By Norma Zager/JNS.org Those of the mindset that religions are inherently at war with one another must have a difficult time reconciling the friendship between the State of Israel and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Yet, in the real world, it makes perfect sense. Muslim countries that use Islam—aContinue Reading
Emily K. Alhadeff Associate Editor, The Jewish Sound Two powerful dance performances by noted Israeli choreographers sashay onto Seattle stages in April. Although “sashay” is too balletic word to describe and Emanuel Gat’s “Preludes et Fugues” and Ohad Naharin’s “Minus 16.” Both Gat and Naharin are contemporary dancers trained inContinue Reading
Ari Rudolph, Special to The Jewish Sound NEW YORK (JTA) — A key component that unifies a people or nation is a common language. The Jewish people are no exception; the Hebrew language is an essential element of what constitutes the Jewish nation. Hebrew often is the only common languageContinue Reading
Foreign Minister of Israel Avigdor Liberman has proposed that the State of Israel budget $365 million annually for Diaspora education, the objective of which is “to serve as an antidote to rising assimilation, intermarriage, and disengagement from the Jewish community.” A threshold question is how many additional students can beContinue Reading
By Julie Wiener, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA)—A Religion News Service article about the PJ Library is headlined “Free books — 10 million of them — help keep Jewish kids Jewish.” Now the foundation behind the widely lauded nine-year-old program—which distributes free books to more than 130,000 JewishContinue Reading
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA World News Service (JTA)—He calls his troops “the Blue Helmets of Maidan,” but brown is the color of the headgear worn by Delta—the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution. Under his helmet, he also wearsContinue Reading
By Amelia Katzen, JNS.org “The most difficult thing to overcome is their terror,” the young doctor said softly. “All their lives they have been told that Israelis are evil, they are the devil. They come to us because they have no choice. But they are terrified.” Dr. Sasha S., aContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA)—Just how open should Jewish institutions be when it comes to talking about Israel? That’s the question at the center of a flurry of controversies over the last few days involving Jewish museums, an Orthodox high school and Hillel chapters onContinue Reading
By Talia Lavin and Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA World News Service (JTA)—The turmoil in Ukraine has left one of Europe’s largest Jewish communities on edge. After an outbreak of violence in Kiev last week that left dozens of protesters and policemen dead, President Viktor Yanukovych fled the capital and parliament installedContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service JERUSALEM (JTA)—A billboard in central Tel Aviv features a black-and-white photo of a distressed woman above a caption in bold red letters that reads, “The pain and remorse from my abortion accompany me every day.” The billboard is an advertisement for Efrat, anContinue Reading
By , JNS.org (JNS.org) Jewish organizations have set up emergency assistance for Ukraine’s roughly 200,000-member Jewish community amid ongoing political unrest there. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) said that it is providing immediate assistance in areas of Kiev, Ukraine’s capital, to ensure that elderly Jews and people withContinue Reading
By , JTA World News Service (JTA)—Spanish Muslims urged their government to grant citizenship to descendants of Muslims who were expelled from Spain in addition to Jews. The demand was made this week in a statement by the Association for Historical Legacy of Al-Andalus, the Spanish news agency EFE reportedContinue Reading
By Maayan Jaffe, JNS.org Sexual abuse of minors has for many years been among the most controversial and suppressed issues in the Jewish community. An inaugural conference in Israel next month will, at the very least, contribute to the conversation on that issue. “The mere fact that we are talkingContinue Reading
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTNews Correspondent (JTA)—When Farida Trichine and 11 of her friends burst into a French supermarket in 2009 and began applying stickers with anti-Israel slogans to vegetables imported from the Jewish state, she expected to be escorted from the store by police. What she didn’t expect was toContinue Reading
As the founding chair of Israel advocacy group StandWithUs Northwest, Basker is now a public speaker on modern Israel, its politics, government, people, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict runs Broader View — Beyond the Headlines: Context and Perspectives on Israel and the Middle East.Continue Reading
By JTA News Desk, JTA World News Service Spain’s Jewish community congratulated the government for approving a bill proposing to facilitate the naturalization of Sephardic Jews of Spanish descent. Last Friday, Spain’s government approved the bill, which was filed in January by the ruling Popular Party and proposes to amendContinue Reading
