, were killedContinue Reading
