יום שני, ג׳ תשרי תשפ״זMonday, September 14, 2026
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By JTA
Milan’s Jewish community has condemned a meeting of European extreme right-wing movements held at a Milan hotel Friday and Saturday. In a statement, the Milan Jewish community expressed “alarm” at the meeting, which is to include representatives of Hungary’s Jobbik Party, the French National Front and Britain’s British National Party, among others. They all form […]
Examining a choice selection of drawings done by Itshak Holtz over 30 years ago is a rare pleasure that allows for the appreciation of his unique sensitivity and insights. I was afforded that pleasure at the inaugural exhibition of the Betzalel Gallery in Crown Heights this past May. Although this modest selection of 25 drawings and watercolors of this paradigmatic frum artist ranges from 1963 to 1999, the majority of the works is from the 1970s and reveals a special aspect of his inner artistic soul. The selection of images could easily narrate the fabric of ordinary Jewish life.
Earlier this year I was presenting my survey of Jewish art, “A Jewish Art Primer,” in a West Hartford, Connecticut synagogue and during the intermission a local artist, David Holzman, introduced himself to me. He relayed his rich and fascinating artistic background and then produced a portfolio of 8 black and white prints that he generously gave to me as a gift. As a tantalizing glimpse into recent work, they are truly amazing and I would like to share them with you.
Fighting during World War II took on special significance for U. S. Jewish servicemen and women in the 1940's. They understood that they were fighting a double war - one against the Axis of Evil, and one against blatant world anti-semitism. As Americans, they fought to protect their country, and as Jews they fought to protect their brethren suffering Nazi persecution.
By JTA
Rabbi Pesach Lerner will step down as head of the National Council of Young Israel, the organization said. Lerner decided not to resume his role as executive vice president of the organization – a position he has held for more than 20 years – following a six-month working sabbatical, Young Israel said in a statement […]
One does not have to be superstitious to recognize facts. It is a historical fact that the period between the Seventeenth of Tammuz and the Tenth of Av was plagued by recurring tragedies.
By Alex Abel
Jeremy Gimpel and Ari Abramowitz gave a Bayit Yehudi Party and many "Anglos" showed up. It started up looking too much like a late-night TV show, but then it got more interesting when they brought out two of the candidates running for head of the party: Naftali Bennett and Daniel Hershkowitz took the stage and started dreaming in earnest.
The photo of homosexual soldiers on the IDF’s official website should have set off many alarm bells for many public figures. But they were all afraid. The heavy-handed politically correct code paralyzes our representatives. They prefer to remain silent and let somebody else fend off the arrows that are sure to come. MK Uri Ariel (National Union) deserves our appreciation and admiration, as he was the only MK to courageously state the simple truth by calling on the IDF to conduct itself on this issue as it has in the past.
By Alan Magill
You don’t become a ba’al teshuvah overnight. There were many events in my life that contributed to the deepening of my religious commitment, including a party I attended with young, beautiful church members who tried to make me one of them, and how I met their “Jewish priest.” (I’ll discuss both experiences during the course of this continuing column.)
A 17 year-old student from the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, where gunman Mohammed Merah murdered three children and an administrator last March, was attacked violently on a train Wednesday night in Lyon, according to the French Interior Ministry. Neither of the perpetrator has been summoned for questioning on Thursday morning, after having been caught by the train’s controller.
By JTA
Online anti-Semitism in Spain doubled in volume last year, according to a Spanish Jewish community monitor. In a report on anti-Semitism in Spain in 2011, the Observatory on Anti-Semitism in Spain counted more than 1,000 anti-Semitic sites and web pages that the observatory says were created in Spain. In 2010 the observatory counted only 400 […]
By Tzvi Fishman
Surveys reveal that only about 15% of Diaspora Jews have visited Israel. To me, that’s simply shocking. How can it be that God gave us back our homeland and so many Jews don’t come? You can say it is hard to move to a country far away, but what’s the big deal about coming for a visit? It certainly isn’t because of the money. Snorkeling in the Caribbean, and enjoying a gondola ride along stinking, garbage-filled sewers of Venice, cost about the same.
Credit goes to the American people too for taking Edon Pinchot into their hearts. Americans didn’t see a Kipa – even though it was very obviously upon his head. They saw a talented young boy singing his heart out. And they loved it.
“If you put Google, Apple, and Microsoft together, it still doesn’t compare to the miracles of Jewish renaissance I have witnessed in this country,” I said to two reporters from The New York Times and Moscow Times.
The Jewish Press joins Jews around the world in mourning the death, at age 96, of Yitzhak Shamir, a key leader in Israel’s fight for independence who later served as a top Mossad official, speaker of the Knesset, foreign minister and prime minister.
We expected to learn how to handle weapons and hone self-defense skills. I did not expect to have one of the most moving days of my life.
By Alex Abel
Today's blog round-up is from the younger set. Still meant to be read by people of all ages, these blogs talk about modesty, Twitter sayings and the power of the Jew-fro.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai Fleisher is joined by Alternative Peace Activist Yehuda HaKohen to discuss the roots and life of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.
When a Reform summer camp in Mississippi invited an Orthodox summer camp for a Fourth of July celebration, the get-together became national Jewish news. The onslaught of publicity caught both camps off-guard. One camp director explained that in the deep South, Jewish camps offers a place where Jewish campers “get to be in the majority instead of the minority.”
By Moshe Herman
Yishai and Malkah talk about a recent trip to Netanya along with a new Jewish prize and Russian President Vladimir Putin's trip to Israel.
By Danny Danon
I had the honor of spending an evening with the former Prime Minister. I was enthralled with his stories and life lessons, especially with his core conviction that a leader must truly believe in and be ready to defend his policies. If a leader does so, he told me, there is no need to worry about the criticism that will inevitably follow any brave decision.
Absurd, isn’t it - Israel should take a loan to support an organization that officially considers Jews the offspring of apes and pigs and venerates ‘heroes’ like Samir Kuntar and Dalal Mughrabi whose heroism consisted of murdering Jewish children?
By Tzvi Fishman
In my family alone, except for my brother, all of my cousins and second cousins married out of the faith – all of them. Finished. Kaput. The end of the line. After 5000 years of clinging to being Jewish, generation after generation, through times of harsh and often murderous oppression, the candle was snuffed out in the love boat of America.
The Jewish Hospital in Berlin has suspended all religious circumcisions of children following a ruling delivered by a German court banning the practice.
When Free Speech Collides with Hate Speech, Truth is the Remedy.
A monumental synagogue building dating to the Late Roman period (ca. 4th-5th centuries C.E.) has been uncovered in archaeological excavations at the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq in Israel's Galilee.
By Tzvi Fishman
Being Jewish is a nationality, not merely a religion. We Jews are the Children of Israel. We are members of the Nation of Israel. It doesn’t matter where we live. Only because of having been exiled from our own Jewish Land and scattered to foreign countries for the last 2000 years do we mistakenly think we are members of those foreign, gentile nationalities. Yes, a Jew may have citizenship in the United States or France, but he is still, first and foremost a Jew.
If there’s any story inside the Jewish community that closely parallels the sexual abuse cover-up inside the Catholic Church, it’s the story of Avrohom Mondrowitz.
No one who boycotts Israel wants a specific demand met, what they want is an excuse for unleashing that overpowering hatred that Wagner tried to rationalize by claiming that Jews were incapable of creating true music and that the left rationalizes by claiming that the Jewish State is starving babies. The elaborate explanations are not the content, they are the context, they make the hatred, which is the end, seem like it is only the means to a noble end.
By Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency
MK Uri Ariel of the National Union and Knesset hopeful Naftali Bennett offer their alternatives to the "Land for Peace" formula.
British police reported that the shots fired in front of Manchester’s Yeshivat Shaarei Torah around 2 AM last night were aimed at the yeshiva and did not happen by accident. The yeshiva is located in the mostly Jewish neighborhood of Broughton Park.
By JTA
The Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is set to open next year, will receive a $7 million grant from two Jewish philanthropic foundations. The gift from the Koret and Taub Foundations will finance eight galleries that will take visitors through 1,000 years of Jewish history in Poland. The exhibits will include a […]
When I recently wished a friend “Mazal Tov” on his daughter’s engagement, I broached the issue of prenuptial agreements in accordance with Jewish law. My friend, a rosh yeshiva, turned to me and said, “Of course they’re signing one. People who don’t sign halachic prenuptial agreements are stupid.”
By Tzvi Fishman
To all of my beloved Jewish brothers and sisters in America, go ahead and eat your hot dogs. Drink your beer. But don’t think that the Fourth of July is really Independence Day for you. Remember that your nation is Israel, not America. Your hearts should beat proudly when you see the Star of David blowing in the wind, not the Stars and Stripes. And always remember that you are only in America, temporarily, because of the curse of galut.
By Barry Rubin
An Egyptian friend visited China a few years ago and asked a counterpart, “China has been the victim of so much oppression and imperialism. How do you deal with that?” The response was, “We got over it.” My friend was astonished, but he realized that his own society would be far better off if it eschewed the politics of revenge and bitter hatred. In contrast, Israel and China share a focuses on positive national construction, raising living standards, and seeking peace.
From elected officials to people in the street, from the highly educated secular upper class to yeshiva students to the working poor, numerous Israelis seem to share a lexicon and intellectual framework which denigrates and dehumanizes Africans, belittles their suffering, and trivialized their plight.
By Tibbi Singer
Laurence Gavron was born in France to a Jewish family. She's lived in Dakar, Senegal, for the past ten years, where she is a film director and a writer. And she's running for parliament, a white, Jewish woman in a black, African country. “If all the people who have said they will vote for me really do vote for me, then I shall certainly be elected," she said. We urge our readers in Senegal to get out early to vote this Sunday.
By Tzvi Fishman
"Word came that hundreds of Arabs were gathering in front of the Hevron police station, demanding the dismantlement of the Shoshana settlement. Not wanting to miss the action, the reporters scattered like roaches to their cars. For all of his supposed extremism, Caleb Cohen was right. It seemed that all the brewing tension of the Middle East had surfaced in Meir's backyard."
By JTA
The Americafest celebration next week, which will bring campers from the Orthodox Camp Darom in Grenada, Miss., to the Union for Reform Judaism's Henry S. Jacobs Camp in Utica, Miss., was made possible by a grant from the Foundation for Jewish Camp. The celebration will mark the first time the two camps have come together […]
By dvora
We recently layned Parshas Naso which contains the Biblical source for the obligation of a married woman to cover her hair. An eesha sotah is a woman whose husband suspects her of having acted immorally. The Torah commands the Kohein to take various steps to demonstrate that the sotah has deviated from the modest and loyal path of most married Jewish women (Rashi 5:15-27). Among the procedures, the pasuk clearly states: “ufora es rosh haisha…” and he shall uncover the hair of the head of the woman (5:18).
Question: It is known that some sephardim generally arrive at a simcha a few hours subsequent to the time noted on the invitation. Is there any logic behind this custom?
Their hopes that Beit El will swell in growth did not ease the pain of parting from the homes they had cultivated on the same mountain upon which Jewish tradition states Jacob had a dream of angels ascending and descending a ladder – the mountain upon which the Jewish people earned the name Israel.
In a speech delivered in Tehran, Vice President Mohammad-Reza Rahimi accused the Jewish people of spreading illegal drugs around the world, killing Black babies, starting the Bolshevik Revolution and causing many of the world's other ills.
The French traveler Nicolay, who in 1551 accompanied Jews exiled from France to Constantinople, depicted the life, activities, trade and traffic, culture, and the social setting of the Jews in the following manner:
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
It is a scene that still has the power to shock and disturb. The people complain. There is no water. It is an old complaint and a predictable one. That’s what happens in a desert. Moses should have been able to handle it in his stride. He has been through far tougher challenges in his time. Yet suddenly he explodes into vituperative anger:
By Hillel Fendel and Chaim Silberstein / KeepJerusalem.org
Just 15 miles to the north of Jerusalem, the Jewish effort to return to the biblical heartland of Judea and Samaria (Yesha) suffered a severe blow this week – or did it?
By Tzvi Fishman
Normally I hate the Germans, but I have to give them credit on this one! Let their banning of brit milah be a reminder to our Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora that we don’t belong in foreign lands. Unfortunately, I doubt whether the new law will affect the Jews of Germany in any meaningful way. After all, if the slaughter of 6 million didn’t make them think twice about living in that polluted, blood-stained gentile land, this new measure isn’t liable to wake them up either.
By JTA
A whistle-blowing Budapest rabbi was questioned by police for what has been described as misuse of sensitive private information stemming from a personal conflict within the Jewish community. Rabbi Zoltan Radnoti this week was finger-printed, photographed, and interrogated at a local police station. The investigation stems from a case last year, in which Radnoti revealed […]
I have tried to lead a life in which the core values are Ahavas Torah and Ahavas Yisrael. To the extent I have succeeded I did so by taking an unusual route – one I do not generally recommend. I moved into the Torah world and Torah learning after I already had a sophisticated secular education and a clear path to a wide choice of prestigious professional opportunities.
By dvora
Music played loudly while the men danced. On the women’s side of the mechitzah, we tried to speak over the sounds. I leaned over the table to hear what my co-worker’s wife was saying.
By Michael Snow, Israel Campus Beat
During their summer breaks away from lecture halls and libraries, many undergraduate students assume leadership roles as counselors and mentors to a younger generation in camps across the country. Camps across the Jewish spectrum feature programming, discussions and classes aimed at developing staff members into pro-Israel campus activists.
By JTA
A man in an Elmo costume was ejected from Central Park and hospitalized after going on an anti-Semitic rant in the middle of the New York landmark. While the man’s name was not released because he was not arrested. Police said that Monday's incident was not the first time he had been dressed as the […]
Andy Statman says the time of Klezmer has passed. Having just received the NEA National Heritage Fellowship in June for his work in bluegrass and Klezmer music, Statman admits Klezmer used to be his substitute for Jewish observance. Now that he is an Orthodox Jew, he no longer feels the need to play the music.
Two years ago, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on a visit to Moscow, proposed the idea of a monument in Israel commemorating the sacrifices of the Red Army on behalf of Jews, President Putin promised to come to Israel for the inauguration ceremony.
About 50 of the 700 donors who attended the retreat this weekend in Park City were Jewish. Romney dropped in on the session, and said he had just been briefed by the Israeli ambassador. But the Romney campaign supports the same two-state solution as does Obama.
Australia’s 2011 census shows that Australia’s official Jewish population has risen to almost 100,000, a rise of 10 percent in five years.
By JTA
The search for Guma Aguiar, a Florida businessman and philanthropist who has given millions to Jewish nonprofit organizations, reportedly was called off. Aguiar, the CEO of Leor Energy who lives in Fort Lauderdale, was last seen on the evening of June 19. His yacht washed ashore in Fort Lauderdale the following day, according to reports. […]
By JTA
A Muslim couple in Manchester, England, allegedly purchased items for homemade bombs to be used against Jewish targets, a court in that city was told. “It was jihad at home,” prosecutor Bobbie Cheema told the Manchester crown court on Thursday, according to the Guardian. “Between them they acquired substances, common for gardening, that can be […]
By JTA
French police said they were investigating death threats made against the country’s chief rabbi. Polices said over the weekend that they are looking for people connected to a photomontage disseminated through Facebook which shows Rabbi Gilles Bernheim with a revolver pointing at his head. The picture shows Bernheim wearing a Star of David on his […]
Boris Schatz (1866 – 1932) had a revolutionary vision. He believed that the creation of a new modern Jewish visual culture would become a major force to both articulate a Jewish national identity and sustain the Zionist enterprise. In 1904 he approached Zionist leader Theodor Herzl with the proposal to establish a national arts and crafts school in Palestine and got his blessing. Tragically Herzl died later that year, but the Zionist leadership in Vienna assumed responsibility for the project and its funding.
The United Church of Canada Working Group's objectives do not even take into account the Jihadist call to war against Israel , and children being taught in Palestinian schools to hate and kill Jews. This hatred has nothing to do with the so-called "occupation," as Palestinian children are indoctrinated to believe, but is instead fuelled by Israel having a different ideology of true Democracy and Human Rights in a region where most leaders are hostile to both.
By JTA
Poland's attorney general has asked the country's Constitutional Court to investigate the constitutionality of ritual slaughter. Andrzej Seremet said that he believes the minister of agriculture, who allowed an exemption to Polish law to accommodate ritual slaughter, violated the constitution. Under Polish law, animals must be stunned before slaughter; the only exception is ritual slaughter. […]
By JTA
Hungarian Jews "feel increasing danger" in a country with a government that condones anti-Semitism, the president of Hungary's Jewish community said. Peter Feldmajer, president of the Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities, made the remarks Tuesday at a conference on anti-Semitism in the European Parliament in Brussels. Though Hungarian government officials say they want to combat […]
By JTA
Latvian Justice Minister Gaidis Berzins has resigned in protest of plans to offer restitution for Jewish property seized after the Holocaust. Berzins, chair of the rightist All For Latvia-For Fatherland and Freedom Party, announced his resignation on Wednesday, the country’s news agency Leta reported. In 2006, the Latvian parliament blocked a bill proposing $55 million […]
During a lengthy and heated interview with the Jewish Channel, Yossi Gestetner was quizzed about some of his past work for a tiny anti-Zionistic organization in Brooklyn. He also defended New Square arsonist Shaul Spitzer and was a spokesperson for a rally to benefit Nechemya Weberman, who is currently on trial for molestation.
If you are seeking a new place to visit this summer with all kosher amenities at your disposal, why not visit Scotland? Glasgow has a full range of Jewish facilities to cater for tourists and business people alike. Including daily minyanim, a mikveh for men and women, and kosher food. Edinburgh has a mikveh for ladies, minyanim only a few times during the week.
Question: Why don’t women wear tzitzit and tefillin?
By JTA
Guma Aguiar, a Florida businessman and philanthropist who has given millions to Jewish nonprofit organizations, is missing. Aguiar, the CEO of Leor Energy who lives in Fort Lauderdale, was last seen around 7:30 PM Tuesday. His 31-foot boat washed ashore in Fort Lauderdale early Wednesday morning, according to reports. A close friend of Aguiar, Rabbi […]
By JTA
The Jewish Federations of North America slammed Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar's criticism of the Israeli government's decision to pay the salaries of some non-Orthodox rabbis. "It is a fundamental Jewish virtue to ‘love your fellow as yourself.’ We condemn comments that disparage fellow Jews and, in particular, well-established branches of Judaism that represent 80 […]
President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, Israeli President Shimon Peres and Jewish leaders from around the world will unveil the brand-new ‘Victory Monument’ in Netanya, Israel this Monday, June 25.
By dvora
My husband and I are living in our house for over 30 years. We have wonderful neighbors on both sides. The one on the right, a non-frum Jewish couple, lived in their house longer than we’ve resided in ours. We always got along very well with them, as they are unusually kind, friendly and helpful people.
Genocide has always been prohibited by international law. In the words of the Genocide Convention, a binding multilateral treaty that codified post-Nuremberg norms and that entered into force in 1951, the sorts of murderous acts long advocated by Arab/Iranian leaders and jihadist terror groups qualify very precisely as criminal. The “moderate” Fatah organization’s June 2009 congress even called openly for the eradication of Israel.
Picture a family full of smiles, and joy. See all the moments they spend together and support each other, through blessed times and difficult ones. Picture the holidays filled with warmth and laughter, and the Shabbat... But then something destroys the serenity.
The main title of my new book, From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel, may raise a few eyebrows. To what “betrayal” am I referring? Surely neither anti-Semitism nor hostility to Israel can be seen as prerogatives of leftism; and if they do exist in some quarters of the Left, is that not an example of “legitimate criticism” of Israel, a country regularly pilloried in international forums as one of the last remaining bastions of Western colonialism?
Suddenly, sometime after the 1973 war and succeeding oil price spike, there was an explosion of concern for the Palestinians. The UN has since then established what seem like dozens of agencies and functionaries relating to their ‘plight’, despite the fact that Arab citizens of Israel and those “under occupation” have fared much better economically and have more individual freedom than Arabs anywhere else in the Middle East.
Canadian MP Prof. Irwin Cotler: "“Israel is both a Jewish and democratic State with the added challenge of living in a hostile environment. The fundamental Jewish values of respect for the sanctity of human life should frame our discourse and policy when it comes to national issues, including Israel’s current African migration challenge.”
By Moshe Herman
Yishai is joined by Shai Ish-Shalom, former member of Sayeret Matkal, the most elite unit in the Israel Defense Forces. They discuss Ish-Shalom's personal experience in Entebbe, Uganda and also talk about Jewish defense in both Israel and the Diaspora.
Since opening in 1984, the restaurant has been a fixture for any Jewish tourists visiting New York and almost every religious Jew in the city has eaten there at least once. The reason for closing appears to be a combination of landlord greed and too many health code violations.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai and Malkah talk about their recent trip to the Jerusalem Light Festival and the lack of Jewish themes that were presented throughout the festival.
By Yoel Meltzer
On his attempt to hijack an airplane in 1970 to bring attention to the struggle of Soviet Jewry: "Sometimes it happens in your life that you simply feel it’s the right thing to do."
My friend’s mother died the other day. I went to the funeral, cried with the mourners, walked the traditional four cubits following the coffin to escort the dead to their resting place, as is customary at Jewish funerals, and then went over to my friend to offer my condolences. And then it was over. The guests went home, the family went to bury their loved one, and I went back to my life.
The government on Sunday voted to put a ministerial committee headed by the Prime Minister in charge of Jewish development in Judea and Samaria , the first time in 16 years that the establishment and expansion of Jewish communities in the biblical heartland will not come under the purview of the full government.
By Tzvi Fishman
Now that I think about it, I made a big mistake. Instead of bringing Tevye to the Promised Land, I should have brought him to Las Vegas to meet up with Meir Lansky and Bugsy Siegel in building the town’s first casino. First he throws off his embarrassing tzitzis, then his milkman’s cap, then he shaves off his beard and finds himself a shicksa. Now that would have been a bestseller!
Notice that in every culture a cheated husband is a laughing-stock. This attitude to a cuckold shows not only a nasty cruelty towards weakness, but also a reasonable contempt to a voluntary blindness, a reluctance to see what is going on under one’s own nose.
By JTA
MoveOn.org joined a growing list of groups and individuals to raise concerns about the congressional candidacy of New York City Councilman Charles Barron. The online liberal group blasted an e-mail criticizing the candidacy of Barron in New York’s Eighth Congressional District in the Democratic primary against Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries. The two are vying to replace […]
By Erica Lyons
In an effort to procrastinate, I occasionally like to bounce some ideas around. As I work from home with only my two cats for company, this often means waiting until my children return home from school.
We are happy to announce the upcoming weekly serialization of Tzvi Fishman’s award-winning novel, Tevye in the Promised Land, beginning Monday.
From "Jews in Minnesota," by Hyman Berman and Linda Mack Schlof: "The wedding of Clarice Sherman and Mel Zuckman at Tifereth B'nai Jacob in North Minneapolis, 1951. "At a Jewish wedding, the bride and groom stand under a chupah or wedding canopy symbolizing their future home. "As long as Jews remained in the compact geographical […]
According to a survey of 5,993 individuals conducted by the UJA Federation, the Jewish community in New York City is growing, mainly fueled by an increase in the Orthodox and Chasidic community. The downside is, according to their critics, Welfare is a crucial ingredient in these communities.
Question: Someone tried to observe Shabbat but could not hold out from violating its laws in the latter part of the day. Does he receive a reward for the amount of Shabbat he observed? Or is reward based on the principle of “all or nothing”? In other words, does Shabbat observance require a total commitment such that partial observance is comparable to not observing Shabbat altogether?
The Jewish boy's mother said the attacking students had heated the coin on a BBQ grill and pressed it onto the boy's neck, burning through to the flesh. "They say they are going to kill all the Jews, and use offensive language such as 'Jewish pigs' and 'Jewish Satan,'" she said.
The Lakewood, NJ, Bnos Yaakov elementary school is not happy over the fact that an internal letter to its students has been published online. It contains a story with a disturbing notion of purgatory for girls who don't obey the laws of tzniyut (modesty).
By JTA
Ron Barber, a former aide to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, won her seat in a special election. Barber, who decided to run after Giffords formerly resigned her seat earlier this year to recover from a shooting in January 2011, defeated Jesse Kelly, a Republican who suffered a narrow defeat to Giffords in the 2010 election […]
By Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l
The episode of the spies has rightly puzzled commentators throughout the centuries. How could they have got it so wrong? The land, they said, was as Moses had promised. It was indeed “flowing with milk and honey.” But conquering it was impossible. “The people who live there are powerful, and the cities fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of the giant there … We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are … All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the titans there … We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and so we seemed in theirs” (Numbers 13:28-33).
Displaying their customary respect for Jewish holy sites, Palestinian vandals struck again last month, desecrating an ancient synagogue in Naaran near Jericho. In addition to damaging priceless relics, the perpetrators spray-painted swastikas, Palestinian flags and political slogans, adding insult to injury in their hate-filled assault.
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON – President Obama is spreading the word, one Jewish constituency at a time: He has Israel’s back. Obama defended his record on Israel and on religious freedoms last week during a White House meeting with Orthodox leaders convened by the Orthodox Union.
By Larry Luxner
DHAKA, Bangladesh – Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury sat at the cafe of the five-star Ruposhi Bangla Hotel in downtown Dhaka – capital of the third-largest Muslim nation on earth – proclaiming his love for Israel and the Jewish people.
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON – Mitt Romney’s Lacrosse moment awaits him. The Democratic convention in Los Angeles was where Joe Lieberman made history as the first Jewish candidate on a major ticket on Aug. 17, 2000. But two days later, history came to life in Lacrosse, Wis., the little college town where Lieberman walked – and pointedly did not drive – to the local synagogue on his first post-nomination Shabbat.
A recent poll found that 73% of Israelis believe that the two-state solution will not resolve the conflict with the Palestinians, while 64% support expansion of the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
September 11, 2026 
