Author: David Leibermann

JERUSALEM — As the sun rose over Jerusalem on Wednesday morning, sirens rang out, signaling yet another incoming missile attack from Iran. This time, it coincided with the morning of Shushan Purim, as thousands of Israelis gathered — despite a prohibition on public gatherings — to read the Megillah and fulfill the mitzvah of hosting […]

Two unprecedented developments took place in the U.S.-Israel war against Iran on Wednesday, as fighting entered its fifth day. First, Israel said its forces had shot down an Iranian plane over Iranian territory, in the first-ever direct combat between the two nations. Second, Turkey says an Iranian drone headed toward its airspace was shot down […]

“I’m not doing this!” the mother screamed. “Tell everyone they can go home — I won’t hold my baby’s Bris while rockets are on the way.” It’s not every day a mohel has to balance such tensions, but when war breaks out, the eighth day waits for no one. The event was scheduled for Shabbat […]

As war rages in the Middle East, Iranian Jews in the United States are experiencing a familiar, almost generational whiplash: fear and hope, pride and anxiety intertwined. In Los Angeles, home to the largest Iranian community outside of Iran including tens of thousands of Iranian Jews, synagogues and community leaders say the moment feels historic. […]

Hezbollah fired on Israel for the first time since a 2024 ceasefire on Sunday, opening a new front in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran that began on Saturday. Israel hammered Hezbollah positions in Lebanon overnight and said it had killed the group’s head of intelligence, Hussein Makled. Israeli officials said they expected further salvos from […]

Six days after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized power in Iran on Feb. 11, 1979, he hosted his first foreign dignitary: the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat. Arafat, seen then by the Americans and the Israelis as a terrorist, was an ardent opponent of the emerging Israel-Egypt peace deal. Khomeini expelled Israeli diplomats […]

TEL AVIV — Spirits ran high inside a large public bomb shelter in the Israeli coastal city of Jaffa, with loud chatter, singing and greetings of “Happy Iran Holiday,” an incongruous soundtrack to the joint U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran and the hundreds of missiles that followed. The room itself looked much cheerier than most shelters, with […]

The death toll is ratcheting up as the U.S.-Israel war against the Iranian regime enters its second day, with casualties mounting among all parties as well as elsewhere in the Middle East. At least nine people, including children, were killed when their bomb shelter suffered a direct missile strike in the Israeli city of Beit […]

JERUSALEM — Jacob Phillips’ first trip to Israel from his home in Germany was in 2023, to visit Holocaust survivors in Tel Aviv as part of a university program. It was cut short by the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, which forced him to leave the country. He returned with his girlfriend this month to see […]