A Knesset committee voted to approve a bill that would create one chief rabbi position instead of the current two. The Knesset Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted Sunday to approve the legislation, proposed by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni of the Hatnua Party, and co-sponsored by Religious Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett and lawmaker Eli Ben-Dahan of…
After exploring the quarter-life crises of young adults in the critical and commercial hit “Garden State” a decade ago, actor-director Zach Braff turned his eye to examine the existential dilemmas faced by parents in his new film “Wish I Was Here.” Braff plays 35-year-old Aidan Bloom, a struggling actor and married father of two, who…
A bipartisan slate of 134 U.S. Congress members wrote a letter to the American Studies Association protesting its decision last month to boycott Israeli universities. “Academic cooperation can be an important tool to help foster peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but you have chosen the unproductive path of isolation,” said the letter dated Friday, initiated…
A British man who stabbed a local violinist to death had been discharged from a mental institution less than two weeks before the attack, an inquest has found. Michael Kahan, 39, who stabbed to death in June 2008 outside of a kosher bakery in Crumpsall in suburban Manchester, according to an ongoing inquest in Manchester…
Israel geared up for a visit by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as Canadian media decried the up to 200-member delegation traveling at taxpayer expense. “Today, for the first time, a great friend of the State of Israel, and a great friend of mine, is visiting Israel, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper,” Israeli Prime Minister…
A Jewish man from Kiev sustained serious injuries in a knife attack by three men, the second assault on a Jew in the city in one week. The victim of the stabbing on Saturday night was identified by Ukrainian media as Dov Ber Glickman, a 28-year-old student of a local kolel, a school of Talmudic…
Israel decided on Sunday to end a decades-old policy of issuing gas masks to the public in an apparent sign of confidence in Syria’s chemical weapons disarmament. Since being hit by Iraqi Scud missiles during the 1991 Gulf War, authorities have handed out masks, though Syria’s chemical arsenal was Israel’s primary concern in recent years….
Israel said it carried out an air strike on Sunday against a Gaza militant who it blamed for cross-border rocket attacks last week, and Palestinian medics said two people, including a 12-year-old, were wounded. The so-called “targeted attack” against a man the Israeli military identified as Ahmad Sa’ad, a senior Islamic Jihad operative, was a…
Moroccan police are investigating the death of two Jewish sisters in their home in the central city of Beni Mellal. The sisters, whose names were not made public, were found earlier this week in a state of advanced decomposition and are believed to have died three months ago inside their locked home, the news site…
A Jewish community center in San Diego cancelled a concert by Eyal Golan amid suspicions that the Israeli singer had sex with minors, an Israeli radio station reported. Golan was slated to perform Jan. 19 at a concert which was advertised as late as Jan. 10 on the website of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community…
The Obama administration is “deeply disappointed” with a decision by UNESCO, the United Nation’s cultural arm, to cancel the opening of an exhibition on the Jewish presence in the land of Israel and is seeking its placement “as soon as possible.” Complaints by Arab states led UNESCO to cancel the exhibition, organized by the Simon…
