Middle East

J Street reports first official meeting with Israel's ambassador

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release) — J Street founder and Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami met today for the first time with Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren. The conversation, which took place at the Israeli Embassy, lasted approximately one hour and covered a wide range of topics, including the peace process, the US-Israel relationship and Iran.  The meeting

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Middle East, USA

Two Auschwitz Survivors have emotional meeting at Haifa ceremony

HAIFA (Press Release)–An emotional first-time meeting took place at the University of Haifa between two survivors of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp: Miriam Yahav, 83, and Nahum Bendel, 82. The two became connected five years ago, in 2005, when  Yahav spontaneously stepped up to the stage at a ceremony in Poland commemorating 60 years of the liberation

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Middle East

Sharansky, Lau, Peer lead March of the Living

AUSCHWITZ, Poland (Press Release)–Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, flanked by Israel’s former Chief Rabbi and government ministers, led a group of over 10,000 on the annual March of the Living at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camp in Poland, marking Holocaust Remembrance Day, Monday (April 12). “It is easy to say that the lessons of Auschwitz

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Middle East

A short overview of Holocaust commemorations

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–The Holocaust leads all other tragedies in the extent of its commemoration. Numerous countries have an annual observance on January 27th, the anniversary of the day in 1945 when the Soviet Army liberated the largest Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. Some of them also commemorate Israel’s observance in the Spring. It comes

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USA

Holyland scandal continues to dominate Israeli headlines

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–Israel returned from its Passover vacation, and unburdened itself of several files awaiting release from one official body or another. The scandal of the Holyland apartment development gained more weight with the detainment of another real estate mogul, said to have bribed local planning officials with respect to that project, and officials

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USA

'Holyland' Hotel scandal rivets Israeli attention

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–Normally  commentators would be worrying for days about the report in The Washington Post that a coterie of present and former National Security Advisors are pressing President Obama to proclaim their solution for Israel and Palestine. However, that story was below the fold on the front page of Ha’aretz, and is missing from

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Just a peace or a just peace?

By Rabbi Dow Marmur JERUSALEM–Avishai Margalit, arguably Israel’s most significant living philosopher, has recently published a book with the intriguing title, On Compromise and Rotten Compromises. As I haven’t read it, I’m not in a position to comment on it, but one quote as it appears in John Gray’s review in The New York Review of

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Middle East, USA

Doubts that Obama would recognize borders of self-declared Palestine state

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–On Tuesday we read that the Hamas regime in Gaza had reached a consensus with other rejectionist movements to cease firing into Israel. They were not giving up the struggle, but agreed that escalation at this time was not in their mutual interests. Today (Wednesday) we read that six mortars were fired toward

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East

Israel seeking to substitute personalities for foreign policy initiatives

By Rabbi Dow Marmur  JERUSALEM — Mimouna is a colorful tradition that North African Jews brought to Israel. It celebrates the end of the festival of Passover. Activities include much public jollification and eating of post-Pesach dishes made from recipes from the old country. It has also become an occasion for Israeli right-wing politicians (who

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Middle East

Obama facing diplomatic reverses all over the world

By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM–The news was not good when Barack Obama opened his newspapers upon returning to work from his Easter holiday (assuming that the American president had a holiday, beyond a family photo-op at church). From Afghanistan: There are no good options on the horizon, many analysts say, for reining in Mr. Karzai or

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Ira Sharkansky, Middle East, USA