Ilan Ben Zion
By Ilan Ben Zion
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Israel News Israelis say ‘I do’ to virtual Utah marriages. The government says, ‘You don’t.’
When the pandemic scuttled Shira Hofesh’s plans to get married overseas, she did what a growing number of Israelis are opting to do — she got married virtually in the state of Utah. That seemingly simple act has landed her at the center of a case before the Israeli Supreme Court, one that — if…
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News Christmas in Jerusalem, ‘only cats and dogs’ in the streets
Devoid of visitors, Jerusalem’s Old City lacks the holiday spirit that typically permeates the Christian Quarter’s alleys and churches around Yuletide. The coronavirus pandemic — now in its ninth month — has taken its toll on Christmas in the holy city. Tourists and pilgrims that ordinarily flock to the Holy Land for Christmas by the…
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Israel News From camel milk cosmetics to AI: Israelis jump at UAE and Bahrain opportunities
Even before Israel and two Gulf monarchies signed their landmark agreements to normalize relations, Israeli businesses and institutions started breaking into the UAE’s newly opened market. The Trump administration is hosting the signing of normalization agreements between Israel and two Gulf Arab states, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, on Tuesday, Sept. 15. But Israeli…
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Food Israel’s M&H whiskey hits the US market showing ‘the beginnings of mastery’
Something’s brewing in south Tel Aviv. After years of maturation, Israel’s first whiskey distillery is making its US commercial debut. Despite the economic crunch brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, M&H Distillery started selling its freshman year whiskey in the United States in August as part of a push to distribute its liquors to a…
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Israel News ‘We’re all Amir Haskel’ say Jerusalem protesters. Who is Amir Haskel?
At first glance, Amir Haskel is an unlikely leader of the protest movement against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: a retired general who has spent much of the past two decades researching the Holocaust. But he leaped into the public eye last month when he was arrested by police at a protest and detained for…
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News Over strong protests, a gondola to Jerusalem’s Old City inches forward
Looking east from atop Bible Hill in Jerusalem, the Old City walls, Mount Zion and the Mount of Olives seem like a timeless scene. On a clear day the mountains in neighboring Jordan peek through the desert haze in a ruddy streak across the horizon. That view may soon be accompanied by monumental steel pylons…
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Israel News One year later, is the Golan’s desolate ‘Trump Heights’ a ‘hoax’?
A year ago on Tuesday, the Israeli government held a bombastic ceremony in the Golan Heights to inaugurate Ramat Trump – Hebrew for “Trump Heights” – a new settlement named for the American president as a gesture of thanks for recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the territory in March 2019. Today the once gold-lettered Ramat Trump…
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Fast Forward On Jerusalem Day, Jews,Muslims and Christians bemoan a shuttered Old City
Shaaban Amer’s souvenir shop in Jerusalem’s Old City has seen hard times. His business weathered two intifadas, but the current coronavirus crisis, he said, has by far been the worst. “From March 21 until today, maybe I’ve sold 200, 300 shekels ($85),” Amer said, surrounded by shelves of menorahs, chess sets, crucifixes and oil lamps…
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News DNA test kits spark a surge of online conversions to Judaism in the U.S.
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Culture RFK Jr.’s poems to Olivia Nuzzi are peak cringe — so were King Solomon’s
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Culture She was a dancer who leapt to the top of her field — then the Trump administration fired her
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Fast Forward Cory Booker has long embraced Jewish tradition. Now he has married a Jewish woman.
In Case You Missed It
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Yiddish דער נײַער ייִדישער נוסח פֿון חנוכּה־ליד „לעשט ניט די ליכטלעך אויס“New Yiddish version of the Hanukkah song ‘Light One Candle‘
אין די 1980ער האָט מען געזונגען דאָס באַקאַנטע ליד פֿון פּיטער, פּאָל און מערי בײַ מאַניפֿעסטאַציעס צו באַפֿרײַען די סאָוועטישע ייִדן
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Fast Forward Hostage’s remains returned to Israel, as Trump says Gaza ceasefire’s next phase is ‘going to happen pretty soon’
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Fast Forward NYC synagogue protest leads to a new bill, and a rally by Jewish groups outside Park East shul
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Fast Forward LA synagogue protest leads to two arrests as mayor deploys extra police outside event that featured Israeli defense firm
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