Category: Israel

(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 […]

When Rabbi David Wallach was looking for an institution to help him become a better Jewish day school teacher, he was frustrated to find that most of the places he researched offered either training in Jewish studies or general teacher training. It was hard to find both. Then he discovered the Pardes Teacher Fellowship in […]

(JTA) — The umbrella group for Jewish federations defended its decision to invite Benjamin Netanyahu to its conference in Tel Aviv next week, while praising the protesters who want the Israeli prime minister to be snubbed.  The conference, called the General Assembly and beginning on Sunday night, has historically been the signature gathering of the […]

(JTA) — Marcus Mumford, the lead singer and guitarist of British folk rock band Mumford and Sons, will perform in a pre-recorded music video at a joint Israeli-Palestinian memorial service in Tel Aviv next week, giving a celebrity imprimatur to an event that draws perennial controversy in Israel. Mumford has been involved with one of […]