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Israel News
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When Israel’s Sephardic Black Panthers Used Passover To Decry Jewish ‘Racism’
It was the spring of 1971, and the 1960’s spirit of revolution still throbbed in the streets of America and Europe. On the streets of Jerusalem, knots of young Sephardi Jews could be seen protesting, too — calling for the overthrow of Prime Minister Golda Meir and for their own liberation in Israel as an…
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Is Moshe Kahlon and His New Party Here To Stay?
In Israel’s recent election, Yaakov Shalev, an 86-year-old Iraqi Israeli, broke his 38-year Likud streak to vote for a newcomer on the political playing field: the Kulanu party. Kulanu means “all of us” in Hebrew, but the party has special resonance among Mizrachim, or Jews of Arab origin. Led by Moshe Kahlon, the son of…
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Embracing Israel Boycott, Jewish Voice For Peace Insists on Its Jewish Identity
At the opening plenary of Jewish Voice for Peace’s recent national conference, Rabbi Alissa Wise, JVP’s co-director of organizing, asked the crowd of some 600 how many were attending their first such gathering; about three-quarters of the room shot up their hands. For the group whose advocacy of boycotting, sanctioning and divesting from Israel makes…
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Advocacy Groups Seek New Marketing Strategy After Israeli Vote
For advocates of Israel, a couple of weeks in March have managed to rattle a message built into America’s DNA through decades of hard work. In the new reality created by Israel’s March 17 election and the events surrounding it, Israel’s commitment to peace and to pluralism is being questioned by key audiences whose full…
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J Street, Newly Combative, Takes On the Jewish Establishment
J Street, the dovish Israel lobby, crossed the Rubicon in March, effectively defining itself as an outright opponent of the Jewish establishment rather than as its dissenting adjunct. The fateful step, taken after years of wavering, came at the group’s national conference in Washington, marking an end to J Street’s earlier efforts to fight for…
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Netanyahu’s Reelection Pushes J Street to the Left
Emboldened by President Obama’s public rebuke of Israel’s recently re-elected leader Benjamin Netanyahu, the dovish lobby J Street is stepping up its criticism of the prime minister and, at the same time, highlighting the differences between its views and those of mainstream Jewish community organizations. The 3,000 activists gathered in Washington over the weekend for…
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Mr. Oren Goes From Washington (to Jerusalem)
From writing history books on the U.S. role in the Middle East to serving as Israel’s ambassador in Washington, Michael Oren seems to have spent most of his life building bridges between the Jewish state and his country of birth. Oren, No. 4 on the slate of Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu and the only member of…
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Is Birthright NEXT Shutting Down?
Birthright Israel’s alumni division faces an uncertain future following the departure of its top two executives and the discontinuation of its flagship Sabbath meals program. Birthright Israel NEXT has entered a six-month “interim stage” as a task force weighs whether it will continue, Birthright Israel Foundation’s chief operating officer, Jennifer Goldstone, acknowledged in an interview…
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What Will Netanyahu Victory Mean for American-Israeli Relations?
The White House reserved its judgment in the hours after results began coming in from Israeli elections. The perfunctory statement congratulating the winner and praising the democratic process was put on hold, perhaps in a lingering hope that the coalition building process will somehow send Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu home and crown Isaac Herzog as…
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After Vote, Spotlight Shifts to Reuven Rivlin
Five days before the Israeli elections, Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, was focused on a topic that it’s safe to say is nearer to his heart: Israeli soccer. The president, a former chairman of the Beitar Jerusalem team — known for its virulently anti-Arab fans — had just unveiled a prize to fight bigotry in soccer…
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Hope, Fear, and a Day at the Beach as Israel Votes in Watershed Election
UPDATED AT 4:25 p.m. It’s Election Day in Israel. As 5,881,696 voters have the opportunity to go to the polls, the biggest question is if Benjamin Netanyahu can maintain his grip on power — or if the left-center Zionist Union can grab power and possibly take the Jewish state in a different direction. The Forward’s…
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