Welcome to the Forward’s coverage of the Israel Defense Forces, the combined military forces of Israel.
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Culture How an antisemitic attack gave rise to a pro-IDF social media movement
After two Brooklyn 21-year-olds wearing sweatshirts emblazoned with the logo for the Israel Defense Forces were allegedly attacked by two men who called them “dirty Jews,” a social media movement is striking back. The #IDFshirtchallenge asks users to post pictures of themselves proudly sporting their IDF apparel on both Twitter and Instagram, and figures such…
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Opinion I was an IDF commander for decades, but my son with autism taught me the true meaning of strength.
Life is a non-stop battle with disability and human frailty. Whether due to injury, illness, accident or aging, disability touches all of us and the ones we love. We are not at all comfortable with this reality; we would much prefer to focus on human successes and heroics, on how much we achieve as a…
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Opinion Israel uses new surveillance technology to distance itself from the occupation. It’s not working
Up until a few months ago, Israeli Jews were convinced I was lying to them when I told them soldiers go into Palestinian homes to “map” the house and the people living in it. Every night, soldiers entered the homes of “uninvolved civilians” —meaning people who are suspected of nothing other than being Palestinian —not…
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News Israel says 1967 land conquests weren’t planned. Declassified documents tell a more complicated story.
For years, most Israeli historiography maintained that the country’s decision makers were taken by surprise by the fruits of the victory harvested with lightning speed in June 1967. “The war,” Defense Minister Moshe Dayan said, three days after its conclusion, “developed and rolled into fronts that were not intended and were not preplanned by anyone,…
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Opinion Editorial | Changing Israeli prime ministers is not enough
You don’t have to love Naftali Bennett or Yair Lapid to be happy about their agreement Wednesday to form a new Israeli government that ends the reign of Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. You don’t have to agree with them about any key issue facing the Jewish state. You don’t have to trust them…
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Opinion Israel’s proposed coalition agreement offers a rare chance for optimism
Barring any unusual surprises, of which we have already had a great many, Israel will soon have a new government that few could have imagined a few weeks ago. The proposed coalition between Yair Lapid, a centrist, and Naftali Bennett, a man of the hard right, who will share the premiership through a rotation agreement,…
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Israel News Growing numbers of Yom Kippur War veterans are seeking PTSD treatment
The Israeli television series “Valley of Tears,” now available on HBO, tells the story of the Yom Kippur War from the perspective of Israelis who fought it, and it’s prompting a national conversation about one of the most devastating chapters in the country’s history – both among those too young to remember it and the…
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Fast Forward Israeli Woman Chases Down Man Who Flashed And Tried To Grab Her
(JTA) — An Israeli woman who lives in Massachusetts chased down and held a man who exposed himself to her while she was jogging. Single mother Aia Polansky, 33, was running in Cambridge when the male jogger dropped his pants to his knees as she ran by. Polansky, a 6-foot-1-inch-tall veteran of the Israel Defense…
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News Scoop: Heritage Foundation plans to ‘identify and target’ Wikipedia editors
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Fast Forward Their Pacific Palisades synagogue is standing, but all three rabbis lost their homes
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News ‘Do you have the Torahs?’ Synagogue races LA wildfire to rescue its past and future
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Music For Bob Dylan’s biographer, ‘A Complete Unknown’ is a dream come true — even if it’s mostly fiction
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Fast Forward 2 synagogues in Sydney graffitied with swastikas
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Opinion ‘Just things’ — like what my LA neighbors have lost — are what makes houses into Jewish homes
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Opinion Celebrating Shabbat in Los Angeles: Amid the fires, a still, small voice
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Opinion ‘Home is memory’: How Jews make sense of what they’ve lost in the LA fires and what remains
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