Israel’s parliament on Wednesday approved a contentious law that abolishes blanket military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students, ending a tradition upheld since the state’s foundation. Finalised after months of political wrangling and likely to spark ultra-Orthodox rage, the legislation will be implemented fully in 2017 and limit the annual number of ultra-Orthodox men excused…
Incumbent Moshe Abutbul was reelected in a close vote for mayor of Beit Shemesh. Abutbul, who is haredi Orthodox and a member of the Sephardi Orthodox Shas party, beat challenger Eli Cohen, who tried to unite the central Israeli city’s secular and modern Orthodox communities in his campaign. In recent years, the city of 80,000…
A home-made bomb exploded in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo on Tuesday, but no one was hurt, security sources and the website of state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said. The office has not been used by Israeli diplomats for at least two years, following a September 2011 attack on the embassy. Security sources said the…
Bulgarian police identified a Lebanese-Canadian man as the bomber of an Israeli tour bus. The identification came from DNA evidence connected to the July 2012 attack at the Burgas airport on a bus full of Israeli tourists. Five Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian bus driver were killed. The DNA belongs to Hassan El Hajj Hassan,…
Two Brooklyn brothers have admitted participating in a violent ring with rabbis that threatened Jewish husbands to agree to grant their wives a religious divorce, and they face possible lengthy prison terms, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Avrohom Goldstein, 34, and Moshe Goldstein, 31, were among 10 men, including their father and two Orthodox Jewish rabbis,…
Susan Turnbull, a senior activist in Democratic and Jewish women’s causes, was elected chairwoman of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The JCPA, the umbrella body for local and national Jewish public policy groups, wrapped up its annual meeting in Atlanta on Tuesday with the election of Turnbull, a former chairwoman of the Democratic Party…
Norwegian Cruise Lines dropped Tunisia from its itineraries after the country refused to allow Israeli citizens to disembark in the Port of Tunis. About 20 Israelis were quietly told before disembarking from the Norwegian Jade over the weekend that they were not welcome per the Tunisian government. The cruise line’s decision to drop Tunisia was…
An airline owned by the United Arab Emirates said it “emphatically refutes” claims that it excludes Israel from its official travel-route map and refuses to transport Israelis. In a statement, Etihad Airways wrote that it carried more than 1,000 passengers traveling with Israeli passports last year, refuting assertions made in the New York Post newspaper….
Latvia’s government warned people to avoid an annual march of World War Two Waffen SS veterans through its capital Riga on Sunday, citing tensions over Ukraine. Many of Latvia’s large Russian-speaking minority say the event distorts history, honours Nazism and insults the victims of the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Ukraine’s Crimea, on…
A Brooklyn-based Jewish newspaper apologized for a column that was sharply critical of the haredi Orthodox community and fired its author. The Jewish Press dismissed Yori Yanover, its Israel-based online editor, after he published an article Monday with the headline “50 Thousand Haredim March So Only Other Jews Die in War.” Yanover was writing about…
Jewish leaders in New York issued a statement saying the debate on Israel in the Jewish community must be conducted with respect. The Israel Talks, an initiative of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, issued the statement on Monday. “Differences of opinion regarding the State of Israel now too often serve as a…
