Israel Matters!

Not Strictly Kosher T.V. I travel to Israel twice a year, each time for a few weeks. I see Israel through several perspectives; that of a Jewish American, a former resident, and as a sociologist. As a sociologist I am interested in the daily lives of people; how they relate to each other on a face to face basis, what they eat, how they work and how they play. Being in Israel now I chose to write about what they watch on T.V. and how some of the locally produced T.V. series reflect what is going on in Israeli society. click Israel Matters! 130 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal  

Israeli Snapshots-End of the Year Operation Northern Shield The Israel Defense Force (IDF) has launched Operation Northern Shield. What’s it about and what does it mean? Northern Shield is a military operation on the Israel side of the Israel-Lebanon border for the purpose of exposing and destroying Hezbollah’s cross-border attack tunnels dug from Lebanon into Israel. Reports of Hezbollah tunneling activity near Metula, the northernmost town in the Galilee, has been going on for a number of years. Until recently, that was all there was- reports and supposition. However, thanks to recent intelligence efforts plus the introduction of new advances in engineering and detection technologies countering Hamas tunnels from Gaza, Hezbollah tunnels can now be found… and they are. click Israel Matters! 129 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal  

While you may have been busy elsewhere For most of us, there is a reflexive tendency to think about anti-Semitism as something propagated by the Alt-right – white supremacy, the KKK, and neo-Nazi groups. That version of anti-Semitism was seen in its most ugly form most recently with the massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue. For many of us, the horror in Pittsburgh just as with the violent protests that rocked Charlottesville last year was like muscle memory. We’ve seen it before and we know exactly what it means. click Israel Matters! 128 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

Summer Musings – Israel, Iran, BDS At a public event early in Hassan Rouhani’s tenure as the Iranian president, he was widely reported to say, “Israel is an old wound that needed to be removed.” The AP sought to temper those remarks by reporting “they should be seen in the context of internal Iranian politics where softening the establishment’s anti-Israeli stand is not an option.” click Israel Matters! 127 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

Beaches Somehow our Jewish People have become associated with ‘beaches’. Many retire to Miami Beach, or have childhood memories of Coney Island and Brighton Beach in Brooklyn. Further down the coast is the Jersey Shore. Those who grew up locally in the New Haven area may recall Bagel Beach or Silver Sands. The beach tradition has carried over from the Diaspora to the modern Jewish State. click Israel Matters! 126 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

Choose to Lead: 2018 AIPAC National Policy Conference Report Register today for 2019. Be a part of the largest gathering of pro-Israel Americans. In early March, we led the New Haven delegation to the AIPAC 2018 National Policy Conference in Washington DC. The conference numbers tell a powerful story: click Israel Matters! 125 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

Reflections on Reaching Seventy May 14th marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel. On the Hebrew calendar, this is the fifth day of Iyar, the eighth month of the year 5778. The anniversary of this date is known as Yom Ha’atzmaut and this year falls on April 19th. click Israel Matters! 123 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

A Dispatch from Tel Aviv —The 2018 Jewish Funders Network International Conference During the period March 11-15, 586 donors from 12 countries have come together for express purpose of taking Jewish and Israeli philanthropy to new levels of effectiveness. The conference rotates year to year — west coast to east coast to Israel. year the conference will be held in San Francisco. click Israel Matters! 122 to read the complete issue. Will open with the free Adobe Reader or equal.

Poland Tries to Curb Holocaust Speech — Israel Fights Back Even as international pressure mounted on Poland to back away from a new law that would make it illegal to blame Poles for crimes committed by Nazi Germany, the Senate passed the legislation. The bill, which sets prison penalties for using phrases like “Polish death camps” to refer to concentration camps set up by the Nazis, is subject to the approval of President Andrzej Duda. Supporters are urging him to sign it, even at the risk of rupturing relations with Israel and the United States. In response, Mr. Duda said that he would review the legislation closely before deciding whether to sign, but he added that he was “absolutely outraged” that the Israeli ambassador had criticized the legislation during a ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp on Polish soil. “I don’t…