Israel News Today

Reservists Ido Aviv and Kalkidan Mehar were killed Sunday when the building they were inside in central Gaza was fired on by an Israeli tank which viewed the structure as suspicious from ynet - News https://ift.tt/Zmxjuhr

There’s a moment in David Adjmi’s Stereophonic that heightens the pressure in the room. The unnamed 1970s band at the play’s center, who bear more than a glancing resemblance to Fleetwood Mac, learn that Columbia Records has tripled their budget. In the words of their overwhelmed engineer Grover, “they’re getting more than Pink Floyd got for Dark Side of the Moon .” In a way, art mirrors life. Adjmi’s play, set within the walls and partitions of a recording studio, received wall-to-wall raves last year Off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons. Tonight it will begin previews at a much larger house : Broadway’s Golden Theatre. “The whole thing is so meta,” Adjmi said of the transfer. “We’re all new to this. We’ve not worked in houses this big.” Adjmi’s chief concern for the new venue was losing the intimacy of the piece, a raw look at relationships punctuated by live music written by Will Butler, formerly of Arcade Fire. But Adjmi’s confident that the Golden can deliver the same exper...

For many in the college class of 2024, pro-Palestinian protests at commencement would mark yet another milestone celebration disrupted. These are the same students whose senior year of high school was marred by pandemic lockdowns that began in March 2020. Classes went remote, proms were canceled and graduations were held on Zoom or in parking lots where masked students stepped out of cars, grabbed diplomas and drove off. Their first year at college consisted of online classes, locked-down dorms and orientations never held. Now, four years later, some worry the protests roiling dozens of campuses will disrupt their college commencements, too. Evan Heidel, a senior at San Diego State, said the derailing of his high school graduation was “frustrating but understandable,” because “it made sense to not have a bunch of people get together in the middle of the pandemic.” This time around, though, “I’m just more angry with the protesters,” he said. “There’s just a lot of uncertainty.” With ...

Since the atrocious Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and the catastrophic response by the Israeli government in Gaza, too many students, faculty, and community members at U.S. universities have been mimicking the worst kinds of discourses coming out of Israel and Palestine.  I have seen those who consider themselves to be on the progressive left, and who care about Palestinians, parroting ultranationalist slogans like “From the river to the sea,” excusing violence that amounts to war crimes with the slogan “By any means necessary,” and using the word “Zionist” as an expletive.  Many of those who care about Israelis proclaim they are “standing with Israel,” without criticizing the Israeli government’s ultranationalist policies of occupation and Jewish supremacy, which are the law of the land in Israel-Palestine from the river to the sea. Others have used the label “antisemitic” to describe anything from actual antisemitism to mere calls for a ceasefire or denouncements of Israeli viole...

Caught in the middle of a deadly Israel-Hamas conflict, many Palestinians confess there's no love lost for the terrorist organization; Gaza resident, Dr. Mukhaimer Abu Saada, sheds light in a revealing interview from ynet - News https://ift.tt/CFDqcL2

28-year-old Ido Aviv and 37-year-old Master Sergeant Kalkidan Mehar both perish in building explosion in the Netzarim Corridor in the center of the Gaza Strip, with another reservist seriously wounded from ynet - News https://ift.tt/DvdsHm4

US President reiterates 'clear position' on military operation in Rafah in a phone call with Netanyahu; military spokesperson says more humanitarian aid going into the Strip 'than ever before' from ynet - News https://ift.tt/CLaHFAu

LOS ANGELES ( JTA ) — Inside the University of Southern California Hillel, there were signs of normalcy. Some students were making matzah pizza in the courtyard, while another set up an art installation devoted to actor Larry David. Students and staff discussed plans for the evening’s Shabbat programming. But outside the building, students only a block away could be heard hawking cookies and other baked goods at their makeshift “Bake Sale 4 Gaza.” Their table was set up next to another booth with a large sign declaring that “‘I stand with Israel’ equals ‘I stand with genocide.’” And in a plaza a few steps away, the Los Angeles chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace was hosting a pro-Palestinian Passover gathering, complete with Streits matzah and bottles of grape juice. One attendee held a large poster listing the “10 Plagues of Zionist Idolatry.” The scene on Friday follows a chaotic stretch in which USC canceled the planned commencement speech of its valedictorian , who had drawn criti...

I once studied with a rabbi who told me that whenever one is not sure of an answer to a question — any question — one should simply say, “Because we were slaves in Egypt.” Whatever the question, he advised, this answer would be a good place to start.  Passover, of course, is the holiday of freedom and memory, when we Jews celebrate our exodus from that period of enslavement in Egypt. Mitzrayim, the Hebrew word for “Egypt” also means “narrow place.” This Passover, more than any I can remember, feels like we are stuck in a narrow place amid the crisis in the Middle East and the rise of antisemitism around the world.  Campuses are boiling with unrest because many students feel that their institutions are participating in patterns of murderous oppression. They see the people of Gaza as the ones in “the narrow place,” and are demanding we cut all ties with Israel, divesting from companies that manufacture weapons used in the war and ending academic exchanges.  Roger Cohen...

Katz reaffirms Israel's top priority is the release of all Israeli hostages held in the Gaza Strip and that a deal would come first against the planned military operation from ynet - News https://ift.tt/CyPdjS8

One April evening around Passover, around 200 students put their books down to stand up to antisemitism at their elite private university.  A campus newspaper reported that a Jewish student feared for her safety. Another student’s car had been pelted with rocks. And signs at the Islamic center were torn down. Jonathan Greenblatt was among the speakers at the candlelight vigil organized by Hillel and a separate pro-Israel student group: “There‘s only one side to be on,” he told the crowd, according to the student paper. “The side against bigotry, prejudice, and antisemitism.” The school was Tufts, not Columbia; the year was 1992, not 2024; and Greenblatt, now CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, was then a senior at Tufts, a columnist for a different student newspaper — and an ADL intern.  The campus just outside of Boston had been sharply divided over a speech by Khalid Abdul Muhammad of the Nation of Islam about Israel and apartheid South Africa. Muhammad, a fiery Black...

( JTA ) — Israeli police arrested Ayelet Waldman, a Jewish American author, while she was with a group trying to deliver relief to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Waldman, who is Israeli-born, was one of seven people arrested Friday morning at a protest action organized by Rabbis for Human Rights, and one of five Americans. Two were released before Shabbat, organizers said, but Waldman was still in custody at the police station in Ashkelon, a city near the Gaza border. Her husband Michael Chabon, also a noted novelist, expressed concern about her status on Instagram. “She was there in the company of a group of American rabbis, #rabbis4ceasefire , to show the world, the people of Gaza, and their fellow Jews in Israel, and around the world what Judaism teaches: justice, lovingkindness, peace, mercy, liberation,” he said. In video Chabon posted, Waldman is seen bearing a bag of rice as she walks toward Erez Crossing, on the northern Gaza-Israel border. A policeman blocks her way and sh...

During Iranian attack, Israel's defense systems intercepted 99% of threats spearheaded by Air Force's tech unit, Ofek 324, which managed detection, tracking and interceptions; commander highlights their role in protecting Israeli skies and AI integration from ynet - News https://ift.tt/ATIiNS9

In a moment of relative quiet, Jewish students at Yale University’s Cross Campus quad, arms around one another’s shoulders, joined in song on the first night of Passover. They sang the tune Olam Chesed Yibaneh (“We Will Build this World from Love”). The song’s writer is outraged. Rabbi Menachem Creditor wrote the song on the occasion of his oldest child’s naming ceremony in 2002. It became popular in years since, released on Creditor’s 2015 album Olam Chesed . But Creditor, who recently published  Am Yisrael Chai , a collection inspired by the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, believes that students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza are distorting it. “ Those who are using the song in these protests are misappropriating its message of love and support for Israel,” Creditor, scholar in residence for UJA-Federation of New York, said in a statement. “I cannot accept its use by the protesters” Reached for comment on their Instagram account Friday, Yale Jews for Ceasefire, who helped org...