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
Happy Jewish settlers released balloons and broke ground on a kindergarten as the last hours of a 10-month construction slowdown ticked away Sunday. The AP’s Aron Heller reports from the West Bank. [url href=”http://aronheller.com/articles/israeli-building-slowdown-ends-settlers-celebrate/”]Watch the Video[/url] [url href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v30k-4mBpvA” content=”Watch the Video” target=external]
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
Thousands of marchers for captive soldier bring Israel’s cultural and financial capital to a standstill. The AP’s Aron Heller reports for KFWB Radio (Los Angeles) from Tel Aviv. [url href=”http://aronheller.com/articles/mass-march-for-captive-soldier-divides-israel “Watch the Video” target=external] [url href=”http://audioboo.fm/boos/149097-says-if-you-missed-ap-s-aron-heller-report-from-israel-on-the-calls-to-free-schalit-from-gaza-militants-on-kfwb-listens” content=”Listen to Report” target=external]
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
TEL AVIV, Israel — Pounding his piano in blue-tinted sunglasses before nearly 50,000 screaming fans, Elton John took center stage in a battle over Israel’s image. The legendary British rocker’s concert on Thursday night followed a string of cancellations by artists like Elvis Costello and the Pixies. Resisting a growing wave of calls from pro-Palestinian activists to boycott the Jewish … Read More
JERUSALEM — An Israeli-Arab lawmaker’s decision to join hundreds of activists on a pro-Palestinian flotilla has elevated her from relative political obscurity, transforming her into the poster child for the growing rift between Israel’s Jewish majority and its Arab minority. Unapologetic for defying Israel’s Gaza blockade and being on board the boat where activists clashed with Israeli commandos during last week’s … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — As a 9-year-old girl, Shoshana Neuman was forced by Nazi collaborators to march across what is now Ukraine in a brutal six-week trek that her father and sister did not survive. The only image she has of her dead family is a painting she drew 40 years later of an exhausted, bearded man, his eyes closed, hoisting a … Read More
PARDES HANNA, Israel (AP) — Some patients refuse to shower because it reminds them of the gas chambers. Others hoard meat in pillow cases because they fear going hungry. At the Shaar Menashe Mental Health Center in northern Israel, it’s as though the Holocaust never ended. As Israel on Sunday night begins its annual 24 hours of remembrance of the … Read More
JERUSALEM – Israel lifted months of censorship on a military espionage case Thursday, confirming the house arrest of a former female soldier charged with leaking more than 2,000 military documents to a newspaper. Anat Kamm, 23, has been under house arrest since December, but the case was kept under wraps by a court-imposed gag order. The restrictions were eased Thursday … Read More
JERUSALEM — Israel is launching a potentially trailblazing experiment in organ donation: Sign a donor card, and you and your family move up in line for a transplant if one is needed. The new law is the first of its kind in the world, and international medical authorities are eager to see if it boosts organ supply. But it has … Read More