Vita Bekker
By Vita Bekker
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Israel News Israel’s Celebrity Wedding
The front-page headlines in the Israeli newspapers called it “the wedding of the year.” The guests, some 500 of the hottest celebrities from the worlds of Israeli sports, fashion and entertainment, thronged to a kibbutz catering hall north of Tel Aviv last Sunday to toast the marriage of Israel’s most celebrated beauty queen and one…
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News After Attacks, Settlers Bend On Hitchhiking
JERUSALEM — Following a recent wave of Palestinian attacks against Jewish hitchhikers in the West Bank, leaders of the settler movement have started yielding to army pressure and issuing warnings against the dangers of hitchhiking. Settler leaders have long resisted pleas from the military to discourage hitchhiking, citing limited bus service to their isolated outposts…
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News Charities Protest Delay on Ethiopian Refugees
JERUSALEM — American Jewish philanthropic leaders are vowing to fight Israel’s recent decision to postpone a plan to increase the rate of Ethiopian immigration. Citing budgetary difficulties, a government ministerial committee decided to postpone talks on doubling the number of Ethiopian immigrants to 600 a month until priorities are set for Israel’s 2007 budget. The…
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News Rabbi Boycotts President at Zionist Parley
JERUSALEM — The 35th World Zionist Congress, a quadrennial event typically characterized more by political infighting over patronage jobs than by ideological debate, was marked by an unusual drama this week: Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of America’s Union for Reform Judaism, chose the congress as the venue for a protest against Israeli President Moshe Katsav’s…
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News Labor Chairman Battles Rebellion Within His Party
JERUSALEM — Labor Party chairman Amir Peretz is facing an internal rebellion led by five high-profile lawmakers who are criticizing his leadership on several fronts. The lawmakers — three retired generals, a former university president and an experienced diplomat — say the party is losing much of its credibility because it has not done enough…
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News Non-Orthodox Press for Access to Israeli Mikvehs
JERUSALEM — The Israeli movements for Conservative and Reform Judaism are protesting disparaging statements made last week by the government minister in charge of religious affairs, Yitzhak Cohen of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, who dismissed non-Orthodox conversions as “virtual” and undeserving of ritual immersion in publicly funded ritual baths. Cohen told a reporter May 30…
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News A Kahane Disciple Wins Big Vote in Israeli Lubavitch Stronghold
KFAR CHABAD, Israel — Bucking the advice of their rabbis, about 30% of voters in Israel’s main Chabad-Lubavitch stronghold cast their ballots for a candidate who advocated the mass expulsion of Arabs, branded Israeli leaders traitors and called for the execution of some liberals. Baruch Marzel, running under the banner of the National Jewish Front,…
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News Palestinians Remember a ‘Catastrophe’
TEL AVIV — While Israelis celebrated their 57th Independence Day last Thursday with fireworks, street concerts and barbecues in the park, Palestinians quietly marked what they call Nakba Day, stemming from the Arabic word for catastrophe. Arabs in Israel traditionally organize their Nakba events on the same day that Israel celebrates its independence, following the…
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