Israel News

Israel @ 50 -- Behold, A Miracle At 50

05/01/1998 | Jonathan Mark | Associate Publisher

Some say Israel’s 50th has been a hard birthday to reckon with. Have we built our house of twigs or bricks? Wolves are still at the door, but now there’s huffing and puffing from the inside, too. A beer in solitude seems preferable to a cake with too many candles. In sympathy, all of us, at one time or another, have had a birthday when the last thing we wanted was to arrive home, tense and melancholy, only to enter a living room full of friends yelling “Surprise!”

In Their Own Words

05/01/1998 | Compiled by Steve Lipman and Sandee Brawarsky | Staff Writers

We hereby proclaim the establishment of the Jewish State in Palestine, to be called Medinat Yisrael. With trust in the Rock of Israel, we set our hand to this Declaration, at this session of the Provisional State Council, on the soil of the homeland, in the city of Tel-Aviv, on this Sabbath eve, the fifth of Iyar, 5708, the fourteenth of May, 1948.”
— David Ben-Gurion, reading Proclamation of Independence, May 14, 1948
“The people are profoundly happy. And I am filled with foreboding. I feel like the bereaved among the rejoicing.”

Bridges To The 21st Century

05/01/1998 | Staff Report | Staff Writer

Repairing A House Divided
Called too pluralistic by the right and too Jewish by the left, Rabbi Mordechai Gafni carries on his crusade to get the secular and religious talking to one another.

Steve Lipman
Staff Writer

The Next War

05/01/1998 | by Lawrence Cohler-Esses | Staff Writer

Just outside of Ashkelon, on a huge expanse of land in Kiryat Gat, Intel, the U.S. computer chip giant, is building the single largest foreign investment in Israel’s history. Rising from the ground now at a quickening pace, Intel’s “Fab-18” plant will cost $1.6 billion to build. It will employ at least 1,500 people. And it is expected to generate about $1 billion per year in revenue once it opens, some time next year.

In Limbo On The West Bank

05/01/1998 | by Michele Chabin | Israel Correspondent

Ramallah, West Bank — Walking through the sunny, well-kept streets of Deir Debwan, a half-hour outside Jerusalem, it is easy to see why this tony Arab enclave has been dubbed the Beverly Hills of the West Bank.

Thanks to the success of its far-flung sons and daughters, multi-level homes abound. Some have indoor swimming pools. And at one time or another, nearly half the town’s 8,000 residents have lived in the United States.

Vallone Braves Hebron

04/24/1998 | by Michele Chabin | Israel Correspondent

Jerusalem — While British Prime Minister Tony Blair practically did cartwheels to avoid courting controversy during his visit to Israel this week, New York City Council Speaker Peter Vallone, also on a whirlwind tour, took no such precautions.