JTA Mideast Briefs from our October 3, 2007 Digital Edition

Israel lifts veil on Syria sortie

Israel officially acknowledged for the first time it struck targets in Syria a month ago. Military censors on Tuesday partially lifted a gag order on reporting about the alleged Syria air…

‘Kehillot Tehilla,’ (Heb. ‘communities of praise’), an enterprise owned by the international nonprofit ‘Tehilla,’ the Voluntary Union for Religious Aliyah , will host a workshop about "Purchasing Your Home in Israel for the Oleh & Investor Alike" on Oct. 16 in North Miami Beach and Oct. 17 in…

French Jew defends claim that Arab boy’s death was staged

Ever since Mohammed al-Dura was shot and killed at Gaza’s Netzarim Junction on Sept. 30, 2000, some have claimed the boy’s death was staged for prime-time television.

One of them, the director of a small French media watchdog group…

More than 200 people gathered in Broward County on Wednesday to meet Roi Amitai, the sole survivor of last July’s brutal Hamas attack, which resulted in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit.

Jointly sponsored by One Family Fund, an organization dedicated…

After months of talk of a "hot summer" with Syria and a long battle of attrition with Palestinian Kassam rocket launchers in Gaza, Israel finds itself facing the prospect of a major military escalation on two fronts.

In the North, Syria has warned that it will retaliate at a time…

Allegations of a mysterious cross-border air raid have ratcheted up Israeli-Syrian tensions and stirred fears that a new war may be on the horizon.

Damascus accused Israel on Thursday of dispatching warplanes on a bombing run in its territory and threatened unspecified retaliation. The Israel Defense Forces refused to comment.

Young American Jews are increasingly alienated from Israel, according to a report released this week.

The report, titled "Beyond Distancing: Young Adult American Jews and their Alienation from Israel" and commissioned by The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, generally substantiates current suspicions rather than revealing new surprises.

The major…

AKIM Miami, a chapter of Friends of AKIM (Hebrew abbreviation for: Association for the Rehabilitation of the Mentally Handicapped in Israel) was recently launched thanks to volunteer, Marnique Sparago, who will head the new group.

Well known by the people of Israel and considered the largest organization of…

It’s early morning in the Negev desert, but there’s a flurry of activity along Israel’s dusty border with Egypt, where small groups of Sudanese plot their escape across the international boundary.

On one side lies peril and poverty --crowded refugee camps, scarce jobs and overzealous Egyptian soldiers ready…

Israeli restaurant owners are well accustomed to the question "Do you have a Teuda?," referring to the official certificate deeming all food and food preparation to be kosher in accordance with Rabbinical guidelines. Yet, as a result of the efforts of Bema’aglei Tzedek, a Jerusalem based non-profit organization, consumers…

Various JTA Israel Briefs from our 07/27/07 issue.

Blair visits Mideast

Tony Blair met with Israeli leaders before going to Ramallah to meet the Palestinian Authority president. Blair, who is in the region for the first time since his appointment as the Middle East peace envoy of the Quartet…

Tisha B’Av, Laments for a Jewish State Seemingly on the Edge

Commemorating Tisha B’Av in Jerusalem is a bit of an exercise in paradoxes.

On the one hand, the remains of the Holy Temple whose destruction we lament on this national day of fasting and mourning are just…

Various JTA Israel Briefs from our 07/20/07 issue.

Release roster finalized

Israel finalized its roster of Palestinian prisoners who are to be released as a goodwill gesture to Mahmoud Abbas. An interministerial committee on Tuesday approved the list of 250 prisoners, mostly from the Palestinian Authority president’s Fatah…

The two leading organizations promoting immigration from North America to Israel are sniping at each other as their working agreement ends and they gear up for a fund-raising fight.

A feud between the two leading organizations promoting immigration from North America to Israel is turning increasingly bitter.

The…

At rally to free Israeli soldiers,speakers take aim at U.N.

Thousands of demonstrators showed up for a rally organized by Jewish organizations to call for the release of three Israeli soldiers kidnapped by Hamas and Hezbollah last summer.

But instead of focusing their outrage exclusively at the two…

Various Mideast Briefs from our 07/13/07 issue.

Israel wants united P.A.

Ehud Olmert said Israel does not want the Palestinian Authority to devolve into separate states in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "The solution remains two peoples, two states--a Palestinian state and a Jewish state," the Israeli prime…

Sderot residents are hosted in Washington, D.C.

Stav Cohen, 21, has lived in the southern Israeli town of Sderot her whole life. Not long ago her house was struck by a Kassam rocket.

Cohen’s family survived the attack, but living within range of the Palestinian rockets fired from…

Was last summer's war a wake-up call? 

One year after the Second Lebanon War, Israel's northern front is quiet, United Nations forces are patrolling the border area and Hezbollah fighters have been pushed back deep inside Lebanese territory. That's the good news.
On the other side of…

Various Israel news briefs from our 07/06/07 issue

Katsav complainant considers civil suit

A woman who accused former Israeli President Moshe Katsav of rape is considering a civil suit. Complainant A., whose name has been withheld for privacy reasons, responded angrily to the attorney general’s plea bargain in which…

Various Israel news briefs from our 06/29/07 issue

Israeli forces kill 5 gunmen

Israeli special forces killed five Palestinian gunmen in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. Commandos crossed into central Gaza to search for Palestinian fugitives, coming under fire near the town of Khan Younis. A soldier was…