By David Shayne, Special to JTNews “Haviva Reick: A Kibbutz Pioneer’s Mission and Fall behind Nazi Lines” by Zeev and Tehila Ofer (FAWNS, $16). Toward the end of World War II, the British and the Haganah (the underground army of pre-Israel Jewish Palestine) collaborated to train and insert some threeContinue 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
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
(JNS.org) The undergraduate student government at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) voted to divest from American companies that do business in Israel. According to the Daily Bruin, the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) voted 8-2-2 for the measure that calls for the University of California to divest from AmericanContinue 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
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) — 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
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) – The Israeli government has adopted a major reform expected to ease the path to conversion for hundreds of thousands of Israelis now prohibited from marrying in the Jewish state. In the most significant response in decades to the estimatedContinue Reading
Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, The Jewish Sound A few hours before my call with Peter Beinart, an East Jerusalem man drove into a crowd of people at a Jerusalem light rail station, killing a three-month-old baby. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas of inciting violence,Continue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The epidemic of violence permeates every sector of Israel, the country’s president, Reuven Rivlin, said in an address.“It is time to honestly admit that Israeli society is ill – and it is our duty to treat this disease,” Rivlin told the Israel Academy of Sciences and HumanitiesContinue Reading
By Eugene Lipitz, Special to The Jewish Sound When my daughter Sophie went to Israel, one moment for her seemed a profoundly transformational experience. It wasn’t seeing the Western Wall or the huge variety of Jewish people so different from her own experience. It wasn’t even going to a venture capital meetingContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — The music pounded, the liquor flowed, dancers filled the floor and khinkali meat dumplings and kababi skewers — staples of traditional Georgian cuisines — sat on almost every table. That was back in February, before Nana Shrier, the owner ofContinue Reading
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA World News Service THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — Loading a newly released video of a beheading in Syria on his smartphone, Nabil Abuznaid, the Palestinians’ ambassador here, shakes his head in disbelief. “Look at those animals,” he says, referring to the fighters from the ISIS jihadistContinue Reading
(JTA) — Religious Jewish teens are far less likely to attempt suicide than their secular Jewish counterparts, a new study finds.The study, led by researchers from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine and Clalit Health Service’s Geha Mental Health Center, and published last week in the journal European Psychology,Continue Reading
(JTA) — Israel’s Health Ministry issued a warning declaring that therapies aimed at changing patients from gay to straight are not supported by medical evidence and could be harmful.Signed by Health Minister Yael German, Sunday’s decision adopts the position of the Council of Psychologists and the Israel Psychological Association.The HealthContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service ARIEL, West Bank (JTA) — The small cardboard box in Elyashiv Drori’s palm looks like it’s full of black pebbles. Closing the box quickly, he explains that it cannot be open for long. The pebble-like pieces, which were uncovered in an archaeological dig near Jerusalem’sContinue Reading
By Boris Kurbanov, Special to The Jewish Sound Last October, America’s favorite travel guru Rick Steves left for Israel with one goal: To “show both narratives” and help people in the West better understand the players involved in the Holy Land. There, he filmed his latest TV travelogue, “Rick Steves’Continue Reading
