Israel News Today

CHICAGO — When I visited the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Illinois campus in downtown Chicago last week, I was at first surprised to see young women passing out fliers about reproductive rights. I encountered people of all ages and stripes, including those who usually make the news for being victims of perpetrators of gun violence.  Of course there were protesters wrapped in kaffiyehs and waving, wearing or otherwise displaying Palestinian flags, but there was also a gentleman who asked me, “Where the hell is even Pakistan,” apparently confusing two distant places that start with a P.  Everyone is out there for their own reasons, and they’re not all about Israel. Young people are being impacted by the same forces that are impacting all Americans everyday. Many are showing up at these protests hoping that their issue might get a sliver of the attention that the Gaza war is getting. I, too, had my own reason for going. Since Oct. 7, I’ve been desperately t...

US National Security Advisor speaks to reporters after Ireland, Spain, Norway announce they would recognize a Palestinian State at the end of May  from ynet - News https://ift.tt/KTAFPj1

Most of us can relate to having unfinished projects. Imagine dedicating 25 years of your life to creating the ultimate all-encompassing dictionary — yet, never getting past the first letter. This is the story of Yudel Mark, who, along with his colleague and rival, Max Weinreich, saw this dictionary project as the ultimate tribute to a language that was nearly wiped out in the Holocaust. Two passionate, stubborn idealists — both with the best of intentions. According to Isaac Bleaman, a linguist at UC Berkeley, about 83% of the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis spoke Yiddish. Sixty years ago, Weinreich, the long-standing director of YIVO , and linguist Yudel Mark were in a bitter dispute over how to create a comprehensive Yiddish dictionary — not a bilingual one, but one that had the definitions in Yiddish. Both men wanted to rescue the language, but their vision of how to do this diverged considerably. In the end, their difference of opinion had dramatic consequences. So dramati...

A day after ICC prosecutor's announcement,  Norway is first European country to announce it will comply if the warrant is issued from ynet - News https://ift.tt/mNSt2ab

Netanyahu and Gallant may join, along with the heads of Hamas, the list of leaders the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against for war crimes; Israel is waiting for the judges' decision from ynet - News https://ift.tt/Kpc9n2M

The terrible events of Oct. 7 and its aftermath have been at the forefront of the Reconstructionist movement, and especially at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, throughout this year. It has been incredibly challenging to lead a religious movement and a rabbinical school that includes people with a wide range of views, personal experiences and perspectives on Israel, Palestine and Zionism — as well as on our roles as Jews and as Americans in this moment.  Reconstructionism was founded on a commitment to diversity, and at the college we have incredible diversity across many dimensions. The stance of the Reconstructionist movement from the time of its founder, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, to this day is that Israel has a right to exist and is a vital center for Jewish life and the Jewish people. We care deeply about the Jewish people across geography and we stand in solidarity with Israelis. We also hold a longstanding opposition to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and suppor...

President Joe Biden says there is 'no equivalence - none - between Israel and Hamas'; Secretary of State Antony Blinken says warrants 'endanger a hostage deal'; Netanyahu also responds to the warrants: 'Directed against the entire State of Israel, against the IDF soldiers' from ynet - News https://ift.tt/tOkdYb5

די שטאָט דעטראָיט איז אַ מאָל געװען פֿון די װיכטיקסטע ייִדישע צענטערס אין די פֿאַראײניקטע שטאַטן. איז דעריבער זײער אָנגעלײגט װאָס דער דעטראָיטער היסטאָרישער מוזײ האָט לעצטנס געעפֿנט אַן אױסשטעלונג, „ אין שכנות “, װעגן דעם געװעזענעם ייִדישן װױנגעגנט אין דעטראָיט — הײסטינגס סטריט. הײַנט געפֿינט זיך דאָרט אַ גרויסער שאָסיי. אָבער ביז די 1930ער יאָרן האָבן אױף הײסטינגס סטריט און אין די אַרומיקע געסלעך געװױנט אַן ערך 100,000 מענטשן, 75,000 ייִדן בתוכם. פּונקט װי פֿריִערדיקע דורות האָבן אױפֿגעהיט דעם אָנדענק פֿון ייִדישע שטעט און שטעטלעך אין מיזרח־אייראָפּע, האָט מען איצט אין דעטראָיט געשאַפֿן אַ מין יזכּור־אױסשטעלונג לכּבֿוד אָט דעם אַמעריקאַנער „שטעטל“. די מישיגענער ייִדישע היסטאָרישע געזעלשאַפֿט האָט אין משך פֿון די יאָרן צונױפֿגעזאַמלט אַ גרױסע צאָל אַרטיפֿאַקטן פֿון דעטראָיטער ייִדישע משפּחות. די דאָזיקע חפֿצים זאָגן עדות װעגן אַ גאַנצער װעלט װאָס איז מער ניטאָ. ווי ס׳האָט  געשריבן דער דעטראָיטער ייִדישער פּאָעט עזרא קאָרמאַן : אַ פֿאָטאָגראַפֿיע פֿון אַ ייִדישן אײַנוווינער או...

( JTA ) — Yael Dayan, the daughter of a famed Israeli military and political leader who charted her own course as a champion of peace, gay rights and women’s rights in Israel, died Saturday. She was 85. A journalist who wrote novels and memoirs, Dayan also served in the Israeli Knesset for three terms between 1993 and 2002 representing the Labor Party and a centrist coalition, the One Israel Party. She later served as chair of the Tel Aviv City Council, representing the dovish Meretz party She was a daughter of Israel’s founding Ashkenazi royalty: Her father was Moshe Dayan, an architect of Israel’s victories in the 1967 and 1973 wars, and her grandfather, Shmuel Dayan, served in Israel’s first government. In her 1986 memoir, “My Father, His Daughter,” written and published approximately 30 years after the events it describes, she remembered the lessons she learned from her soldier father as she herself joined joined the battle in the Six-Day War. “All the years with my father must ...

The decision by the International Criminal Court ’s chief prosecutor to seek indictments against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant could badly backfire, both by harming the court’s standing and by helping the beleaguered Israeli government, and especially its much-criticized leader. That doesn’t necessarily mean the decision is wrong. Just that it is far from a clear victory for opponents of Israel’s war. Central to parsing this development is understanding that the ICC is not a consensual arbiter of international law. It is operated as a club of 124 states that does not include some major pillars of the world order, including the United States, India, China, Russia, Turkey and Israel itself. Only established in 2002, the court’s exact role in the landscape of international intervention remains ill-defined. In more than two decades, it has only issued 46 warrants, 21 of which led to arrests, with only a handful of successful prosecutions. W...

After hours of searching for helicopter carrying Iran president and foreign minister, which crashed on its way back from Azerbaijan, Tehran media reports breakthrough and 'hope for good news'; Khamenei reassures Iranians no disruptions to state affairs from ynet - News https://ift.tt/mHujrIS

During Gaza operation, troops find video and photos of Ella and Dafna Elyakim, taken from father's home on October 7 after he was murdered along with his partner and her son, later released in hostage deal from ynet - News https://ift.tt/JOUbVze

Billions of dollars flow to universities as donations from Muslim countries such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar; According to a report by an American research institute, academic institutions that received money from Arab countries have had 300% more antisemitic incidents  from ynet - News https://ift.tt/nwta3IF

War Cabinet minister claims 'personal and political considerations have started to infiltrate the holy of holies of Israel's security,' outlines 6 objectives, including post-war Gaza plan and military service blueprint from ynet - News https://ift.tt/b9Wf0ZE

IDF spokesperson announces that Ron Benjamin, 53, whose car was found on October 7 at the Mefalsim Intersection, and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas terrorists from ynet - News https://ift.tt/zGFyMeu

Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, terror group launches dozens of rockets and drones at Israel; IDF retaliates with artillery fire and targeted assassinations from ynet - News https://ift.tt/jb8gdyR

LOS ANGELES ( JTA ) — Today’s understanding of Hollywood — the glitz, the glam, the red carpets and paparazzi — are a far cry from the film industry’s humble beginnings, when a group of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe laid the groundwork for what would become an epicenter of American and global culture. Such is the story told by a new exhibition at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, which opens Sunday. “Hollywoodland: Jewish Founders and the Making of a Movie Capital” traces the history and legacy of early 20th century Jewish Hollywood pioneers like the Warner brothers, Louis B. Mayer, Adolph Zukor and others. It is the museum’s first permanent exhibit. The exhibit’s debut comes two and a half years after the museum’s opening, which sparked controversy among supporters and visitors for not including the industry’s Jewish beginnings. Jacqueline Stewart, the museum’s director and president, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that community feedback helped the...

At a Seder at Yale’s protest encampment this spring, students put their arms around each other and swayed. “If we build this world from love, then God will build this world from love,” they sang, gathered around a sheet painted as a Seder table. The words are lyrics from Olam Chesed Yibaneh , a Hebrew folk song composed by Rabbi Menachem Creditor, who wrote it for his oldest child’s naming ceremony in 2002. But despite the fact that Creditor himself has a long history of progressive activism, he was irate to see his tune sung at a pro-Palestinian protest. In an interview with the Forward , he said that the students were “ misappropriating its message of love and support for Israel,” using his song about peace to obscure the antisemitism that he believes lies at the heart of the pro-Palestinian protests. Yale Jews for Ceasefire, the group hosting the Seder, in a statement responding to Creditor, said that, for them, the song imagines “a future where Israelis and Palestinians can l...

( JTA ) — Karen Frostig stood on a grassy patch of land near the Daugava River outside Riga in 2007 searching for a sign, a plaque, any marker acknowledging the thousands of Jews whom the Nazis murdered in and around the adjacent woods of towering fir trees over 60 years earlier, including her Austrian grandparents. There was nothing. Instead, she walked past broken toilets, scraps of metal and bags of trash. The former site of Latvia’s Jungfernhof concentration camp was a dumping ground. Frostig, an artist and art professor at Boston’s Lesley University, had recently learned from archival documents that her grandparents, Moses Frostig and Beile Samuely, likely perished at Jungfernhof and not in the Riga ghetto as she long thought. It was the end of March, and Frostig and her guide had bundled up in winter coats. “I was terrified to go there,” Frostig told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “I felt like I was walking into extreme danger. But then there was this magical experience. All of...