WASHINGTON (JTA) — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York, said she changed her vote from “no” to “present” on a bill for special funding for Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome defense system because of the “panic and horror” that seized the moment. Ocasio-Cortez could be seen weeping on the floor of Congress Thursday after […]
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(JTA) — Los Angeles’ main teachers union voted Thursday to indefinitely postpone a motion in favor of boycotting Israel. For months, the United Teachers of Los Angeles, which has approximately 30,000 members, has been debating a motion to support BDS, or the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. The motion was first raised […]
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(JTA) — More than 30 countries sat out the United Nations commemoration of the 2001 Durban conference, notorious among Jewish groups for devolving into antisemitism and virulent anti-Israel activism. “Thank you for your withdrawal from the 20th anniversary event of the UN’s Durban Conference,” Israel’s foreign ministry tweeted on Wednesday as country delegations, already in […]
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(JTA) — An officer from the Israel Defense Forces will be reprimanded after he was filmed injuring and teargassing left-wing activists in the West Bank, with one video showing him kneeling on an activist’s neck. Multiple Israeli politicians condemned the officer’s conduct, with one defending it. The activists were attempting to bring water to a […]
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(JTA) — Israel captured the remaining two Palestinian prisoners of the six who riveted the country with their escape from a maximum facility two weeks ago. Israeli police and army troops surrounded a building in Jenin in the West Bank on Saturday night. The two remaining prisoners emerged and surrendered. They were Iham Kamamji, 35, […]
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(JTA) — Israel will not oppose the Biden administration’s efforts to reenter the Iran nuclear deal but wants to see a credible “Plan B” to rally international support for Iran’s isolation, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said. “The current U.S. approach of putting the Iran nuclear program back in a box, I’d accept that,” Gantz […]
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This Q&A is adapted from one of eight mainstage conversations held at Z3 2020: Visions of a Shared Future, a virtual conference produced by The Z3 Project and the Oshman Family JCC of Palo Alto, aimed at reimagining Diaspora-Israel relations. Americans and Israelis have witnessed a surge in social cleavages — religious vs. secular, progressive […]
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(JTA) — Of all the people to interview on Rosh Hashanah, the Israeli writer and director Hagai Levi is especially fitting. A respected creator in Israeli and American TV, he is known for shows that dramatize two people talking in a room, much as we were doing ourselves, albeit over Zoom. HBO’s “In Treatment,” for […]
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(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has made Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, and his Arab-Israeli coalition partner Mansour Abbas thinks he knows why. “It all comes down to courage,” Abbas, the leader of the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition, writes in the accompanying blurb […]
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(JTA) — The sponsor of a bill that would have made Burlington, Vermont, the first city in America to divest from Israel is withdrawing his legislation, citing concerns that it would promote antisemitism. Councilmember Ali Dieng, who sponsored the resolution, said Monday afternoon that he would withdraw it at the council meeting scheduled for the […]
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