Nir Barkat walked across town from his spacious and handsome home in Jerusalem’s Beit Hakerem neighborhood to a synagogue in affluent Talbieh. For part of the way, he was accompanied by the Netanyahu family. If it were up to the prime minister and his wife, Barkat − who was quick to commemorate Benjamin Netanyahu’s late…
In his first five-year term as mayor of the city holy to the world’s three monotheistic religions, Nir Barkat has limited ultra-Orthodox power in the city, slowed the migration of non-Haredim out of Jerusalem and boosted secular culture — a low priority for his Haredi predecessor — with a budget increase of 300%. But one…
As Jerusalem continues to shake off its, er, parochial reputation, Israel’s Ministry of Tourism this week announced the second annual Jerusalem International Marathon will run its course on March 16 around some of the Holy City’s most iconic sites. The race, whose 2011 debut drew more than 10,000 runners from more than 40 countries, will…
What if you were a woman entering a business conference in order to hear speeches the mayor of a city, a government finance minister and the CEO of a major bank, but were turned away at the door because you were female and the audience was limited only to men “for modesty reasons”? One might…
CBS News ‘60 Minutes’ correspondent Leslie Stahl reported Sunday night October 17 on the City of David archaeological dig under Silwan in East Jerusalem and the effort by the settler movement, the El-Ad organization and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to populate the congested Arab neighborhood with Jews. Watch it here.
Here in Israel, there has been no shortage of secular-religious tensions in recent weeks. As the Bintel Blog discussed here, there have been the turf wars of Ramat Aviv where secular residents fear a Haredi takeover. More recently we’ve had violence over recreation. Haredi residents of Jerusalem, where there is no public transport on Shabbat,…
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