By Zach and Ali Shuman RANCHO SANTA FE, California — It is the “apparent” random intersection of events that many times leads to profound and permanent changes in the course of your life. Such was the case for us as we recently completed the first-ever donor mission to Israel sponsored by Taglit Birthright Israel. Several […]
The unintended, happy consequences of a Birthright trip Read More »
Travel and Food
By Loren Kantor STUDIO CITY, California — In Jewish Mystical Teaching, the 22 letters of the Hebrew Alphabet are the energetic building blocks of creation. Like the periodic table of elements, God formed all things in the universe through combinations of Hebrew letters (just as atoms of oxygen and hydrogen combine to form a molecule
Notes from the Woodcutter: The Aleph Read More »
Middle East, Music, Dance, and Visual Arts
Story and photo by Judy Lash Balint NITSAN, Israel — There’s the Zionist dream and then there’s the Zionist reality. There are those who dream about living in Israel but can’t quite make it for compelling personal reasons, or who just missed the boat when they had the chance. Others, like Moshe and
Through it all, they’ve been together Read More »
Middle EastBy Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — It isn’t pretty. Israel did what it could to keep the photographers away. It doesn’t play well against the history of Jews having to move from place to place, and encountering borders closed against them. Jewish officials have problems with their own population, ambivalent about providing refuge and the prospect
African migrants in Sinai stir emotional debate Read More »
Ira Sharkansky, Middle East
By Rabbi Baruch Lederman SAN DIEGO — When we adhere to G-d’s commandments, we are a truly blessed nation, as the following true account illustrates: Back in the mid nineties a Jewish advertising executive in New York came up with an idea. What if the New York Times – considered the world’s most prestigious newspaper
The enduring Sabbath tradition Read More »
Jewish Religion
By Ariel Schnitzer RAMLE, Israel — If it weren’t for the Hebrew exit sign that hung above the entrance, I would have never imagined I was in Israel, or rather, the Israel that I had always known. Boys played soccer, girls gossiped in tight groups. The setting was all too familiar–after all, I had
The meeting of cultures in an Arab Israeli town Read More »
Travel and Food
By Rabbi Michael Leo Samuel CHULA VISTA, California –In Yiddish we say, “A Mentsch tracht, Gott lacht,” which can be translated as, “Man plans, God laughs.” If Heaven has sitcoms for the angels and God to watch, life on planet Earth must be really funny at times. God must be feeling relieved. Getting booed from
God must be feeling relieved Read More »
Michael Leo Samuel-Rabbi, USA
By Rabbi Yeruchem Eilfort CARLSBAD, California — Over the past two weeks we have again witnessed some of the great machinery of American Democracy at work; the conventions of the Republican and Democratic Parties. The conventions have certainly become highly entertaining, and frankly, fun to follow. The festive and positive atmospheres, which are buoyed by
God and Jerusalem returned to platform on fortuitous date Read More »
USA, Yeruchem Eilfort-Rabbi
By Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal SAN DIEGO — This week’s parasha, Ki Tavo, contains a declaration that the Israelites were to make after they had settled the land and brought their first fruits to the Kohen as an offering. The declaration begins: “I acknowledge this day before the Lord your God that I have entered the
Coded message, or history, in Deuteronomy? Read More »
Jewish ReligionObama in DNC address: ‘Commitment to Israel’s security must not waver’ (JNS.org) U.S. President Barack Obama, addressing the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night, said America’s “commitment to Israel’s security must not waver, and neither must our pursuit of peace.” Obama’s statement came after most of the Israel-related talk at the convention in Charlotte, NC,
JNS News Briefs: September 7, 2012 Read More »
InternationalBy Ari Briggs In the middle of the Arab uprising of 1936, the Jewish settlement of Kfar Hittim in the Galilee was established, on 2,000 dunams (200 hectares) of land which the Jewish National Fund had purchased in 1905. David Ben-Gurion, who was then the head of the Jewish Yishuv, gave his tacit approval,
Bedouins with help of NGOs grab land in Negev Read More »
Middle East
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. –“I don’t want to be complicit if they (Israelis) choose to do it (attack Iran’s nuclear program),” said Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey. News flash, General Dempsey: You are complicit in the way that counts; you are trapped: the Iranian leadership does not care what we say — or what
Dempsey is ‘complicit’ in downgrading U.S.-Israel relations Read More »
Middle East, Shoshana BryenBy Evelyn Gordon WASHINGTON, D.C. — When Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was first elected, Israel worried that he might seek to revise the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement. After all, senior members of his Muslim Brotherhood party had threatened repeatedly to “review” it during the parliamentary and the presidential campaigns. Yet this idea always had a serious
Morsi changing the status quo with Sinai remilitarization Read More »
Middle EastBy Kenneth L. Marcus/JointMedia News Service Jewish Americans should be concerned about the recent verdict in the Italian libel case that involves parliamentarian Fiamma Nirenstein. In 2008, cartoonist Vauro Senesi published a caricature of Nirenstein that depicted the Jewish-Italian politician, in classic anti-Semitic fashion, as a hook-nosed monster wearing a Star of David together with
Second-stage Anti Semitism Read More »
Jewish Religion