The Jewish Week | Israel News

Likud Voters Electing Party Chairman
Tuesday, January 31, 2012

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Members of Israel's Likud Party went to the polls to elect a party chairman and a new Central Committee, more than a year before scheduled national elections.

Prime Minister Netanyahu on Tuesday is expected to be elected party chairman for the fifth time in 18 years.

He is being challenged by party hardliner Moshe Feiglin of the Jewish Leadership faction of the party.

Feiglin is working to garner more than 24 percent of the vote, which is what he polled in the 2007 contest.

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Prime Minister Netanyahu, left, and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are said to be weighing a strike on Iran’s nuclear program.
Amid Attack Talk, Israelis Split On Iran Tack
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | Joshua Mitnick | Israel Correspondent

Tel Aviv — Before leaving with a carton of milk or a popsicle, customers at Eyal Monarov’s Tel Aviv convenience store usually pause to glance at the latest front-page headlines.

Lately newspapers have been chock-full of headlines about the threat of a nuclear Iran, and Monarov says his customers aren’t shy about sharing their opinions with him.

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Haredi-secular tensions flared after Beit Shemesh incident. getty images
The Spit Felt ’Round The World
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 | Jonathan Mark | Associate Editor

It was as if the spit cut into Ezra Friedlander’s cheek, from half a world away.

Friedlander, the son of the Liska rebbe and CEO of the Friedlander Group, a public affairs organization here, says, “We absolutely have the obligation to condemn even the actions of a rogue group. I want people to know that they don’t speak for me.”

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Poll: Most Israeli Jews Keep Kosher, Practice Some Sabbath Rituals
Monday, January 30, 2012

(JTA) – More than four of every five Israeli Jews believe in God and three-quarters of Israeli Jews keep kosher, according to a survey.

The study, conducted by the Israel Democracy Institute’s Guttman Center and paid for by the Avi Chai Foundation, also found that 51 percent of Israeli Jews favor instituting civil marriage; in Israel, marriage is controlled by the religious authorities.

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Hackers Hit Websites of Israeli Hospitals
Thursday, January 26, 2012

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- The websites of two Israeli medical centers as well as several other public Israeli websites, were hacked.

The websites for Tel Hashomer and Assuta medical centers, among the largest in central Israel, were down Wednesday morning.

The hospitals' security systems held back the assaults and patient information was not compromised, according to the hospitals.

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Israeli Planes Attack Gaza Sites
Tuesday, January 24, 2012

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Israel's Air Force attacked terrorist sites in the Gaza Strip.

The targets hit after midnight on Monday night included a weapons manufacturing site in central Gaza, two terror tunnels in northern Gaza, and a third terror tunnel in southern Gaza, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

The attacks were in response to several rockets fired at southern Israeli communities in recent days, the IDF said. Six rockets have been fired into southern Israel from Gaza in the last week.

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Has The ‘Tough Love’ Rebbe Gone Too Far?
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 | Yedidya Gorsetman and Gary Rosenblatt

For those in the Modern Orthodox community who send their sons to yeshivas in Israel for a year or two of post-high school study, it’s long been an open secret that Rav Aharon Bina, rosh hayeshiva of Netiv Aryeh in the Old City of Jerusalem, has a unique — many say bizarre — pedagogical style.

Supporters call it “tough love”; critics call it abuse.

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Assassinated nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan.
The Mossad Vs. Ahmadinejad?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012 | Joshua Mitnick | Israel Correspondent

Tel Aviv — “Everyone knows that we’re behind this and we should be proud!”

The comment appeared on the Facebook page of the Israeli Defense Forces’ chief spokesperson following the assassination last week of an Iranian nuclear scientist. Despite the usual silence from Israeli officials, the quip reflected the widely held consensus that Israel’s Mossad was responsible for the hit.

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Donald Byrd’s “Maybe a Genesis,” about the biblical Abraham, Sarah and Hagar. Michal Fattal
U.S. Artists Confront Israel’s Complexities
Tuesday, January 10, 2012 | Michele Chabin | Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem — When Donald Byrd, a Tony-nominated choreographer (“The Color Purple,” “Harlem Nutcracker”) worked with Jewish and Arab dancers in Israel four years ago, he learned that relations between Israelis and Palestinians are a lot more complicated than they seem from the outside.

But it wasn’t until last fall, during Byrd’s most recent sojourn here, that he learned just how charged relations within the country’s Jewish community could be. 

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Jordan’s King Abdullah II.
Jordan Tries A Jump Shot
Tuesday, January 3, 2012 | Joshua Mitnick | Israel Correspondent

Tel Aviv — Israeli and Palestinian negotiation envoys met for the first time this week in more than a year, but the expectations on both sides for any substantive breakthrough in the coming months have never been lower.

Normally, the first direct meeting of the sides since September 2010 would be considered a breakthrough in itself. And King Abdullah of Jordan’s decision to host talks in Amman for the first time is also a new development.

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