Menachem Lieberman says the biblical prohibition against bearing false witness — and the Sholom Rubashkin case —led him to take back the testimony that sent an innocent man to prison in the slaying of a Brooklyn rabbi. The 36-year-old told the New York Post that he was just a scared 13-year-old when police pushed him…
The Orthodox teenage girl who was suspended from school for appearing on an Israeli TV talent show lost in the finale of the contest. Ophrir Ben-Shetreet, whose school punished her for performing in front of men, made it to the last round of ‘The Voice,’ a popular reality talent show. She lost to Lina Makhoul,…
Alleged Mossad agent Ben Zygier, known as Prisoner X before committing suicide while jailed solitary confinement, handed Hezbollah sensitive information that led to the arrest of Lebanese agents in Israel’s service, according to previews of an expose to be released by Der Spiegel on Monday. The German news weekly alleges that before his death in…
Israel did not commit to ending its Gaza blockade as part of reconciliation with Turkey and could clamp down even harder on the Palestinian enclave if security is threatened, a senior Israeli official said on Sunday. After Friday’s U.S.-brokered fence-mending announcement, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Israel had met his demands it apologise for…
Joe Weider, the self-made fitness and bodybuilding guru who built a magazine empire that included more than a dozen popular publications such as Muscle and Fitness, Shape and Men’s Fitness, died on Saturday at the age of 93. Weider, also known for starting the Mr Olympia bodybuilding contest in the 1960s and mentoring a young…
From car salesman to Kremlin king-maker to billionaire political exile, Boris Berezovsky seemed to play a role in nearly every crucial scene in the roller coaster drama of post-Soviet Russia. A mathematician by training, Berezovsky’s expertise at political calculus gave him power beyond his position in a career that made him many enemies – the…
Secretary of State John Kerry had “useful” separate talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, a senior U.S. State Department official said. The official gave no details on the meetings, which followed President Barack Obama’s visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories this week in which he called…
The innocent man freed after serving 23 years in prison for the murder of a Brooklyn rabbi suffered a serious heart attack just a day after being released, his lawyer said. David Ranta, 58, was freed Thursday after more than two decades behind bars for the 1990 robbery slaying of Rabbi Chaskel Werzberger, a member…
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday an Israeli apology for the 2010 deaths of nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists that was brokered by U.S. President Barack Obama met Turkey’s conditions and signaled its growing regional influence. “We are entering a new period in both Turkey and the region,” said Erdogan, who plans to visit the…
President Barack Obama was greeted with calls of “We love you” when he visited Cairo in his first term, seeking to turn the page on the Bush era with talk of a new beginning for ties between the United States and the Muslim world. Four years on, Egyptians who attended the Cairo University speech feel…
President Barack Obama marvelled at the sights of Jordan’s ancient city of Petra on Saturday as he wrapped up a four-day Middle East tour by setting aside weighty diplomatic matters and playing tourist for a day. The visit followed a trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories that was capped by Obama’s brokering of a…
