Middle East

By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — Perhaps only Rabbi Meir Azari, the spiritual leader of Tel Aviv’s Reform Beit Daniel congregation, would describe Yair Lapid, the new powerhouse of Israeli politics, as a Reform Jew. That’s not how Lapid seems to see himself. In an article in the English Ha’aretz of January 24, he’s quoted

  By Evelyn Gordon      When the Palestinian Authority (PA) obtained UN recognition as a nonmember observer state in November, many Israelis feared the consequences for Israel: After all, PA President Mahmoud Abbas stated openly that he sought recognition primarily “to pursue claims against Israel” in international forums. Those fears may yet prove justified.

By Rabbi Dow Marmur  JERUSALEM — Though the two ultra-Orthodox political parties, Shas and Yahadut Hatorah, held their own or did better in the Israeli elections earlier this week, their grip on key issues in the country may be loosening, not because they’ve embraced liberalism and moderation but as a result of the character of

By Rabbi Dow Marmur             JERUSALEM — I’m pleased that I was wrong about the expected meteoric ascendance of Naftali Bennet and his party Habayit Hayehudi; my pessimism got the better of me. But I still see Bennet as Netanyahu’s natural successor. He and his party are most likely to be in the government as

  (JNS.org) JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-Beytenu list won 31 Knesset mandates, followed by Yesh Atid at 19, exit polls broadcast by Israel’s three leading television stations showed on Tuesday night. Final results will be published by the Central Elections Commission Wednesday. At 22:17 Israeli time, Netanyahu declared victory with a message on his

  By Yaakov Lappin     The past two months have seen a sharp rise in the number of violent disturbances in the West Bank. Flashpoints have included Hebron, and multiple locations in the northern West Bank. The upsurge has included fire-bomb attacks, rock throwing at Israeli vehicles and IDF positions, and sporadic shootings. The Shin Bet,

By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — There are at least three ways of getting it wrong on Israel’s election day. One: Israel rightly prides itself on its democratic structure. As the country isn’t divided into ridings where the first past the post candidate is elected, in theory every vote counts. That’s why today, election day,

By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM — The good news about 92 year-old Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef – whom the Shas party describes as its spiritual leader but who acts more like its sole owner – is that he has made a complete recovery from his mini stroke. The bad news about him is that he continues

Jewish man who helped Sandy Hook children harassed (JNS.org) Gene Rosen, a Jewish man who found and sheltered six terrified children who had run away from the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary school on December 14, 2012, is being harassed by phone and email by conspiracy theorists who believe that the Newtown shooting was

By Alan Eisner WASHINGTON, D.C. — The furor that has surrounded the nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel to be President Obama’s Secretary of Defense has shed a searing light on the way some political lobbies operate these days in Washington. Some seem to take their cue from a classic Monty Python sketch,“Nobody Expects the