JERUSALEM (AP) — For more than a century, planting trees in this mostly desert land has been an act of almost spiritual importance, starting with those who helped create the state of Israel. So, the emotional response to the worst wildfire in the country’s history, which tore through one of its few natural forests over the weekend and killed 42 … Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Ismail Abdul-Rasul and his family escaped war in Darfur, languished in squalid conditions in Egypt for five years and nearly suffocated in a harrowing journey across the Sinai desert before they were finally smuggled into Israel. “I was dancing with joy when I arrived,” said the 47-year-old father or four, who reached Israel in July 2007. … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) —With his dark suit, black skullcap and graying beard, Rabbi Haim Amsalem hardly looks the part of a revolutionary. But the soft-spoken lawmaker is causing an uproar in the influential and tight-knit ultra-Orthodox world in Israel with a simple message: It’s time for people to go to work. It is a stunning call to upend a tradition ingrained … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — The perpetually sleep-deprived scholar sits slouched in a large chair, a pipe to his lips, his long white beard curled into knots, strands of hair poking out from beneath his black skullcap. Lacking a rabbi’s traditional booming voice, he speaks so softly one often has to lean in closer to hear his insights. But Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s … Read More
JERUSALEM – The rapper Shyne is singing a new tune: After serving eight years in prison for a nightclub shooting, the former protege of Sean “Diddy” Combs has converted to Orthodox Judaism, come to Jerusalem, and is devoting his days to the study of Torah while plotting a musical comeback. His arrival in the Holy Land caps an unorthodox journey … Read More
KOCHAV YAIR, Israel (AP) — Alex Werber calmly strode toward a patch of black stones, pulled up his sleeves and opened a plastic bag to dump out its contents. “Goodbye, mom,” he said, scattering her ashes at the former site of the Treblinka death camp in Poland, where the Nazis murdered 875,000 Jews during World War II. It was Lucy Werber’s … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — When Hillary Rubin immigrated from the U.S. to Israel, the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors and descendant of a famed Zionist visionary felt that she had finally arrived in her true home. But now that religious authorities are questioning the 29-year-old Michigan native’s Jewish pedigree and refusing to recognize her marriage, she’s having second thoughts. Rubin is at … Read More
BAT YAM, Israel — They are believed to be the last two survivors of the most chillingly efficient killing machine of the Nazi Holocaust: the Treblinka extermination camp in occupied Poland. Samuel Willenberg and Kalman Taigman, 87-year-old Israelis, are devoting their final years to trying to preserve the memory of the 875,000 people systematically murdered in a one-year killing spree … Read More
JERUSALEM — During its six decades of existence, Israel has maintained a shaky alliance with its ultra-Orthodox Jewish minority that allowed most religious men to avoid military service, attend separate schools and get paid by the state to study the Bible instead of entering the work force. But this system is coming under new scrutiny, pressured by a series of … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) _ The discovery of huge natural gas reserves off Israel’s Mediterranean Coast _ long dreamed of and searched for, yet strangely unexpected _ has delivered a windfall that could solve Israel’s energy needs for generations. But in the short term, it has instead yielded a bizarre trade battle with the United States, putting Israel at odds with its … Read More
REVAVA, West Bank (AP) _ Jewish settlers released balloons and broke ground on a kindergarten in celebration Sunday as a 10-month construction slowdown expired, while U.S. and Israeli leaders tried to figure out how to keep Palestinians from walking out of peace talks over the end of the restrictions. After the slowdown ran out at midnight, there was no Palestinian … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) – Growing up in the West Bank, Mujahid Sarsur knew next to nothing about the Holocaust and saw little ground to sympathize with a people he saw as his occupier. But thanks to an Israeli roommate overseas, the 21-year-old Palestinian student learned about the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews during World War II and discovered a new … Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel – Dr. Ruth Westheimer, the world renowned sexpert, is in Israel probing something completely new. She’s researching the country’s tiny Circassian Muslim community for a PBS documentary. The work follows similar films she has made in recent years about other minority groups in Israel, such as the Bedouin, the Druse and the Ethiopian Jews. It’s quite a … Read More
JERUSALEM – It seems almost Kafkaesque: Ten safety deposit boxes of never-published writings by Franz Kafka, their exact contents unknown, are trapped in courts and bureaucracy, much like one of the nightmarish visions created by the author himself. The papers, retrieved from bank vaults where they have sat untouched and unread for decades, could shed new light on one of … Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) _ Thousands of marchers brought Israel’s cultural and financial capital to a standstill, urging the government to do whatever it takes to win freedom for a soldier captured four years ago by Gaza militants. Near Israel’s border with Gaza, thousands more gathered for a concert led by a world-famous conductor to press Hamas to let the … Read More