This is the Forward’s coverage of Israel, the Jewish state in the Middle East founded in 1948.
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Israel News Jewish Donors See Bright Future in Spite (Or Because?) of Pew Findings
(JTA) — If you’re pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Jewish identity building, what do you do when a survey comes along showing that the number of U.S. Jews engaging with Jewish life and religion is plummeting? That’s the question facing major funders of American Jewish life following the release last week of the…
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Fast Forward Throngs Stream to Mourn Rabbi Ovadia Yosef After 800,000 Attend Funeral
More than 800,000 people filled the streets of Jerusalem for the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Sephardi sage and political leader who died at age 93. Many of Jerusalem’s main streets were closed for Monday’s funeral, which is being called by local media the largest funeral in Israeli’s history. The attendees, equal to about…
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Life I’m No Pew Survey Poster Child
Until recently, I was a poster-child for the kind of attrition from Jewish life that the recent Pew Study, subject of so much angst in the media, describes. I eschewed nearly all organized Jewish activities in the decade after my first Hillel dinner at college, which I fled screaming. Okay, I wasn’t quite screaming, but…
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Fast Forward Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to Meet Chuck Hagel in Washington
WASHINGTON — Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will meet in Washington to discuss “regional security challenges.” The defense chiefs are scheduled to meet Tuesday at the Pentagon, according to a statement from Pentagon spokesman Carlin Woog to JTA. Israel has welcomed the results of a threat by the Obama…
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Fast Forward 500,000 Throng Streets of Jerusalem at Funeral for Rabbi Ovadia Yosef
More than half a million mourners turned out on Monday for the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, an Iraqi-born sage who transformed an Israeli underclass of Sephardic Jews of Middle East heritage into a powerful political force. Jerusalem’s police chief said the funeral for Yosef, who died earlier on Monday aged 93, was the biggest…
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Fast Forward Mideast Peace Talks Intensify Despite Harsh Rhetoric From Both Sides
Israeli and Palestinian negotiators held a new round of talks on Monday, picking up the tempo of their meetings at the request of the United States in the face of widespread scepticism that they will ever reach a deal. The two sides resumed direct peace negotiations in late July after three years of stalemate and…
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News Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Sephardic Kingmaker of Israeli Politics, Dies at 93
Ovadia Yosef, the rabbi responsible for turning religiously observant Sephardic Jews from a marginalized minority into one of Israel’s most politically powerful groups, has died at age 93. Yosef was widely revered as a kind of living saint during his lifetime. He inspired adoring love songs extolling his virtues, and his death is expected to…
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Culture Masturbation Could Force You To Fast For 11 Years — But Murder Is Cheap
As the world busies itself with the dead people of Syria, I walk the streets of holy Jerusalem in search of truth and wisdom, hoping to find a solution to this horrible situation that I could share with the leaders of the goyishe velt, and maybe prevent the unnecessary death and destruction that is taking…
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Exclusive Mahmoud Khalil wants to reassure you
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Culture In 1989, Harold Pinter and Jerry Schatzberg made the perfect Holocaust movie for 2026
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Culture 70 years ago, this Jewish choreographer predicted our epidemic of loneliness and isolation
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Opinion Trump is backed into a corner on Iran. Get ready for him to start blaming Jews
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Film & TV Jonah Hill’s cancel culture dramedy makes an antisemitism exception — all about Kanye
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Fast Forward 60% of Americans have an unfavorable view of Israel, up sharply since 2022, survey shows
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Fast Forward Iran ceasefire teeters as IDF continues to pound Hezbollah in Lebanon, Strait of Hormuz stays closed
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Opinion My family and friends questioned why I wanted to visit Israel. That’s why I wanted to go.
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