Mitchell Ginsburg
By Mitchell Ginsburg
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News Israel Debates a Plan To Demolish Homes in the Settlements of Gaza
JERUSALEM — They’ll lower the flag and fold it decorously. Then they’ll point the final convoy north. But what will Israel leave behind when it evacuates the last Jewish settlers from Gaza? Rows of well-tended houses for homeless Palestinians? Empty fields? Or piles of toxic rubble? As the August 15 date nears for the evacuation…
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News Israel Aims To Increase Study Programs
JERUSALEM — Israel announced the launch this week of an ambitious program to quadruple the number of Diaspora Jewish students visiting Israel on long-term education programs. The program aims by 2008 to have 20,000 young adults each year, some one-fifth of all Diaspora Jews in the target age groups, attending half-year or yearlong study and…
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News Army Chief Bows Out With Homily At Death Camp
OSWIECIM, Poland — With just weeks to go before he retires, Israel’s military chief of staff, Moshe Ya’alon, came to Auschwitz last week to deliver a moral sermon to the troops back home. “Never again — never victims and never murderers,” Ya’alon said, standing alongside a swath of barbed wire and addressing a small group…
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News Warm Welcome in Warsaw for Ya’alon
WARSAW — In the Jewish community in Warsaw, the visit of Israel’s military chief of staff was a source of visible elation. On a weekday, at an awkward hour, dozens of members of the 1,500-person community waited in the Nozyk Synagogue, which had been used as a stable during the Nazi occupation, to hear Moshe…
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News Chief Rabbinate Under Cloud As Police Question a 2nd Rabbi
JERUSALEM — In a devastating blow to the credibility of Israel’s state rabbinic establishment, the nation’s Sephardic chief rabbi, Shlomo Amar, was interrogated this week by the police on suspicion of complicity in the abduction and beating of a 17-year-old youth who was dating his daughter. Amar is not known to be suspected of direct…
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News Settlers, Rabbis Debate Disobedience As Disengagement Nears
JERUSALEM — As Israel’s political and security establishment moves closer to disengagement from Gaza, hammering out details of the day after, a furious debate has erupted among settler leaders and their rabbis over whether it is permitted even to suggest cooperating with the planned evacuation. Government ministers were negotiating this week with representatives of the…
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News Gaza Expects Flood of Tourists, Some of Whom Will Stay
JERUSALEM — The beachfront Jewish settlements of southern Gaza, long a popular Passover getaway destination among religious Israelis, are expecting a bumper tourism season this week. Tens of thousands of visitors are expected to throng the region’s guest houses and campsites during the weeklong vacation. But not all of them are planning on going home…
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News Court’s Conversion Ruling Satisfies Few
JERUSALEM — Israel’s Supreme Court touched off a wave of cheers and jeers with its 7-to-4 decision last week to recognize a new category of non-Orthodox conversions to Judaism. The March 31 ruling ordered the government to recognize the Jewish status of 17 Israeli residents who had traveled abroad for conversion by Reform or Conservative…
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