Author: David Leibermann

(JTA) – As Israel’s new right-wing government continued to signal that it would push through measures to cripple the judiciary and clamp down on public dissent and news operations, thousands of citizens took to the streets in protest and one prominent opposition figure warned of imminent “civil war.” A reported 10,000 demonstrators gathered Saturday night […]

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Devora Zien’s tiny apartment in Bnei Brak runs like a factory, but, she admits, not a very smooth one. With 12 mouths to feed three times a day, single-use plasticware is a basic necessity, she says. So when Israel’s then-Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman increased taxes on disposables in 2021, Zien said […]

(JTA) — Israel’s new government is wasting little time before following through on a central promise made by its leading politicians: to reshape the country’s judiciary and give lawmakers more power over it. Yariv Levin, the newly appointed justice minister, on Wednesday announced planned legislation that would severely limit the Israeli Supreme Court’s ability to […]

(JTA) – A pair of what appeared to be Jews were captured on camera vandalizing dozens of Christian graves in Jerusalem’s historic Old City on Jan. 1, drawing condemnation from church officials and the United Kingdom. The video shows the vandals making a beeline for a large masonry cross inside the Protestant Mount Zion Cemetery, […]

(JTA) — Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s new far-right security minister, visited the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Tuesday, shortly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly urged him to delay the visit because of security concerns. The visit to the site, considered the holiest in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam, was treated as a provocation by […]

(JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu completed his stunning return to power by swearing into office a historically right-wing government coalition and beginning an unprecedented sixth stint as Israeli prime minister on Thursday. After winning a decisive mandate in November elections, Netanyahu spent several weeks negotiating with figures once relegated to the far-right fringes of Israeli politics […]

(JTA) — Former MLB All-Stars Brad Ausmus and Kevin Youkilis have joined Team Israel as coaches ahead of the 2023 World Baseball Classic. The team’s manager, Ian Kinsler, a former Jewish MLB All-Star himself — and a former Team Israel player — announced the news Tuesday on the Flippin’ Bats baseball podcast hosted by Ben […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The op-ed was typical of the Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page, extolling the virtues of moderation in all things. The difference was that the author of the piece published Wednesday, Bezalel Smotrich, has a reputation for extremism, and the political landscape he was imagining is in Israel, not America. Experts who […]

(JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu has signed agreements with the leaders of three far-right political parties that, together with his own Likud party, will form the next Israeli coalition government. On Twitter, Netanyahu, the incoming prime minister, also released his own list of principles for the next government, including among them indications of the governing partners’ […]

(JTA) — Rabbi Chaim Druckman, whose mission was to unite the people of Israel, was father to a movement now poised to sow some of its deepest divisions in decades. Druckman, who died Sunday at 90 after contracting COVID-19, was a giant in the religious Zionism movement, which sought to integrate the two preeminent philosophies […]