Fueled by his success in brokering an unlikely deal on women’s prayer at the Western Wall, Natan Sharansky could be entering a new phase in his career as the key interlocutor between Israel and American Jews, a task viewed as urgent on both sides of the Jewish world’s divide. Once the celebrated champion of the…
Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky probably thought he was stating the obvious when he welcomed his board of governors to Jerusalem on February 17 with a bromide about Israel-Diaspora solidarity. “It is increasingly clear,” said the chairman, still best known for his years in a Soviet prison, “that world Jewry depends on Israel and Israel…
On July 9, amid rainwater cracks in limestone rock, charcoal ibex painted by prehistoric man and discarded artifacts from Victorian-era picnics, a loose collective of Jewish women will sing songs of the Sephardic Diaspora. Vocalists Sarah Aroeste, Mor Karbasi and Françoise Atlan will perform at the inaugural Gibraltar World Music Festival in the time-formed Cueva…
Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, acquiesced wearily to a recent question posed by Time magazine, one that was stated as fact: “One million Israelis live abroad. It’s not as if Jews are flocking there.” Peres admitted warily: “We’re swimming upstream….” But this picture is not new. In fact, for most of Peres’s 60 years of political…
Earlier this week, Leslie Maitland wrote about reconnecting branches of her family separated by the Diaspora of the Nazi years. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: I would not be writing…
Earlier this week, Leslie Maitland wrote about reconnecting branches of her family separated by the Diaspora of the Nazi years. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: I have always been fascinated…
Leslie Maitland is the author of Crossing the Borders of Time: A True Story of War, Exile, and Love Reclaimed. Her blog posts are featured on The Arty Semite courtesy of the Jewish Book Council and My Jewish Learning’s Author Blog Series. For more information on the series, please visit: . In 1989 I accompanied…
For 64 years, Israel has been encouraging Jews, whoever and wherever they are, to immigrate as soon as possible. But today, with increasing regularity, one Jewish demographic is being told to slow down: converts to Judaism. Over the past four months, 15 people who have converted in the Diaspora, through Diaspora rabbinates that Israel deems…
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