Vita Bekker
By Vita Bekker
-
News As Tourists Buy Holiday Homes, Jerusalemites Gripe of Empty Streets
Just after dusk on a recent evening, days before Rosh Hashanah, the David’s Village residential enclave in Jerusalem showed few signs of life. The spotless pedestrian passageways of the well-guarded complex, just outside the walls of the Old City, were empty of people. Inside most of the 120 or so terraced apartments — primarily owned…
-
News Ethiopian Immigration Cut To Pay For Conflict
JERUSALEM — Israel is planning to halve the rate of Ethiopian immigration to pay for the recent Lebanon war, in a move that critics say would violate the government’s pledge to American Jewish charities to double the rate of new arrivals. The government, in a draft of the 2007 state budget that was approved by…
-
News Wave of Bias Attacks Sweeps Diaspora
JERUSALEM — Jewish leaders of five different continents around the world headed to Israel this week to discuss what they described as the deteriorating security situation in their regions following the war in Lebanon. The New York-based World Jewish Congress, which organized the trip, issued a statement last week saying that the visiting Diaspora leaders…
-
Israel News Israeli Leaders Hit With Wave Of Scandals
TEL AVIV — With Israelis already angry over their government’s handling of the crisis in Lebanon, Israel has been hit by a wave of scandals involving several top government and military officials. Justice Minister Haim Ramon, an architect of the ruling Kadima party, resigned Sunday after being indicted for allegedly having kissed an 18-year-old female…
-
News Israelis Angry Over Neglected Homefront
TEL AVIV — Israelis are debating the outcome of the war against Hezbollah, but they agree on at least one point: Their government neglected civilians during most of the 34-day conflict with Hezbollah. As nearly 4,000 rockets rained down on northern Israel, many residents fled to the south. Those who couldn’t — including the poor,…
-
Israel News Two Deaths Bring Crisis Home to U.S.
HAIFA — For American Jews, the deaths last week of two immigrants to Israel — a soldier and a kibbutznik — brought the conflict in Lebanon closer to home. Pennsylvania native Michael Levin, a soldier in the Israeli army, was killed in clashes with Hezbollah in the southern Lebanese town of Aita al-Shaab. Boston-area native…
-
Israel News Bomb Shelter Saves Patients in Israeli Hospital
NAHARIYA, Israel — Some might call it luck that the worst rocket attack on Nahariya’s Western Galilee Hospital in 25 years caused no casualties. But Deputy Director Moshe Daniel insists it was foresight that saved lives in the July 28 attack. That’s because slightly more than two weeks earlier, 180 patients — expectant mothers, newborns,…
-
News Bombs Send Tourists South
SAFED, Israel — Since Hezbollah began firing rockets on northern Israel a week ago, no guests have shown up at Aya Peretz’s bed-and-breakfast cabins. It may be the year’s busiest tourism period in the rural north, but Peretz is huddling in a bomb shelter with her husband and three children instead of hosting couples seeking…
Explore
Most Popular
- 1
News Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors
- 2
Fast Forward Their Pacific Palisades synagogue is standing, but all three rabbis lost their homes
- 3
News ‘Do you have the Torahs?’ Synagogue races LA wildfire to rescue its past and future
- 4
Culture In Peter Yarrow’s legacy, an uneasy blend of Jewish values and personal transgressions
In Case You Missed It
-
News LA fires won’t stop bar mitzvahs this Shabbat, as joy and pain meet
-
News HIAS cuts 22 staff even as it braces for Trump immigration crackdown
-
Fast Forward A synagogue that survived the Palisades fire has become a ‘refuge’ for many who lost their homes
-
News When fire spread to West Hollywood, a rabbi’s mom chose to grab candlesticks
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
