A force for constructive communal consciousness
Then-Israeli defence minister Avigdor Liberman speaking in the Knesset in Jerusalem, Feb. 19, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – So just who is Avigdor Liberman, the man who single-handedly forced Israelis to go to the polls for an unprecedented second time in a year?
And is he really the champion of secular right-wing Zionism that he would have voters believe? [Read more…]
Newly ordained Rabbi Daniel Atwood is congratulated by Rabbi Daniel Landes at the Jerusalem Theater on May 26, 2019. (Sam Sokol)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – A gay rabbinical student denied ordination by a liberal seminary in New York was welcomed into the rabbinate in Jerusalem, breaking a longstanding taboo against homosexuality in the Orthodox community.
Daniel Landes, a prominent American-Israeli rabbi, granted semichah, Hebrew for ordination, to Daniel Atwood alongside a mixed group of men and women at the Jerusalem Theater on Sunday evening during a ceremony attended by more than 200 guests. [Read more…]
Rabbi Daniel Landes delivers a speech at a conference in Jimbaran, on Bali island, June 12, 2007. (Sonny Tumbelaka/AFP/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – A gay rabbinical student denied ordination by a liberal Orthodox seminary in New York will become a rabbi under the auspices of an Orthodox rabbi here on Sunday, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned.
Daniel Atwood, 27, was informed earlier this year that he would not be ordained after completing his studies at New York’s Yeshivat Chovevei Torah despite the school previously saying it would ordain him. While there has been a significant increase in empathy for LGBTQ Jews in recent years within the Orthodox community, inclusion has rarely reached the level of communal leadership, and same-sex marriage is universally prohibited. [Read more…]
British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses the crowd in Trafalgar Square in London, England, July 13, 2018. (NIKLAS HALLEN/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) – A Jewish advocacy group in London has accused the British Labour Party of “endemic anti-Jewish behaviour” and wants the government to investigate.
The report by Labour Against Anti-Semitism contains “15,000 screenshots taken from hundreds of Labour members ‘and officials’ promoting anti-Semitic views.” It was submitted to the British Equality and Human Rights Commission and seeks a “full-scale anti-Semitism probe.” [Read more…]
An apartment building hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip in Ashkelon, in southern Israel, on May 5, 2019. (Noam Rivkin Fenton/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Despite Monday morning’s ceasefire, which ended two days of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, the “campaign is not over,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Over the last two days we struck Hamas and Islamic Jihad with great force,” Netanyahu said. “We hit over 350 targets. We struck at terrorist leaders and operatives and we destroyed terrorist buildings. The campaign is not over and it demands patience and sagacity. We are prepared to continue. The goal has been – and remains – ensuring quiet and security for the residents of the south. I send condolences to the families and best wishes for recovery to the wounded.” [Read more…]
Isaac Herzog, chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel, speaks at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly, Oct. 23, 2018 in Tel Aviv. He said the Israeli and North American Jewish communities need to talk, echoing the theme of the General Assembly. (Courtesy of JFNA)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Social media are spreading anti-Semitism, Jewish Agency chief Isaac Herzog told American Jewish leaders meeting here, and are “a hotbed of the lunatics of the world.”
“The real dirt of the world comes up from the killing fields of social media,” he told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations at its annual gathering on Monday. [Read more…]
Ori Ansbacher (Facebook)
Friends and family members attend the funeral of 19 year old Ori Ansbacher, in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, Feb. 8, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Jerusalem (JTA) – The unclothed body of a young woman, identified as 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher from the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, was found on the outskirts of Jerusalem on Thursday.
According to The Times of Israel, police described Ansbacher’s body, which was found in Ein Yael near the Biblical Zoo and the Arab village of Walaja, as exhibiting “signs of violence.” The police are examining both criminal and terrorist motives in the case. [Read more…]
(JTA) – More than three-quarters of Israelis believe that Poland has yet to take sufficient responsibility for the role Poles played in the Holocaust, according to a survey commissioned by the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv.
Keevoon Global Research surveyed more than 1,027 Israelis in December, with 76 per cent faulting Poland for not fully acknowledging Polish responsibility for what happened to Jews in the country during World War II, and 49 per cent saying that they see the eastern European nation in an unfavourable light. [Read more…]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the United Nations headquarters, in New York City, Sept. 26, 2018. (Avi Ohayon/GPO)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to establish close ties with the European Union’s Central European members has met with pushback from a perhaps unlikely source: Holocaust historians and activists protective of Israel’s role in preserving the memories of the Nazis’ victims.
Netanyahu has justified his outreach to leaders in countries like Poland and Hungary as a way to counterbalance the EU’s more Palestinian-friendly western states. [Read more…]
Berta, who immigrated to Israel from Ukraine, seen in Jerusalem in 2012. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – For the first time, Israel announced that Jewish immigrants to Israel were outnumbered by non-Jewish immigrants.
The headlines might suggest that Christians and perhaps Muslims have been moving to the Jewish state in significant numbers, but the truth is more complicated: According to numbers released Monday by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, 17,700 of the 32,600 migrants who moved to Israel in 2018 came under the Law of Return but were listed as “having no religion.” [Read more…]