Middle East

Israel to Send Protective Gear to Emergency Service Providers in Ukraine

(JNS) Israel will send helmets and vests to Ukraine’s rescue and emergency services, the Office of Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Wednesday. During a phone call between Gantz and Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, the Israeli defense minister said the protective gear will arrive following a request made to the Israeli Ministry of Defense […]

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International, Middle East

ADL Task Force Calls on Administration to Keep IRGC on Foreign Terror List

(JNS) As talks for the United States and Iran to rejoin the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) appear to be stalled due to lingering differences, information that American negotiators may remove the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation from a branch of Iran’s armed forces complicit in international terrorism in an effort to appease Iran

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Middle East, USA

Ex-Israeli National Security Adviser Says Current Draft of Nuclear Deal ‘Must Not Be Signed’

By Yaakov Lappin (JNS) The current draft of the Iran nuclear deal should “not be signed under any circumstances,” a former Israeli national security adviser has warned. Brig. Gen. (res.) Professor Jacob Nagel, who served as acting national security adviser to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and who was the former head of Israel’s National

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International, Middle East, USA

Ben & Jerry’s Tries to Force Food Apartheid

(JNS) For the first time in human-rights history, an international mega-corporation has attempted to coerce a licensee into food apartheid. This unprecedented contractual demand has provoked a turning-point lawsuit that asks whether it is legal to attempt to force a food licensee to discriminate against entire communities, especially ethnic ones. More distilled, the lawsuit asks

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Edwin Black, Middle East, Opinion, USA

Subdued Holiday Blessing at Western Wall as Tensions Clamped to Keep the Calm

By Mike Wagenheim (JNS) Israeli security forces got what they were seeking: quiet. And, to some extent, Arab rioters got what they wanted: a depressed turnout. With Jerusalem on edge and the threat of violence palpable, Monday morning’s Birkat Kohanim prayer service at the Western Wall (Kotel) and activities on the overlooking Temple Mount went

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Middle East

PJ Library Serves Up Stories About Passover and Mimouna

From PJ Library comes two Passover-related books suitable for reading to children.  Meet the Matzah is the kind of silly story that children will giggle over.  In this case, different kinds of breads and matzah have been anthropomorphized as students in a classroom where they learn about all kinds of holidays and the breads that are served.  For example, one might eat naan during the Hindu festival of Diwali and tortillas on the Mexican holiday of Dia de los Muertos. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, International, Jewish Religion, Middle East

Parents: Encourage Your Children to Participate in Student Government

By Elior Amar (JNS) On one Tuesday night in February, a small group of Jewish students at UC Santa Cruz, where I serve as a shaliach (Israeli emissary) for the Jewish Agency for Israel, logged into the weekly Zoom meeting of the Student Union Assembly to support the adoption of a working definition of antisemitism. The

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California, Middle East, Opinion, Science, Medicine, & Education, USA

Iran Assembles ‘Building Blocks for Long-Range Ballistic Missiles’

By Yaakov Lappin (JNS) Iran is gradually assembling the building blocks necessary to construct ballistic missiles with very long ranges, an Israeli missile and space expert has said, adding that Islamic Republic’s elite military Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) “can reach space.” Iran’s space program uses ballistic-missile technology to launch spy satellites into orbit around

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International, Middle East, USA

Reframing the Arguments in Israel and the Palestinian Authority

Almost all arguments about Israel revolve around one or more of the following themes: security, collective identity, freedom, and territory. Authors Gringras and Sterne help us to conceptualize these arguments with a series of analogies.  They challenge us to argue, in the classic sense of the word, about right and wrong in the hope that we may learn from each other. Arguments are different from fights; they are mental exercises, not physical, and they are laid out methodically, with each side trying to educate the other using such tools as logic and empathy. [Donald H. Harrison]

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Books, Poetry & Short Stories, Donald H. Harrison, Middle East, Science, Medicine, & Education

Tradition

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — As Passover approaches the word “tradition” assumes increasing prominence in the lives of Jews — and Israelis. Each ethnic group, and each family, has its own traditions regarding the way the festival is celebrated (cue musical interlude “Tradition” from “Fiddler on the Roof”). This was brought home to

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson, Lifestyles, Middle East