Nathan Jeffay
By Nathan Jeffay
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News Pro-Peace Group Barred From Leading Hebron Tours
A year ago, Israel’s Education Ministry launched a program to encourage schools to visit Jewish sites in the occupied West Bank town of Hebron, drawing fire from doves who charged the ministry with bringing politics into school trips. The doves’ effort to stop the program failed. Having failed to beat them, a dovish group of…
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The Schmooze Ex-Haredim Sue Israel for ‘Financial Damage’
There is a remarkable twist in the ongoing battle about Haredi education. The majority of boys’ schools serving Ashkenazic Haredim do not teach the ministry’s required “core curriculum,” causing fury among secular politicians and educationalists. The Haredim say it’s their right in a multicultural society to decide to give their children a narrow religious education…
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The Schmooze Cactus Wars: Mascot Dispute Gets Prickly
They’re big, funny and cute. But two popular Israeli mascots are going to be facing off in court. Kishkashta is a jolly singing cactus seen on Israeli Educational Television. You can sneak a look at him here, on YouTube. Now, take a peek at the Israel Olympic Committee’s mascot, Shpitzik, here. There’s a similarity between…
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News No Paean to Palestinian Terror
When a government probe into allegations of treason caused the charismatic Arab politician Azmi Bishara to resign his Knesset seat and flee Israel in 2007, Dr. Ahmad Tibi, a former aide to PLO leader Yasir Arafat, leaped easily to the fore as his community’s most prominent national advocate. Like Bishara, he gained notice, too, as…
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The Schmooze Israeli Jews Split on IDF Women Singing
There is a surprising new poll out in Israel, where there has been significant controversy in recent weeks about religious soldiers who leave ceremonies where women sing. The walkouts have generated angry opinion pieces in the media and fury among top army brass, with 19 reserve major generals petitioning the Defense Ministry claiming that they…
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The Schmooze Israeli Sketch Comedy Pokes Fun at U.S. Jews
It must be American Jewry season on Israeli television. A few weeks ago, everyone was talking about the depiction of the Jewish American man in the government’s ad campaign to get Israelis living in the U.S. to head “home.” Now, U.S. Jews are fodder for the most popular sketch show in Israel. Eretz Nehederet has…
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Israel News Restive Ethiopians Take to Street
Covering the shabby concrete storefronts in this small Israeli town are graffiti messages expressing the anger some Ethiopians feel over what they see as racism. An unemployed Ethiopian immigrant waiting at the bus terminal says he has little hope of finding a job. In a predominantly Ethiopian neighborhood named for Zionist forefather Theodor Herzl, residents…
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The Schmooze Haim Amsallem Launches Moderate Haredi Party
One of the most remarkable things about covering Israeli politics is watching parties come and go. People have an amazing willingness to support a brand new party with no track record. Earlier this month Yair Lapid, journalist and icon of secular middle-class Israelis, announced he was entering politics. As the Forward reported, before he even…
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