Author: David Leibermann

TEL AVIV (JTA) — A panel at a major American Jewish conference here descended into pandemonium as protesters in the audience shouted down a leading far-right politician. Panelists also sniped at each other over the government’s controversial attempt to overhaul Israel’s judiciary and its threat to tighten immigration rules. Security personnel forcibly ejected multiple protesters […]

TEL AVIV (JTA) — At a marquee conference of American Jewish leaders that kicked off tonight in Tel Aviv, the loudest cheers were for anti-government protesters, most of the energy could be found outside of the convention center’s gates, and the biggest news was who didn’t show up. The General Assembly, the signature conference of […]

(JTA) — In a surprise move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has backed out of his appearance at a major conference of U.S. Jewish leaders in Tel Aviv, just hours before a speech that was expected to draw mass protests. But in a sign that the conference organizers did not expect Netanyahu’s cancelation to head […]

(JTA) — Tensions over Israel’s future have roiled a convening of the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, in a harbinger of a season of Diaspora Jewish participation in Israel’s fierce political fights. First, left-wing and centrist delegates to the group, which determines policy for an arm of the Jewish Agency for Israel, rallied in front […]

(JTA) — She once said that she was “proud to be racist” and has called herself the “mother of the politically incorrect.” She once had a video removed from TikTok for inappropriate speech. And she may be Israel’s next top diplomat in New York City. May Golan, an Israeli government minister and ally of Prime […]

(JTA) — Shake Shack, the American fast-casual restaurant chain famous for its burgers and milkshakes, is heading to Israel. The chain announced Wednesday on social media that a location will open next year in Tel Aviv, which has a robust burger scene — including local chains such as Moses, Burgerim and Black Bar ‘n’ Burger […]

(New York Jewish Week) — Shortly after the State of Israel was founded, Shanit Keter-Schwartz was born on a dirt floor, in a hut made of aluminum siding outside the burgeoning town of Tel Aviv. She was the second of six children, the daughter of Yemenite Jews who had recently immigrated to the new country. They’d […]

JERUSALEM — Walk the streets of Jerusalem on any given weekday morning, and you will discover there’s no shortage of intensive Torah study in this city that symbolizes the beating heart of the Jewish people. Yet among the many yeshivas and seminaries it’s rare to find a beit midrash, or Jewish study hall, marked both […]

(JTA) — Two popular Israeli singers — one the “Madonna of the East,” the other the “king” of Mizrahi music as well as a convicted rapist — have teamed up on a new song in honor of their country’s 75th birthday. The twist: Both Ofra Haza and Zohar Argov have been dead for decades. Their […]

(New York Jewish Week) — A pilot for El Al, Israel’s flagship airline, took to his plane’s public address system on Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, to express solidarity with anti-government protests in his country. Speaking on a Tuesday morning flight from Tel Aviv to New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, pilot […]