Author: David Leibermann

(JTA) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned of the possibility of civil war if the governing coalition won’t agree to a compromise on its judicial reform legislation. The statement is one of the most dire pronouncements by a senior Israeli official about the tumultuous fallout from the judicial proposal, which has sparked fierce debate, months […]

(JTA) — A delegation of U.S. Jewish federation leaders is lobbying in Israel against the government’s planned overhaul of the judiciary, a rare step that underscores the degree to which the proposed changes have rattled the U.S. Jewish establishment. The delegation came to Israel for 24 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday, and includes representatives of […]

MIAMI (JTA) — The final result wasn’t pretty for Israel, but it almost didn’t matter. This night belongs to Jacob Steinmetz. The 19-year-old Woodmere, New York, native and the first Orthodox Jew to be drafted into Major League Baseball, Steinmetz took the ball for Israel against the Dominican Republic Tuesday in a 10-0 loss in […]

MIAMI (JTA) — As Team Israel celebrated its victory over Nicaragua Sunday afternoon in its opening game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, there was proof up and down the lineup card of a months-long recruitment process that brought together a slew of major league talent. There was manager Ian Kinsler, a 14-year MLB veteran […]

MIAMI (JTA) — Israel found itself on the wrong side of World Baseball Classic history Monday night as Puerto Rico pitched a combined perfect game, a first in the five editions of the international tournament. The box score says it all. Israel: 0 runs, 0 hits, 2 errors. Puerto Rico: 10 runs, 11 hits. A […]

MIAMI (JTA) — It was a familiar narrative: Israel, ever the underdog, was down and running out of time. Then, just when it seemed hopeless, they pulled off a thrilling comeback. It wasn’t Purim, or Passover, or even Hanukkah. It was Team Israel’s opening game in the World Baseball Classic. Israeli-American pitcher Dean Kremer, a […]

(JTA) — The actor Noa Nishby has gone to bat for Israel on U.S. college campuses as an official emissary of her home country. The philanthropist Miriam Adelson has underwritten multiple organizations dedicated to building pro-Israel sentiment in the United States. And now both prominent advocates for Israel have publicly joined what is turning out […]

(JTA) — Saudi Arabia has taken significant steps this week toward better relations with two countries that see each other as sworn adversaries: Israel and Iran. On Thursday, the kingdom set terms for what it would need from the United States as a price for normalizing relations with Israel: a security agreement of some kind […]

(JTA) — In the early 1960s, a Bulgarian-born scientist named Raphael Mechoulam was caught carrying five kilograms of, as he called it, “superb, smuggled Lebanese hashish” on a bus from Tel Aviv to Rehovot. But he wasn’t planning on smoking the stuff. Mechoulam was a fledgling researcher keen on exploring the science behind cannabis, a […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The leading institutions of the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements are among a coalition of liberal Jewish groups calling on American Jews to snub Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, when he visits the United States next week. But the Orthodox Union, an umbrella organization for Orthodox Jews, has confirmed to JTA […]