JERUSALEM — As a slave laborer in Auschwitz, Meyer Hack was forced to sort through the tattered clothing stripped off inmates before they were sent to the gas chambers. He gathered valuable belongings hidden inside the clothes, stuffed them in a sock, hid them and later spirited them to freedom. On Monday, the 95-year-old survivor from Boston donated eight pieces … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — Hanita Leshem’s parents handed her over to a Christian family in Ukraine in 1941, when she was just a year old, to save her from the Nazi troops murdering the Jews there. Leshem, now a 69-year-old grandmother living in Jerusalem, never saw her mother and father again. On Tuesday, she stood among other child survivors as Israel … Read More
JERUSALEM—As terrified teenagers 65 years ago, Menachem Sholowicz and Anshel Sieradzki stood in line together in Auschwitz, having serial numbers tattooed on their arms. Sholowicz was B-14594; Sieradzki was B-14595. The two Polish Jews had never met, they never spoke and they were quickly separated. Each survived the Nazi death camp, moved to Israel, married, and became grandfathers. They didn’t … Read More
[url href=”http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/telaviv_100/” content=”View Multimedia Presentation” target=external] TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) _ Well past the Sabbath midnight, hours before the Mideast erupted once again into war, Tel Aviv was doing what it loves most – partying. For a place founded a century ago to be the world’s first Jewish city, the atmosphere was decidedly un-kosher. Christmas decorations lined the bars … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s hottest musical export these days is a dreadlocked composer who pioneered a unique blend of Israeli, Ethiopian, Yemenite and Latin music from a makeshift recording studio in his parents’ basement. Idan Raichel’s musical fusion — catchy melodies mixed with Hebrew and Amharic lyrics sung by artists from Israel’s community of Ethiopian Jewish immigrants — has conquered … Read More
WADI FUQEEN, West Bank (AP) — Asil Manasra, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl, was in her eighth month of intensive treatment at an Israeli hospital for complications arising from a long bout of tuberculosis when she was abruptly forced to stop the visits. A week after she was discharged, she died. It’s impossible to know how much longer Asil might have lived, … Read More
SDEROT, Israel — Brightly painted walls surround a mini-soccer field, video games, a climbing wall and play areas. The converted warehouse also has a new thick concrete roof, a half dozen shelters and an alert system to give a 15-second warning of incoming rockets. The children of Sderot finally have a safe place to play. The fortified indoor playground got a … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — A Gestapo officer forced Jewish author and artist Bruno Schulz to paint fairy tale characters on the walls of a nursery in an occupied Polish village in 1941. A Nazi sergeant shot and killed Schulz a year later, and his colorful murals were forgotten for decades. Israel’s Holocaust museum presented Schulz’s paintings on Friday, eight years after … Read More
JERUSALEM—The hottest slogan in the Israeli election campaign is a not-so-veiled attack on the country’s Arab minority: “Without loyalty, there is no citizenship.” The motto is plastered nationwide across buses and billboards. Above it looms the dour, bearded face of its mastermind, Avigdor Lieberman, who is enjoying a surge in opinion polls that indicate he could emerge as the political … Read More
HERZLIYA, Israel (AP) _ Israel’s foreign minister threatened Monday to keep hitting Hamas as long as it attacks Israel, ruling out negotiations with the Islamic rulers of Gaza just eight days before national elections in which she is running for prime minister. Tzipi Livni’s tough statement came as a Hamas delegation went to Cairo for talks Tuesday with Egyptian mediators … Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) _ Even in the world of politics and its strange bedfellows, this coalition is odder than most. On Tuesday, a party representing Israeli Holocaust survivors joined forces with the pro-marijuana Green Leaf party for a run at Israel’s parliament. The new party launched its campaign in a near-empty, underground, graffiti-filled nightclub in south Tel Aviv, pledging … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — The use of Nazi imagery at recent anti-Israel demonstrations across Europe has fanned the flames of anti-Semitism and incited violence against Jews, the head of Israel’s Holocaust memorial said Monday. Protests against Israel’s Gaza offensive have included signs and slogans comparing Israeli soldiers to German troops, the Gaza Strip to the Auschwitz death camp and the Jewish … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli aircraft pounded 50 Hamas positions early Saturday, keeping pressure on the Islamic militant group as the country’s top leaders prepared for a crucial vote on whether to end Israel’s punishing three-week-long campaign against Gaza’s rulers. The vote on the Egyptian-brokered truce proposal follows a signing of a “memorandum of understanding” in Washington between Secretary of State … Read More
RAMON AIRFORCE BASE, Israel (AP) – Apache helicopter pilot Capt. Orr, who has flown dozens of combat missions over Gaza the past few weeks, on Tuesday said he felt sorry for civilian casualties and had aborted missions to avoid them. He and his fellow fighter pilots are responsible for the vast majority of damage and casualties in Gaza, since Israel … Read More
JERUSALEM _ Plumes of smoke engulfed a neighborhood east of Gaza City on Wednesday as Israel’s leaders considered a peace plan put forth by France and Egypt on the 12th day of their campaign to stop rocket fire into Israel. Sounds of heavy gunfire engulfed the Zeitoun neighborhood east of Gaza City and Israel said it struck 40 Hamas targets … Read More