By Boris Kurbanov, Special to the Jewish Sound Members of Seattle’s Jewish community gathered Wednesday, June 18 at the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island to express solidarity, love, and support for the three Israeli teenagers kidnapped in the West Bank on June 12. Jews around the world haveContinue 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
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
By Nurit Asnash, Special to the Jewish Sound I had never heard about BDS (the boycott, divest and sanctions movement against Israel) until about a year ago when I attended an “Israeli Diversity Week” at Antioch University in Seattle. These three-day, 1-1/2-hour sessions were initiated by a courageous Israeli studentContinue 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
Thank you Rabbi Hayon for an honest assessment of the risk of limiting our response to boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) and all criticism of Israeli policy with the blunt and stultifying tools of the past (“How much have we lost?” May 30). While your commentary may draw the ireContinue Reading
It’s wonderful that UW students working together, with the support of Rabbi Oren Hayon, StandWithUs Northwest, and others, helped defeat the anti-Israel divestment resolution considered by the UW student senate. But I would like to respectfully disagree with Rabbi Hayon’s characterizing their victory as possibly “Pyrrhic,” so costly that itContinue Reading
How could this newspaper feature on its front cover a handwringing and unnecessarily lengthy editorial about the cost of turning back the BDS (boycott, divest and sanction) resolution at the University of Washington student senate (“How much have we lost?” May 30)? Rather than simply reporting the news on itsContinue 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
By Joel Magalnick Editor, The Jewish Sound Attitudes about Israel can be grouped into three different age groups, according to author and newspaper columnist Ari Shavit, and the gap, he said, is astonishing. People 70 and older can look to the Holocaust and see Israel as their safe haven. PeopleContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News 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 backedContinue Reading
By Paula Libes Chester, Special to The Jewish Sound The Seattle Jewish community came together Wednesday night, May 28, at a packed Temple De Hirsch Sinai to hear Ari Shavit, author of “My Promised Land,” and the Reverend Kenneth Flowers, of Greater New Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in Detroit,Continue Reading
With the reality of another failed round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks sinking in for American leftist Zionist groups, many of these organizations are now facing the challenge of restrategizing and reframing their message to the American Jewish audience. Groups like J Street, Americans for Peace Now and Israel Policy Forum areContinue Reading
While most of us are aware that today is Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), the Israeli holiday that commemorates the reunification of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, most are unaware that another memorial holiday is also celebrated throughout Israel today: Memorial Day for Ethiopian Jews Who Died on the Way to Israel. TheContinue Reading
As the death toll now reaches four in Saturday’s shooting at the Brussels Jewish Museum, some security experts are now saying that evidence from the attack seems to suggest the shooter may have been a hitman rather than an anti-Semitic ‘lone wolf.’ The victims included an Israeli couple, a French woman, andContinue Reading
A decision made two months ago by the Israeli government’s religious court to release a woman from her marriage to a comatose husband was made public Tuesday. The ritual divorce was allowed by the court using the Jewish legal concept of “get zikui” to allow the divorce, as the husbandContinue Reading
A voice vote in the US Senate Monday approved legislation that will award Israeli President Shimon Peres with the US Congressional Gold Medal. Peres joins the ranks of other recipients such as Natan Sharansky, Elie Wiesel, and Simon Wiesenthal. With his term ending in July, the 90-year-old president will meet atContinue Reading
With the search for the over 200 missing Nigerian schoolgirls abducted last month by Islamist rebel group continuing, Israel has send a group of intelligence experts to Nigeria to aid in the efforts. The team, which Israeli official said included individuals with training and experience in dealing in hostage situations,Continue Reading
