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Israel News
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Israel Vows To Draft Haredim, But Major Hurdles Remain
During Israel’s election campaign last January, the new Yesh Atid party’s single most popular stand was its vow to end the exemption that Haredim, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, receive from mandatory military service, which is obligatory for other Israeli Jews. Now, to the surprise of many cynics, that promise is about to be fulfilled. In politics,…
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Haredi Rebels Use Posters To Push for Israeli Draft of Ultra-Orthodox
Dressed in black pants and a white shirt, with an army-issued gun slung over his shoulder and a gun barrel that lines up with his tzitzit, Yehuda does not look like a typical Haredi youth. It’s also true that nice Haredi boys don’t order hard liquor in Jerusalem cafes at midnight. So the 19-year-old asks…
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Pope Francis I Speaks on Holocaust, Israel and Jews in Only Book
Within hours of the selection of Pope Francis I as the new pontiff, newspapers quoted the heads of the major Jewish agencies saying that Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was committed to building bridges to the Jewish community. Jewish leaders said they expected to have a fruitful relationship with him. As a bishop and then cardinal,…
The Latest
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Benjamin Netanyahu Cobbles Together Israel Coalition of Rivals
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has successfully assembled a government, after almost six weeks of tense negotiations and pushing up against his deadline on Saturday. Three parties will serve alongside his Likud-Beiteinu faction: the new centrist Yesh Atid, the staunchly pro-settler Jewish Home, and the Tzipi Livni’s dovish party, known in Hebrew as Hatnua. The…
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Controversial Panel on Israel Moved From Ansche Chesed After Rabbi Balks
A panel discussion on whether Israel is a democracy has been moved from one Manhattan synagogue to another, following an objection to the event from the first synagogue’s rabbi. The April 4 panel will be held at Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, an LGBT synagogue on the far West Side of Manhattan. Organizers had originally rented…
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Looming Sequestration Cuts Cause Split Among Israel Aid Advocates
In an effort to save aid to Israel from mandatory, across-the-board cuts now being imposed on all discretionary federal programs, pro-Israel activists are opening the door on a dramatic course of action they have rejected repeatedly in the past. Members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the largest pro-Israel lobby, are refusing to foreclose…
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Can Barack Obama Win Over Israelis While Mounting New Push for Peace?
When President Obama visits Israel next week, Gavriel Yaakov wants him to jump-start the peace process. “I’m excited,” said Yaakov, 67, sitting in a Tel Aviv mall. “I want negotiations to get to an agreement on a long-term peace with the Palestinians.” Yaakov said he trusts Obama, but his friend, Yossi Cohen, is more skeptical….
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Is Sara Netanyahu the Erratic Power Behind Bibi’s Throne?
Of the many explanations for the long, drawn-out and chaotic coalition negotiations that have followed Israel’s recent election, the most intriguing is that they have more to do with Benjamin Netanyahu’s home life than with his political aspirations. According to one of Israel’s top journalists, it is his wife’s publicly known antipathy toward one of…
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Obama Tells Jewish Leaders He Will Ask Both Sides To Jumpstart Peace Process
On his upcoming visit to Israel, President Obama will tell Israelis that “both sides have an obligation” to return to long frozen negotiations to resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, according to Jewish leaders who met with Obama Thursday. The construction, if accurate, is notable as it varies somewhat from the government of Israel’s stance that it…
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Chuck Hagel, Confirmation Battle Over, Gets Down To Business With Israel
The heated debate over Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of defense may have left a bitter aftertaste for those following the exchange. But for Washington insiders, the accusations, retorts and congressional battles, are nothing more than politics. With Hagel now at the Pentagon’s helm, political disputes are being set aside in favor of getting back…
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Palestinians Pressured To Leave ‘Area C’ of Occupied West Bank by Israel
In Nabi Samwil, a West Bank village of 250 residents just north of Jerusalem, elementary school principal Khalil Abu Arqoub must choose daily between heeding the orders of Israeli military administrators and upholding the well-being of his pupils. As part of Israel’s stringent building restrictions in this area, the toilet of the Nabi Samwil Mixed…
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