Israel

As the strain in U.S.-Israel relations continues, some area rabbis who generally don’t mix religion and politics on the pulpit are setting aside those constraints.

“People were asking me and my hand was sort of forced,” said Rabbi Perry Rank, spiritual leader of the Midway Jewish Center, a Conservative synagogue in Syosset, L.I. “My sense is that Mr. [Barack] Obama has unnerved the American Jewish community and people are looking for a perspective on the issue.

Jerusalem — Whether or not he is found guilty of taking bribes in the Jerusalem Holyland corruption scandal, Ehud Olmert’s political career is almost certainly over.

At best, the former prime minister and ex-mayor of Jerusalem can expect many months, if not years, of litigation that will further tarnish his already tainted reputation and leave him unelectable. At worst, he faces a long prison term.

Israel may be in a tense standoff with U.S. President Barack Obama, but the high-tech-savvy country seemed to be picking a fight this week with another formidable foe: Apple. And the Jewish state’s decision to ban the iPad, Apple’s vaunted new e-tablet, had tech writers and bloggers the world over scratching their heads trying to understand the move.

The reason? Israel’s explanation of the ban didn’t seem to add up.

(JTA) – Israel included a Reform rabbi for the first time in launching its Independence Day celebrations.

Rabbi Richard Hirsch was one of 14 Israelis asked to help light the torch Monday evening marking the start of Israel’s 62nd Independence Day.

The committee naming the honorees, working out of the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, recognized Hirsch for strengthening ties between the Reform movement and Israel.

Israel’s 16-year honeymoon with the White House (under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush) is over, and the tension between Jerusalem and the Obama administration is “dramatic and considerable,” according to the senior diplomatic correspondent for The Jerusalem Post.

Herb Keinon, a native of Denver who has lived in and covered Israel for 27 years, spoke of “conceptual gaps on two major planes” between the allies in a talk Sunday evening at Congregation Rinat Yisrael in Teaneck, N.J.

Morlie Levin, formerly the national executive director of Hadassah, is slated next month to take on the new post of CEO at Birthright Israel NEXT. She is expected to lead a nationwide expansion of the Birthright alumni organization, currently in seven cities, so that it has a presence in 10-15 cities. Prior to her position at Hadassah, Levin was the vice president of strategic planning at the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, where she sought new ways to engage young donors.

Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs may not always get along, but two young pianists — one a Jew from Tel Aviv, the other an Arab from Nazareth — will be living in harmony next week at Carnegie Hall. Onstage, that is.

The skies over Israel were clear on Monday night, clear enough for the annual fireworks on the eve of Yom Ha’Atzmaut, Independence Day.

But for some Israelis, the celebration of the country’s 62nd birthday was overcast.

“62, Under a U.S. Cloud,” a headline over an editorial in the Jerusalem Post declared.

The newspaper said the current chilled relations between Israel and the Obama administration because of the pace of Middle East peace negotiations, added to the threat of a nuclear Iran, cast a pall over Independence Day.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (JTA) -- Talk about shul politics.

In the interest of avoiding a disruption of his grandson’s bar mitzvah, Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the Goldstone report on the 2009 Gaza war, told JTA last week that he would not attend the family simcha next month at a Johannesburg synagogue.

But in case Goldstone has any second thoughts, a leading South African Jewish group announced it is ready to protest should he show up.