Category: News

North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un told a rare ruling party congress on Saturday that North Korea would only use nuclear weapons if attacked by a nuclear power, adding he wanted improved relations with previously “hostile” nations. Speaking to thousands of delegates gathered for the first Workers’ Party congress in more than 35 years and quoted…

Venezeula’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Rafael Ramirez, suggested on Friday that Israel was guilty of pursuing a “final solution” against Palestinian Authority Arabs. The comments came during a meeting of the UN Security Council. Venezuela currently holds one of the Security Council’s 10 rotating seats. During the meeting, representatives of the Yesh Din organization,…

Israeli aircraft hit two Hamas targets in Gaza early on Saturday in response to rocket fire as the worst flare-up of violence since a 2014 war entered a fourth day. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the rocket attack, but Israeli analysts believe Hamas is directly behind the latest flare up. “Earlier today (Saturday)… a…

Thirteen military “advisers” with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards have been killed in Syria in recent days and 21 others wounded, Iranian media reported on Saturday. It was Iran’s biggest loss of forces within such a short time, based on official figures. The names of those killed and when their remains will be repatriated will be…

A senior United Nations official Saturday brushed aside an invitation from Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to a lecture on Jewish history, in response to a leading UN agency branding Judaism’s holiest site as a Muslim one. Netanyahu said Friday he would host the lecture in response to a recent resolution of the UN’s cultural body…

The community of Amona, home to some 40 families, is scheduled to be demolished later this year. But according to a report by Haaretz, the state is planning to construct a new town nearby roughly three times the size. Amona, which was built on land purchased from Palestinian Authority Arabs, has been deemed illegal by…

The Middle East Quartet, made up of the US, EU, UN, and Russia, is scheduled to release a major policy report later in coming weeks, and senior diplomats involved in its drafting have indicated that the US is taking a far harder line on Israel than in the past. The report, which is likely to…

A raid by Syrian security forces on a riot-hit prison in the central city of Hama has failed to end a mutiny involving around 800 inmates, a monitor said Saturday. Ten guards were taken hostage after the violence broke out on Monday following an attempt to transfer detainees to another prison near Damascus where numerous…

Violence broke out as thousands of illegal immigrants from Eritrean gathered on Friday at the Tel Aviv Convention Center to celebrate 25 years since their country gained independence. The event, which was organized by the Eritrean embassy in Israel, drew supporters of the Eritrean government, while opponents of the current regime protested outside. Witnesses say…

Sadiq Khan was sworn in as London mayor Saturday after being elected the first Muslim leader of a major Western capital.    The opposition Labour lawmaker, the son of a Pakistani bus driver who grew up in social housing in the city, broke from convention by taking his oath of office in a multi-faith ceremony…

Representatives of the Samarian community of Amona responded on Saturday night to a report in the Haaretz newspaper of a deal to evacuate their homes in exchange for the green-lighting of a new town. According to the Haaretz report, the Defense Ministry and Amana organization – which promotes Jewish settlement of Judea and Samaria –…

Yet another activist of the British Labour Party has been suspended due to anti-Semitic posts on social media, the Jewish Chronicle revealed on Friday. The member in question is David Watson, the fundraising coordinator for the Walthamstow Labour Party. A spokesperson confirmed to the Chronicle that he has been suspended pending an investigation. He shared…

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Friday blasted the IDF over its alleged “attacks” in Gaza. Speaking in a speech in Beirut and quoted by Channel 10 News, Nasrallah said that “unfortunately the Arab world is silent about the situation in Gaza”, and added that “these actions must be condemned, so they do not continue.” “It…

Walter examines and comments on the events of the past two weeks, that impacted directly or indirectly on Israel.   The feature interview is with David Bedein, Director of the Centre for Near East Policy Research about UNWRA’s ongoing connections with terrorism.                                 Walter also discusses the restrictions for Jewish visits to the Temple Mount and the…

History was made in London on Friday as, for the first time, the city elected a Muslim mayor. British media is reporting that Sadiq Khan, a Labour party candidate, has won the election, beating out candidate Zac Goldsmith. “With almost 80% of first-preference votes counted, Sadiq has won without question,” said Peter Kellner, the former…

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced on Friday that he would host a Jewish history lecture for UN officials, in the wake of the recent UNESCO decision divorcing the Temple Mount from the Jewish people and treating it only as a Muslim site. “Two weeks ago, I was shocked to hear that UNESCO adopted a decision denying any…

Sources close to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday responded to the leaking of information from State Comptroller Yosef Shapira’s damning report on the counterterrorism Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in the summer of 2014. According to reports on Thursday, Shapira is expected to strongly criticize Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon and…

President Barack Obama on Friday urged the media to take Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy seriously, saying, “This is not a reality show.” The president was asked about the Republican race during an impromptu press conference following remarks on the economy at Friday’s White House briefing. “[Trump] has a long record that needs to be examined,”…

The calm of the Sabbath was shattered on Friday night, as two mortar shells fired from Gaza exploded near the security fence in the Eshkol Regional Council. There were no physical injuries or damages. The “Color Red” siren was heard in communities in the area before the mortars exploded. The attack is the latest in…

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday he was “outraged” by the deadly attack on a camp for displaced Syrians and said those responsible must face justice. Ban demanded once again that the UN Security Council refer Syria to the International Criminal Court so that the tribunal based in The Hague can open up investigations of…

Former presidential candidate and Florida Governor Jeb Bush announced Friday that he will not vote for Donald Trump – but also ruled out voting in favor of Hillary Clinton, NBC News reported. According to Bush, who had several run ins with Trump during televised debates, the presumptive GOP nominee is “not a consistent conservative” and…

Frequent Hamas rocket fire on the Gaza Belt region over the past week stems from “frustration” over the IDF uncovering terror tunnels, a top Knesset official said Friday.  “There’s a reason everyone is on edge,” Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Tzachi HaNegbi stated in an Army Radio interview. “It’s been two years since Operation…

An Australian woman who shot to fame Down Under over claims of healing her own terminal brain cancer only with natural alternative medicine was exposed as a fake – and now she’s facing the music for her lies. Belle Gibson became a celebrity blogger and author in 2013 after claiming to have used Ayurvedic medicine, oxygen…

Former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz on Friday attempted to bring calm over a scathing State Comptroller’s report concerning the 2014 Gaza war, in which he is said to be blasted for a lack of leadership.  “We need to do this calmly and responsibly – there’s no need to be dragged into the headlines,” Gantz…

Newly revealed documents show that the US State Department missed the date in June 2015 it set for itself to establish a special unit to review documents regarding the Benghazi scandal. The documents, exposed by Fox News on Friday, were created by the House committee currently investigating the 2012 terror attacks on US facilities in Benghazi. They reveal that…

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said on Friday that his Islamist terror movement is not seeking war with Israel, but will not tolerate its troops entering Gaza.  “We are not calling for a new war, but we will not under any circumstance accept these incursions,” he said in a prayer sermon in Gaza, which has repeatedly fired mortar shells on Israeli…

Social media marketing is a tricky business – and one American immigrant to Israel has innovated a solution.  Boston-area native Zach Kessin first thought of the concept for his new start-up, SquareTarget, several weeks ago. “Instagram is very seductive when it comes to ‘likes’,” Kessin stated, in an exclusive interview with Arutz Sheva Friday. “I can get 50-70…

Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists on Thursday captured a major gas field in eastern Syria, marking the first territorial expansion for the jihadists in the Palmyra desert area since they lost the ancient city in March. ISIS seized the main Shaer gas field, according to rebel sources and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights as cited by Reuters.…

B’CHOL DOR VADOR – In every generation. That famous Hagaddah phrase occurs twice, with two different endings. In every generation someone stands up against us, the Jewish People, to vanquish us. In every generation, a person is obligated to see himself as if he actually came out of Egypt. Almost as soon as we finish with…

The Israeli Air Force (IAF) targeted terrorists in Gaza on Friday, hours after an attack on IDF soldiers on the other side of the border fence.  Mortar shells were fired at Engineering Corps soldiers in the Gaza Belt area early Friday, as they were in the middle of an operation unearthing Hamas’s terror tunnels under…

North Korean despot Kim Jong-Un’s Workers’ Party held its 7th Congress in Pyongyang on Friday, in the first such congress since way back in 1980, but the major event for the rogue nuclear power remains under tight wraps. Journalists from 100 international media outlets were invited to the congress, but they weren’t allowed in and the…

Pleasant weather returns Friday, bringing spring skies and temperatures below the onset of the summer heat wave.  Skies will remain cloudy to partly cloudy, with a drop in temperatures below the seasonal average, forecasters said. Localized rains are expected in northern Israel before noon; light rain may also fall in central Israel.  Light rain and…

Labour lost nationwide in local mayoral and Assembly elections, the Daily Mail reports Friday – likely due to the string of anti-Semitism scandals rocking the party throughout the UK. The party, headed by Hamas and Hezbollah sympathizer Jeremy Corbyn, lost twelve seats in the Scotland national assembly elections, putting the party in third place behind the conservative Tories. …

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Tuesday ordered that the body of an Arab terrorist who earlier in the day ran down three IDF soldiers be returned, but Palestinian media reveals that his conditions for the return were summarily breached. The return of the body of the terrorist, who wounded three soldiers including one seriously in a…

“Hashem spoke to Moshe after the death of Aaron’s two sons, when they approached before Hashem and they died.”(16:1) “He shall place the incense upon the fire before Hashem-so that the cloud of the incense shall blanket the Ark-cover that is atop the [Tablets of the] Testimony-so that he shall not die.”(16:13) I would like…

Hamas terrorists in recent days have launched numerous mortar attacks on IDF soldiers working to unearth the attack tunnels under the Gaza security border, but the IDF on Friday nevertheless let 260 Gazan Arabs visit the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. The clashes have seen repeated mortar shelling targeting the troops, and the IDF in return…

“Palestinian refugees” living in Lebanon on Friday closed UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) offices across the country in protest for the second day in a row, in protest for being made to partially pay for their health care. The protest on Thursday shut down UNRWA offices in Tripoli in the north as well as Ain…

Frequent Hamas rocket fire on the Gaza Belt region over the past week stems from “frustration” over the IDF uncovering terror tunnels, a top Knesset official said Friday.  “There’s a reason everyone is on edge,” Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Tzachi HaNegbi stated in an Army Radio interview. “It’s been two years since Operation…

Former Interior Minister Gidon Sa’ar sharply criticized government conduct during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in 2014 on Friday, saying it was a “failure for Israel.”  “I said these things in real time as a member of the government,” Sa’ar tweeted. The former Likud minister left the government for personal reasons in 2014, but rumors abound…

An ancient Spanish town which changed its name from an anti-Semitic name to a pro-Jewish one has come under attack from extremist groups who have daubed signposts and buildings with offensive symbols and messages protesting the switch, The Associated Press reported on Thursday. In late 2015, the ancient Spanish town of Castrillo Matajudios, which translates as…

(JTA) — Some 200 demonstrators outside the Polish consulate in New York protested what they termed “attempts to deny Polish war crimes during the Holocaust.” The rally was organized by Rabbi Zev Friedman, the dean of a suburban New York high school, in response to the interrogation last month of a Polish Jewish scholar, Jan…

Some of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s closest aides, including her longtime adviser Huma Abedin, have provided interviews to federal investigators as part of the probe into the security of Clinton’s private email server, U.S. officials briefed on the investigation told CNN on Thursday. The investigation is still ongoing, but so far investigators haven’t found…

The head of Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) has found the reason for the violence and extremism plaguing the Arab world: The children’s cartoon Tom and Jerry. Ambassador Salah Abdel Sadek made these comments during a speech at a conference entitled “The Media and the Culture of Violence” recently held at Cairo University, according to…

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon on Thursday evening warned the Hamas terrorist organization against attacking Israelis. His comments came at a ceremony marking the end of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) in Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in southern Israel, and came amid a continued escalation in the region. “Those who seek our destruction – both of citizens…

NEW YORK (JTA) — BNP Paribas bank has settled a $40 million lawsuit with a Jewish former employee who claims he was penalized for complaining about a mandatory viewing of a training film that featured Hitler and Nazi imagery. The multinational bank’s settlement with Jean-Marc Orlando, 47, of Scarsdale, New York, was reported Tuesday by…

MK Motti Yogev (Jewish Home) on Thursday issued a warning to Hamas, suggesting that the Gaza-based terrorist group not test Israel’s patience. Yogev spoke to Arutz Sheva amid an escalation in southern Israel, where earlier on Thursday terrorists fired mortar shells at IDF forces on the Israeli side of the border, hours after the discovery…

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was unfazed on Thursday night by House Speaker Paul Ryan, who told CNN in an interview he is “not yet ready” to support Trump for president. “I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what…

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Hebraica Macabi, a basketball team founded by members of Uruguay’s Jewish community, won its second championship in the country’s professional league. Hebraica beat Defensor Sporting, 97-72, on Tuesday in Montevideo to take the Liga Uruguaya de Basketball title. It had also won the crown in the 2011-12 season. Other national…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Donald Trump “totally” disavowed an anti-Jewish tirade on his behalf by white supremacist David Duke and said there was no place for anti-Semitism in society. The New York Times reported Thursday that the real estate magnate “totally disavows” the former Ku Klux Klan leader’s remarks. “Anti-Semitism has no place in our society,…

Ben Packer, Director of the Jerusalem Heritage House, revealed to Arutz Sheva on Thursday that in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, his organization redeemed a Jewish house in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City. “There are different ways to commemorate Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day),” noted Packer. “We helped take back a Jewish house in the…

In a past life regression (PLR), one may access memories from a prior incarnation. In a regression, a facilitator, preferably a trained and licensed psychiatrist who is also in qualified hypnosis therapy, encourages the client to enter into a relaxed state, which can allow past life memories to surface. Visualization techniques are often used, such as having the client envision…

Famed Israeli singer David D’Or on Thursday gave the first-ever public performance of a special song written by a fallen IDF soldier, at the March of the Living in Auschwitz on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yoram Dori, adviser to the March of the Living management, spoke to Arutz Sheva about the song which D’Or sang with his celebrated four-octave range voice.…

Some 10,000 participants from 40 different countries took part in the annual March of the Living on Thursday, commemorating the Nazi massacres at the most notorious death camp of the Holocaust. Survivor and ex-Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau addressed the participants in a ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camp: “We lost our parents, we lost…

Former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone was recently suspended from the Labour Party for comments he made linking Adolf Hitler to Zionism, and suggesting the Nazi leader hadn’t been so bad until he “went mad.” But the controversy over those statements – at a time when Labour is struggling with a wider anti-Semitism scandal – doesn’t…

Like every year, as the Israeli Remembrance Days approach, Dana wears Star of David earrings she received during her journey to Poland, and dons a traditional white shirt and blue jeans. This year, she went a step further and painted her nails blue and white. “I am a Zionist, what can I say? I love…

The Palestinian Authority (PA) has long incorporated blatant anti-Semitism in its onslaughts targeting Israel, and the PA Mufti of Bethlehem this week continued the tradition with a dose of classical Christian anti-Semitism flavoring his vitriolic attack on the Jewish state. The Mufti of Bethlehem, Abd Al-Majid Amraneh, was exposed by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) on Thursday as having spouted the anti-Semitic…

Tzipi Cohen, a Holocaust survivor who was a young girl in Budapest, Hungary at the time of World War II, spoke to Arutz Sheva on Thursday for Holocaust Remembrance Day about the unique children’s book recounting her experiences during the war. The book, which is entitled “The Doll’s Tzipi” and is an initiative of the Shem Olam Institute,…

A woman in her 40s was killed on Thursday night in a head-on collision between two vehicles near the village of Shim’a, located in Har Hevron. The woman was initially listed as critically injured in the accident, but paramedics who were called to the scene pronounced her dead after prolonged resuscitation efforts. Five other people…

Despite the fact that Donald Trump is well on his way to becoming the Republican presidential nominee, House Speaker Paul Ryan is not yet ready to support him. “I’m just not ready to do that at this point. I’m not there right now,” the Wisconsin Republican told CNN in an interview on Thursday. Ryan’s position…

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced on Thursday that he will step down from his position, after Islamist-leaning President Recep Tayyip Erdogan pressed him to do so over a falling out regarding the boosting of Erdogan’s powers. An intense meeting on Wednesday failed to bridge gaps between the two over Erdogan’s drive to tighten his grip on power…

It has been cleared for publication that a veteran Hamas terrorist who was involved in the terror group’s tunnel-building efforts has been captured by Israel. Under interrogation the terrorist has revealed a wealth of information about Hamas’s network of attack tunnels into Israel, as well as its massive network of tunnels inside Gaza, in preparation for any…

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre spoke at the first official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at city hall on Wednesday. The Mayor led the audience in a minute of silence for the six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust, and quoted an excerpt from Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, about his experience in the death camps. Coderre…

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a law offering a hectare (2.5 acres) of land for free in Russia’s Far East. The move, which is open to all Russian citizens, aims to boost the population and the economy in the vast remote region. Estimates by Russia’s Minister for the Development of the Far East,…

A senior Iranian military official on Wednesday made an outlandish accusation, claiming that Islamist rebel groups in Syria are “subgroups” of Israel – while failing to mention the fact that those same groups oppose Israel’s very existence. “Had it not been for Israel’s intelligence backup for the terrorists, the terrorist groups in Syria would have surely…

In light of the deteriorating security situation on the security border with Gaza, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday decided to call an emergency Cabinet meeting to set policy for the volatile region. Netanyahu called a Cabinet meeting for Thursday evening to be attended by IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot. In the meeting, ministers…

An intense telephone conversation last night between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud) preceded Thursday morning’s clarification, in which IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan distanced himself from controversial comments he made. In a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony speech on Wednesday night, Golan said, “if there is something that scares me…

Yeshiva students who slept on a Kinneret beach during Yom Hashoa (Holocaust Remembrance Day) eve awoke Thursday to discover that that their bags were stolen – after conducting a search, they found their bags in a restroom. The boys were shocked to discover that the unknown thieves had set fire to their bags, which contained their…

In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, leading pro-Israeli Christian groups are heading to the UN to condemn UNESCO’s effort to deny the Jewish nature of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism. Laurie Cardoza-Moore, Special UN Envoy for the World Council of Independent Christian Churches (WCICC) and President of Proclaiming Justice to The Nations (PJTN),…

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The recent arrest of a haredi yeshiva student sparked angry protests across the country on Wednesday. Moshe Hazan, a 22-year-old yeshiva student from Elad, had refused to report to an IDF induction center, BeHadrei Haredim reports. Hazan was arrested by Israeli police this week during a vacation in the southern city of Eilat. He is…

An Israeli tourist plummeted to his death on Wednesday, during a hiking trip in southern Jordan. The 23-year-old man was visiting the Hashemite Kingdom with a group of four friends. On Wednesday evening the group hiked through a remote region some 20 miles south of Petra. At around 5:30 p.m. the man involved in the…

Today on Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah) Israel commemorates the six million Jews who perished during during the Holocaust. The day’s events began at 10 a.m. local time with a two-minute siren heard across the entire country. Most of the day’s events will take place in the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum and at the Knesset in Jerusalem. Immediately…

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) slammed comments by Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan in which he appeared to draw comparisons between Israel and pre-war Europe. “The Deputy Chief of Staff is confused in my opinion. His comments mainly suggest a lack of understanding, not to mention a contempt for the [legacy] of the…

With local elections taking place across the country, the UK Labour Party is desperately trying to keep a lid on the anti-Semitism scandal which has been rocking the party. The struggling left-wing party looks set to lose well over 100 seats throughout the UK, and leaders are now frantically switching to damage-control mode, alternating between denying…

One day after real estate mogul Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, a haredi magazine published an interview with the Manhattan billionaire in which the GOP standard-bearer discussed Iran, Israel, the rise of anti-Semitism around the world, and Jewish support for the Democratic Party. The interview, which appeared in Wednesday’s Mishpacha magazine, continued along…

The director of Israel’s religious school system, Dr. Avraham Lifshitz, spoke with Arutz Sheva about a unique new program for high school students. For years Israeli high schools have included trips to Poland as part of Holocaust education. Now, however, as part of the new initiative, religious high school students will meet with Holocaust survivors…

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon (Likud) responded on Thursday to criticism aimed at IDF Deputy Chief of Staff Yair Golan over comments he made during a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony Wednesday night. During his speech, Golan appeared to draw comparisons between modern-day Israel – and Nazi Germany. “If there is something that scares me about the…

Battered by an ongoing anti-Semitism scandal, the UK Labour Party is bracing itself for a rout in today’s local elections across the country, including a vote for the powerful Mayor of London position. But the party’s hopes will be buoyed somewhat by a rather odd coincidence. Scores of voters throughout the London Borough of Barnet…

It has been cleared for publication that the IDF has uncovered a second terror tunnel from Gaza into southern Israel, mere weeks after a previous tunnel was exposed and destroyed. The tunnel reached as deep as 30 meters underground, security sources said. “Over the past few days, we have worked thoroughly in several locations,” a…

Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would consider vetting John Kasich for the vice presidential nomination.  The comments to CNN came as the Ohio Governor announced the end of his bid to win the Republican nomination, a move which came on the heels of Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s departure from the race, following Trump’s massive…

Under pressure from Russia and the United States, the Syrian army agreed on Wednesday to respect a two-day truce in the war-ravaged city of Aleppo. The Syrian climb-down came after Washington said the United States and Russia had agreed to push the warring parties to extend their shaky ceasefire. “A truce will be in place…

Turkey’s ruling party is set to replace Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu at an extraordinary congress in the coming weeks, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The move would signal the end of his term as premier and could plunge the country into political uncertainty. The decision, confirmed to Reuters by five officials in the ruling AK Party,…

The IDF overnight Wednesday launched airstrikes against four terrorist targets belonging to Hamas in northern Gaza, the IDF Spokesperson said. According to the statement, the attacks came in response to the ongoing mortar attacks against IDF forces engaged in operations near the border fence. The statement stressed that the IDF views any acts of terrorism,…

David Lev and Dr. Sam Minskoff have eaten the last of the matza crumbs and are back again for a whole new season. Weird happenings in the Diaspora? Some nations are saying they hate their local Jews but love the State of Israel. Are we missing something here? well we like to think that’s more Jews making aliyah.   Loading……

A federal judge in Washington on Wednesday ordered that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton may have to testify in a lawsuit related to the private email server she used while serving as Secretary of State, Reuters reports. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan said the parties in the case, the State Department and conservative watchdog group…

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on Wednesday warned that Donald Trump is a “loose cannon” and said the United States should not take a risk on an unreliable candidate, according to Reuters. “He is a loose cannon, and loose cannons tend to misfire,” she said in an interview with CNN, citing Trump stances including a…

Australia’s most wanted Islamic State (ISIS) terror suspect, who was linked to several attacks on home soil, has been killed in an American air strike in Iraq, Canberra said on Wednesday night. The death of Neil Prakash is considered significant by Australian and American authorities because of his highly prominent and influential role as a…

Lies against Israel and the Jewish people are running rampant, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned at the official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony Wednesday night, at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.  “Nazi German rule was eliminated 71 years ago, but anti-Semitism and lies did not die with Hitler in that Berlin bunker,” Netanyahu began. “Millions of people in the…

A delegation of Jordanian students visiting Israel met on Wednesday with Deputy Minister of Regional Cooperation Ayoub Kara (Likud) and director of the ministry, Hashem Hussein. The group is touring Israel at the invitation of the Ministry of Regional Cooperation and the Moshe Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University. The program is part of a…

Jewish Home chairman and Education Minister Naftali Bennett spoke at the official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony Wednesday night, reflecting on the similarities between the thirties and now vis-a-vis anti-Semitism.  “Especially now, against the background of evil spirits sweeping away some European countries, we must admit that there are those who want us to be victims – poor…

(JTA) – It’s the season of the unconventional foreign policy adviser: Donald Trump takes advice from his son-in-law and real estate attorney, and Bernie Sanders cites folks who didn’t know they were advising him. In this field, Hillary Clinton’s inner circle of foreign policy advisers stands out for not standing out. The names she has…

Events held in honor of the Six Million began Wednesday evening, as Israelis across the country marked Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaZikaron laShoah vela’G’vurah). The official state ceremony began at nightfall at the Warsaw Ghetto Square in the Yad VaShem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem.  Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were in…

Six Holocaust survivors lit six candles on Wednesday night, one for each million Jews killed in the Holocaust, at the official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. This year’s theme is “Keeping the Human Spirit during the Holocaust.”  The six individuals chosen to light the torches are: Joshua Hesel Fried, Haim Grosbein, Sara Kain,…

Returning to Temple Talk after the festival of Passover, Yitzchak Reuven and Rabbi Chaim Richman offer a fascinating, up-to-the moment analysis of what is happening on the Temple Mount and what it means for the people of Israel. Vying Muslim terrorist factions express outrage over the unprecedented numbers of Jewish visitors to the Holy site,…

Over 400 female MPs and congresswomen are attending the first Women in Parliament (WIP) summit in the Middle East on Wednesday, this year being held in Amman, Jordan.  While Israeli MKs have been known to participate – and WIP awarded Israel the ‘Closing the Gender Gap – Middle East’ award in 2013 – Amman banned Israelis…

Israel launched air raids Wednesday on the Gaza Strip after a day of mortar attacks by targeted IDF forces on the Israeli side of the border. Air strikes hit around Gaza’s derelict international airport near the southern city of Rafah and in nearby farming areas, said the territory’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry. Security sources in Gaza…

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday evening spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, following recent reports in Germany about tensions between the two countries, Haaretz reported. The German Der Spiegel newspaper reported on Saturday that relations between Germany and Israel are not as they used to be, with senior officials accusing Netanyahu of “taking advantage…

A joint operation between the Israel Security Agency (ISA, also known as the Shin Bet or Shabak) and the IDF’s Duvdevan unit arrested Atef Rouhi Salah Al-Salahi on Wednesday. Forty-three-year-old Al-Salhi, a resident of Silwad in Binyamin, belongs to Hamas. In September 2010, he shot and wounded two Israeli citizens at Rimonim Junction. Palestinian Authority police…

British Prime Minister David Cameron launched an unprecedented assault in parliament against the UK opposition leader, Labour chief Jeremy Corbyn, whose party is currently being wracked by an anti-Semitism scandal. On the eve of Israel’s Holocaust memorial day (Yom HaShoah) Cameron challenged Corbyn to renounce his declaration of “friendship” with Hamas and Hezbollah, organizations whose charters…

A delegation representing the European Union issued a statement on Wednesday, just hours before the beginning Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies begin in Israel. Alongside a joint statement by European Union embassies in Israel, the EU delegation declared that Europe would stand firm against anti-Semitism, calling attacks on Jews “attacks on us all”. The statement highlighted…

More haredim are pursuing academic degrees than ever before, but few ever manage to finish their studies. As haredi education and employment has become a hot-button political issue in recent years, numerous higher education programs catering to the haredi public have been opened. Providing accommodations for their religious lifestyle and geared towards graduates of the…

Following a wave of attacks on IDF engineers operating on the Israeli side of the Gaza border, the Hamas terror organization issued a sharp threat against the Jewish state. Hamas terrorists fired three mortars at Israel on Wednesday, prompting retaliatory fire by Israeli tanks and artillery. Calling the incident a “serious violation of the cease-fire”,…

Hatred of Jews prevents the Muslim world from dealing with internal problems, a German-Egyptian scholar stated in March – and urged Muslims to focus on learning from the past rather than repeating it.  Hamed Abdel-Samad spoke at length about the subject on a lecture posted on the internet on March 21. His comments were translated…

Hamas is responsible for the latest wave of mortar attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip, security experts believe, a departure from recent terror attacks in the area. IDF officials said on Wednesday that the attacks were a clear message to Israel that Hamas would not accept any major operation to eradicate its massive terror tunnel…

Terrorist forces in the Gaza Strip continued to fire mortar shells at IDF engineering units operating on the Israeli side of the border on Wednesday. Security officials that unlike other attacks over the past year and a half which were carried out primarily by competing terror factions, Hamas was directly responsible for the recent escalation.…

Outgoing chief of the Israel Security Agency (ISA) Yoram Cohen, estimated at a security briefing Wednesday that Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is working to calm the wave of terror to Israel. “Abu Mazen [Abbas – ed.] gave orders to the security system to prevent attacks,” Cohen insisted. “He realizes that the incitement does not help him.” …

A coalition of countries battling Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq pledged Wednesday to pour more resources into the fight, after coming under strong pressure from Washington for greater contributions. The promise came after a meeting in Stuttgart of defense ministers from countries involved in the anti-ISIS coalition, during which US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter drove home the message that to…

Former Foreign Minister and Yisrael Beytenu head MK Avigdor Liberman on Wednesday morning criticized his former ally Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, demanding that he resign. Liberman’s demand comes after the political echelon on Tuesday had the body of a terrorist returned to the Palestinian Authority (PA), mere hours after the terrorist launched a car ramming attack…

A Channel 2 report on Tuesday night revealed the IDF has partially withdrawn from Area A in Judea and Samaria, in a reduction in security coordination that may have helped cause Tuesday evening’s terror attack near Dolev in Samaria. But the IDF continues to tout the security coordination with the Palestinian Authority (PA) – even as the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) executive…

Former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. (res.) Benny Gantz said on Tuesday ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day that the Jewish people’s victory over the Nazis is measured by, among other things, the way in which Israel uses its force. “We must use force when needed, and be humane when possible,” Gantz said in a meeting…

An IDF force conducting operational activity adjacent to the security fence in southern Gaza came under mortar fire from terrorists in the Hamas-run enclave on Wednesday morning. Fortunately no soldiers were wounded by the mortar shell. The soldiers responded with tank fire at the source of the barrage. The return fire targeted and damaged a Hamas…

Britain’s Chief Rabbi Efraim Mirvis has weighed in on the growing anti-Semitism scandal within the UK Labour Party, in a stinging oped on Jew-hatred emanating from the far-left. In his remarkably forceful article – entitled “Ken Livingstone and the hard Left are spreading the insidious virus of anti-Semitism” – Rabbi Mirvis takes to task in…

A new book reveals that back in 2009, during Hillary Clinton’s first visit to Israel as US Secretary of State which came around a month after Israeli general elections, she tried unsuccessfully to press then Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni into a unity government so as to avoid a right-wing coalition. The revelation comes from the…

Economic concerns and the desire for a sense of purpose and revenge are the major factors pushing young Syrians into the arms of Islamist jihadist groups, a study released on Wednesday found. The report by peace activist group International Alert draws on interviews with 311 Syrians, their families and members of their communities in Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. It found that males between…

New research published on Wednesday reveals that over the course of 2015 violent anti-Semitic attacks against Jews decreased under increased security, but at the same time there was a serious rise in “institutional anti-Semitism.” The study was the Annual Report on Anti-Semitism for 2015 by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel…

Finance records for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign reveal that it made several payments to a Nevada-based company that specializes in destroying hard drives and documents. The payments, revealed by Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday, raise suspicions as to what documents Clinton paid to destroy – currently she is the subject of an investigation into her illegal use of a…

The father of one of the three IDF soldiers who was wounded on Tuesday evening in a car ramming attack by an Arab terrorist criticized Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Wednesday, over his decision to return the body of the terrorist. In the attack near Dolev in Samaria three soldiers were wounded, one seriously. But…

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is one step closer to clinching the nomination as he is projected to win the Indiana primary, reports The Hill. Trump’s victory will guarantee him at least 30 of the state’s 57 delegates, pushing him over 1,000 as he approaches the 1,237 he needs to clinch the nomination. The remaining…

Instead of allowing Israelis to fly on its planes, Kuwait’s national airline – Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) – has halted all its inter-European routes, effective immediately. The Lawfare Project announced that it had “won an extraordinary victory,” after its civil and criminal complaints against KAC in Geneva for its illegal discrimination against Israelis led to…

The UN Security Council will hold an urgent meeting on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Syria’s frontline city of Aleppo, where fighting threatens to unravel international peace efforts. France and Britain called for the meeting as Russia said a new ceasefire in Aleppo could be announced within hours. French Ambassador Francois Delattre described Aleppo…

NEW YORK (JTA) — Enrollment in New York State’s Jewish day schools and yeshivas increased by 4.4 percent last year. According to data compiled by the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council from statistics provided by the New York State Education Department, more than 143,000 students were enrolled in 405 K-12 Jewish schools in the state…

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz is quitting the race following his latest defeat to Donald Trump in Indiana, Politico reported Tuesday night, citing Cruz’s campaign manager Jeff Roe. Cruz later confirmed he was dropping out in a speech to supporters in Indianapolis. The Texas senator had appeared likely to go all the way to the Republican…

(JTA) — A 13-year-old boy who allegedly drew a swastika on a Boston-area school football field will not face criminal charges. The teen, an eighth-grader at the Georgetown Middle/High School, dragged his feet on the field’s artificial grass on April 28 in order to create the anti-Semitic symbol, the Boston Globe reported Monday, citing a…

A Brussels court on Tuesday handed jail terms of up to seven years to 26 members of a group that recruited fighters for Syria and had included one of the suicide bombers responsible for the March 22 attacks in the Belgian capital. The trial, which was held in February, concerned suspected jihadists who left Belgium…

The British Labour party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn, suffered another embarrassment on Tuesday, after Corbyn was praised by the Hamas terrorist group for refusing to condemn both it and Hezbollah. Corbyn, who in the past called Hamas and Hezbollah his “friends”, on Sunday night rejected calls from Jewish leaders to denounce the two terrorist…

The man helping to lead the British Labour party’s inquiry into anti-Semitism is a named supporter of a group which has dismissed allegations of Jew-hatred in the party as “baseless and disingenuous”, The Jewish Chronicle reports. Professor David Feldman, director of the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism, was named by Labour leader Jeremy…

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on Tuesday there would be “repercussions” if his regime flouts a new ceasefire being negotiated with Moscow for the battered city of Aleppo. A February 27 truce between the Syrian regime and non-jihadist rebels raised hopes for efforts to resolve the five-year conflict. But it…

(JTA) – A long-thought lost model used by grateful Jewish workers to create a gold ring for Oskar Schindler has been donated to the Melbourne Jewish Holocaust Centre, where it will go on display. The model that lay in the Melbourne workshop of ring maker Jozef Gross for more than 50 years. The ring-making was…

(JTA) – The Jewish Community Center of Greater Ann Arbor, Michigan, was evacuated after an unknown person called in a bomb threat. The unidentified caller on Monday morning said a bomb would explode in a locker in the building in 30 minutes, the Ann Arbor News reported, citing David Shtulman, executive director of the Jewish…

(JTA) – Prominent scholars of Jewish demography dismissed the findings of a newly published genetic study suggesting that today’s Ashkenazi Jews originate from converts to Judaism in what today is Turkey. Titled “Localizing Ashkenazic Jews to primeval villages in the ancient Iranian lands of Ashkenaz,” the study by the University of Sheffield geneticist Eran Elhaik…

(JTA) – Italy’s national Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah, or MEIS, under fitful development in the northeast city of Ferrara for more than a decade, has received a $29 million government grant in order to enable its completion. Italian Culture and Tourism Minister Dario Franceschini announced the grant Monday as part of a…

The ISIS terrorist group regularly produces slick propaganda videos glorifying its so-called Islamic State or Caliphate, often featuring battle scenes portraying their fighters as courageous and near-invincible. The reality, however, is rather different, as revealed by recently-discovered raw footage taken from an ISIS jihadist killed fighting Kurdish forces in northern Iraq. In the unedited video,…

President of the European Jewish Congress (EJC) Dr. Moshe Kantor met with Sweden’s Prime Minister Stefan Löfven in Stockholm Tuesday, where they discussed many issues of shared concern, including the battle against anti-Semitism. “Anti-Semitism remains a significant problem in Sweden. In Malmo, and other parts of the country, Jews can not be publicly identified without…

The IDF recently reduced its activities in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority’s security (“Area A”), Channel 10 reports Tuesday night.  The reduction in security coordination may have helped cause Tuesday evening’s terror attack near Dolev, the news agency revealed, as the IDF has significantly reduced patrols in PA cities and terrorists now must be arrested…

(JTA) – When documentary photographer Richard Schofield stumbled upon a trove of unidentified prewar photographs in September 2013 in the storage room of the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, he knew he had found something special. The photos, dating from about 1910 through 1940, were from a Lithuanian Jewish family’s album that had been smuggled out of…

The IDF on Tuesday night returned to the Palestinian Authority (PA) the body of the terrorist who had earlier injured three IDF soldiers in a car ramming attack near the town of Dolev in Samaria, before being shot dead. One soldier was seriously injured in the attack and was evacuated to the Tel Hashomer Hospital…

On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Sara Netanyahu met with the six Holocaust survivors who will light the torches at the start of the state ceremony at Yad Vashem Wednesday. This is the first time that the Prime Minister and his wife have held such a meeting – which was initiated by the latter – with…

Amid rumors that Bruce Springsteen will perform in Tel Aviv this summer, he and his E Street band have come under fire from supporters of boycotting Israel. On Monday, band guitarist Steven Van Zandt — who is also known for playing a mobster on HBO’s “The Sopranos” — responded in typically direct style. In a series of tweets,…

The two suspects in the slaying of Jerusalemite Ofir Gross have been named Tuesday afternoon, hours after it was revealed he was killed during a botched robbery.  On Sunday, authorities announced they had found Gross’s body, after a frantic, week-long search for the missing Jerusalemite. A biomedical student in Germany, he had been “couchsurfing” – staying at…

The 2016 winners of the Moskowitz Prize for Zionism’s “Spirit of Zionism” awards have been announced Tuesday, and will be honored in a special ceremony on Jerusalem Day next month. This year’s honorees are:  Sarah Haetzni-Cohen, chairwoman of the My Israel movement, a grassroots organization which actively spreads Zionist values on the internet and via social…

Unidentified persons vandalized a Holocaust monument in Lithuania on the anniversary of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s birthday. The monument in Vilkaviskis, a city located 90 miles west of the capital Vilnius, was stripped of its marble tiles and smashed in several parts on April 20, according to a report posted seven days later on the Facebook page…

Terrorists opened fire on IDF soldiers near the Gaza Belt community of Nahal Oz Tuesday, hours after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu visited the area.  No injuries were reported, but engineering equipment near the site suffered damage.  Hours earlier, Netanyahu made a surprise visit to soldiers in and near Nahal Oz, along with Defense Minister Moshe…

A Polish ultranationalist burned a poster of the mayor of Wroclaw wearing a kippah during a protest march. Roman Zielinski, who authored a book titled “How I fell in love with Adolf Hitler,” set the poster of Mayor Rafał Dutkiewicz on fire in front of cameras on Sunday during a march against the European Union…

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin received a standing ovation Tuesday during a unique meeting of French politicians, Jewish leaders and Jewish, Muslim and Christian youth. President Rivlin hosted the delegation today at his residence in Jerusalem, which comprised of French regional, parliamentary, and Jewish community leaders organized by CRIF, the umbrella body of the Jewish community in France. Also…

The Knesset Finance Committee awarded one million shekel ($264,782) to Holocaust survivors Tuesday, on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day.  The funds, which were from a 2015 budget surplus, were transferred after Committee members withdrew their opposition to a request from MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid), who chairs the Lobby for Holocaust survivors.  Stern said…

(AFP) Russia said Tuesday it hoped a new ceasefire could be announced within hours for Syria’s battered city of Aleppo, where fresh fighting left at least 16 dead including in rocket fire on a maternity hospital. As the city was struck by some of its heaviest reported clashes in recent days, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei…

The Jewish extremist found to be the ringleader of a group that beat and burned alive a Palestinian teenager in 2014 has been handed a life sentence plus 20 extra years in prison. State prosecutor Uri Korb had demanded Yosef Haim Ben-David be given life for the killing of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, as well as…

Once reviled as the “most hated man in the country”, attorney turned radio host Yoram Sheftel is something of an enigma. Lambasted in the late 1980s for representing John Demjanjuk, the man accused of being the Treiblinka death camp’s notorious “Ivan the Terrible”, Sheftel became one of Israel’s most successful – and despised – attorneys.…

The military court in Judea and Samaria has convicted a Palestinian of murdering Dafna Meir, who was stabbed in her Otniel home in January. The terrorist was a minor at the time and confessed both to the murder and to possessing a knife. Dafna Meir tried to fight off the terrorist while he stabbed her…

On Monday, Bargas Awidat, an Israeli Druze student held in Syria for the past 12 years, was abruptly released from prison and is now making his way back to Israel. In 2002 Awidat travelled to Syria to study dentistry. In 2004, however, he disappeared without a trace, leaving his family and Israeli authorities searching for…

An Arab youth from Jerusalem’s Old City was arrested early Tuesday morning, on suspicion of assisting the terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack near the Lion’s Gate overnight. The suspect has been taken for questioning and will then be brought before a court for his preliminary sentencing. He will be held for at least…

The Knesset is again considering a bill to institute term limits on the Prime Minister, although now it also has support from Netanyahu’s own party. While Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is working hard to quash the bill, a number of senior Likud members are operating behind the scenes in order to ensure that it becomes law. “Since the…

Authorities have announced that customs investigators, along with the Israel Security Authority (ISA, also known as the Shin Bet or Shabak), recently prevented an attempt to smuggle four tons of ammonium chloride into Gaza. The chemical, which is used in the production of weapons, was hidden in bags of salt. Four tons would have allowed…

Israel’s largest opposition party is negotiating the terms for a possible unity government, a senior Zionist Camp official said on Tuesday. Speaking with Army Radio, Tzipi Livni (Zionist Camp) confirmed that her party was in talks with the Netanyahu government over a possible unity coalition. “I was shown things [brought up] in the talks, [but]…

In recent weeks ISIS hackers have published the names of soldiers and other Americans, including personal details such as home addresses. Daesh [ISIS] has urged it followers to target these nearly 3,600 individuals, announcing, “We want them #Dead.” American officials played down the seriousness of the threat, the accuracy of the information published, and the cyber…

Israeli police arrested 18 suspects overnight during a major operation to break up a smuggling ring involved in the sale of illegal drugs and weapons. After compiling a body of evidence against the suspects, who were spread out across the country, police arrested 18 individuals believed to be involved in the smuggling operation. The suspects…

As the campaign for Meir Ettinger’s immediately release grows, former MK Michael Ben-Ari has called on right-wing MKs to join the efforts. “This is a cruel form of abuse without a trial and without a sentence. The entire public is silently, allowing the Shin Bet and (Defense Minister Moshe) ‘Bogie’ Ya’alon to continue the abuse,” he told Arutz…

A Copenhagen art show was reported to local police on Monday on allegations of encouraging terrorism for plans to portray suicide bombers killed in the Brussels and Paris attacks as heroes, AFP reported. A Danish group of artists had planned to include brothers Ibrahim and Khalid El-Bakraoui, who detonated bombs in the deadly Brussels attacks…

The Labour party in Britain continues to make headlines, and the Telegraph newspaper revealed on Monday evening that party leader Jeremy Corbyn described a convicted terrorist accused of plotting a series of suicide attacks in Israel as an “icon” and compared him to Nelson Mandela. The comments were made in a post now deleted from…

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Jewish-Argentine player Diego Schwartzman won his first Association of Tennis Professionals tournament and reached the finals of the doubles event. Schwartzman captured the men’s singles title at the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open in Turkey on Sunday, upsetting second-seeded Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (4), 6-0 in the finals.…

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged Russia and the United States to put Syria’s ceasefire back on track and stressed that new truce arrangements in place for two areas must be extended to Aleppo. The comments came as heavy air strikes hit rebel-held east Aleppo in the early hours of Monday, days after the…

Turkey’s interior minister confirmed on Monday that the perpetrator of a deadly car bombing that hit the Turkish city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border at the weekend is linked to the Islamic State (ISIS). The bomber “is a member of a terrorist organization linked to Daesh,” Interior Minister Efkan Ala said in televised remarks,…

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump on Sunday said he would love to broker a peace settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians, The Jewish Insider reported. Trump’s comments came during a campaign rally in Terre Haute, Indiana, where primaries will be held on Tuesday. Trump said that seeing Israel and the Palestinians sign on a…

(JTA) — David Blatt, the Israeli American who was fired this season as head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, reportedly will interview with the Sacramento Kings for the same position. The NBA team reportedly has interviewed several candidates with head coaching experience, ESPN reported Sunday in an article citing unnamed league sources who said Blatt…

Anti-Muslim acts in France tripled in 2015, with peaks in activity coming after two sets of deadly terror attacks, a government advisory commission said Monday. A total of 429 anti-Muslim threats or hate crimes were reported last year, up from 133 in 2014, according to a report from France’s National Human Rights Commission (CNCDH). Two…

The British Labour party has secretly suspended 50 of its members over anti-Semitic and racist comments in recent months, senior sources revealed to the Telegraph on Monday night. The report came hours after it was reported that the party had suspended three members in one day over anti-Semitic comments, but the source said the party’s…

(JTA) — Joyce Garver Keller, the longtime executive director of Ohio’s Jewish community relations council who helped establish a state Holocaust memorial, has died at 68. On Monday morning, less than two weeks before she was scheduled to be honored at a Jewish Council for Public Affairs event in Cleveland, Keller died at her home…

Science and Technology Minister Ofir Akunis (Likud) on Monday visited Kiryat Arba and Hevron in Judea, where he prayed at the Cave of Machpelah and met with residents working to redeem houses and restore the ancient Jewish city that is currently mostly under Arab rule. At Hevron’s Peace House, the minister met with members of…

As the UK Labour Party staggers through seemingly endless scandals involving anti-Semitic comments by Labour members, a high-profile Muslim preacher in Britain is lending his support to the embattled party. Anjem Choudary, founder of the Islam4UK organization, spoke with American journalist Aaron Klein Sunday night, defending the Labour Party from accusations of anti-Semitism and endorsing…

(JTA) Yom Hashoah arrives this year on the eve of two historic anniversaries: the 80th anniversary of the coming into effect of the Nuremberg Race Laws, which served as prologue and precursor to the Holocaust, and the 70th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, which served as the foundation for the development of contemporary international human rights…

The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad cooperated extensively with the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization, leaked ISIS documents revealed on Monday. According to a report by Sky News, files from the ISIS terror organization showed that despite claims the embattled Syrian regime was actively fighting the Islamist group, the two in fact colluded together…

(JTA) Advocates for sexual abuse victims in the Orthodox Jewish community will be descending on New York’s state capital on May 3 to lobby the legislature to eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse offenses. A bill to change the statute of limitations has languished for years in a state legislative committee committee, due in…

The radical Islamist organization Hizb ut-Tahrir, which has pursued an Islamic Caliphate since 1953, held a massive conference in Ramallah on Saturday, calling upon the armies of Jordan and Egypt to intervene directly and “free Palestine.” Thousands participated in the event, which was billed as “Tent of Believers: the Caliphate Through the Path of the…

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — After Yvonne van Gennep-Bouma discovered that Holocaust victims used to live in what is now her home, she began to think about them constantly. At night, van Gennep-Bouma imagined the former occupants preparing to turn in. And in the morning, she wondered where they had their breakfast. That was in 2012, she recalled,…

A 60-year-old Israeli man was stabbed and moderately wounded in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem on Monday night. The stabbing reportedly took place in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City, and the victim then fled to the Lion’s Gate, where police officers are stationed. The man, who suffered from stab wounds to his upper body, was evacuated to Shaare…

Ruti Hasno, the bereaved widow of Avraham Hasno who was brutally run over and murdered by an Arab terrorist last October, spoke with Arutz Sheva on Monday following a difficult Passover without her husband. Sahban Wael At-Titi, who ran over Hasno, was originally indicted for manslaughter last month before that charge was upgraded to murder following the outrage of Ruti…

In a somewhat ironic comment, Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani on Monday stated that he was in favor of a Korean Peninsula free of nuclear weapons, The Associated Press (AP) reports. Rouhani made the comments while meeting his South Korean counterpart, President Park Geun-hye, as she visited Tehran. Rouhani reportedly told Park Iran seeks a world…

An Arab resident of eastern Jerusalem was arrested on Sunday on suspicions of aiding the Arab terrorist behind the lethal Jaffa (Yafo) stabbing attack in early March. The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court on Monday extended the arrest of the suspect by seven days. In the attack on March 8, the terrorist murdered US tourist Taylor Force and wounded 12…

Turkish artillery have launched deadly strikes on Islamic State (ISIS) positions in Syria, while drones that took off from an air base in southern Turkey also pounded the jihadists, state media said Tuesday. The strikes were in response to repeated rocket fire by IS jihadists inside Syria on the Turkish border region of Kilis that…

A new report released Monday reveals the widespread funding behind Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), a divisive group whose stated objectives include “creating a wedge” among American Jews regarding their support for Israel. The new report by the Jerusalem based research institute NGO Monitor exposes the foundations, trusts and other private groups backing JVP, even as…

In a conference of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party on Sunday, members voted in an election manifesto declaring Islam as not compatible with Germany’s constitution. At the conference attended by 2,000 members a call to ban minarets on mosques as well as the burqa full body Islamic veil was also passed, reports Reuters. AfD was founded…

A proposal by Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) to apply Israeli law on citizens living in Judea and Samaria appears to be gaining momentum. If passed, the “Norms bill” would place Israeli citizens living beyond the Green Line under Israeli law, ending the army’s authority over citizens residing in the area. Currently, Israelis living…

The World Jewish Congress on Monday accused the German unit of YouTube of failing to stop neo-Nazis from using the online video channel to distribute thousands of anti-Semitic tracks. The WJC sent Philipp Justus, the managing director of the German unit of YouTube’s parent company, Google, a letter demanding more decisive action to take down…

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In response to the growing wave of anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic statements from the UK’s leftist Labour party, Deputy Knesset Speaker MK Oren Hazan (Likud) on Monday called on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to take action. Hazan requested that Netanyahu use his role as the acting Foreign Minister to summon the British Ambassador to Israel David…

Fifty Holocaust survivors who were prevented from having a Bar Mitzvah by the genocidal Nazis finally did so during an emotional event at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem on Monday. The septuagenarians and octogenarians were given Bar Mitzvah and Bat Mitzvah ceremonies, which are normally staged for male and female Jews at age 12 or 13, in an event held ahead of Israel’s…

Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) continues to fight for sovereignty in Judea-Samaria, he stated in an Army Radio interview Monday, despite threats to dismiss him from his post nearly two weeks ago.  Bennett did not address his dispute with the Cabinet directly, saying merely he would continue to stand for his views and criticized the fact…

Passengers riding on the 45 line of Dan Bus Company last week were shocked to hear the driver referring to haredi commuters as “beasts.” According to Kikar Hashabat, upon reaching a bus station on the Tel Aviv to Bnei Brak route, the driver loudly exclaimed that he now “had to stop for these beasts on…

A senior Likud official has revealed the details of alleged secret talks between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the opposition Zionist Union faction, in anticipation of the left-wing party joining the coalition government. A report in the Haaretz paper Sunday cited the unnamed, “knowledgeable” source, detailing the clear conditions outlined for an expanded unity government. According to…

Eight babies from Kibbutz Nir Or located near Gaza were infected with the intestinal bacteria E. coli, four of which were hospitalized at Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva. One baby is in serious condition, and two are suffering from kidney failure, according to reports. The infection apparently originated from the petting zoo area of the Kibbutz.…

Iran has passed a law allowing the government to grant citizenship to the families of foreigners killed while fighting for the Islamic republic, the official IRNA news agency reported Monday, in a move likely meant to further shore up the regime’s support for the Assad regime in Syria. “Members of the parliament authorised the government…

The family of murdered Israeli Ofir Gross spoke to the media on Monday, after Hungarian police announced he had been murdered.  Ofir’s sister Gal expressed frustration over the case. “We are waiting for updates from the police, we haven’t learned anything new,” Gal stated to Channel 2. “The family has visited Hungary, but the body was…

Lonia Rozenhoch (née Wudka), 96 Born in 1920 in Radom, Poland, to a family of five, her father was a shoemaker and a member of the Bund, a socialist Jewish party. The Jews of Radom were interred in a ghetto in 1941; she married Moniek Rakocz there, but was separated when she was sent to…

“Someone’s been sleeping in my bed”: A man broke into an apartment in Tel Aviv, after realizing that the owners were absent, and decided to spend the night. When the owner returned, she discovered the unknown guest sleeping in her bed. According to reports, a few hours after leaving her home last Friday, the suspect broke into the…

Chief Rabbi of Migdal HaEmek Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman boarded a flight Monday morning to Johannesburg in an attempt to release the leader of the Shuvu Banim sect, Rabbi Eliezer Berland, from prison. This is not the first time that Rabbi Grossman got involved to help Rabbi Berland. Over a year ago, Rabbi Grossman tried…

Deputy Speaker of the Knesset MK Yehiel “Hillik” Bar (Zionist Union) visited Poland last week, after a town square was named after his maternal family.  The main square of the small picturesque village of Skulsk in Poland was renamed the ‘Kotowski Sqaure’ this week, in a special ceremony Bar attended with other dignitaries.  Bar’s grandfather, Yaakov,…

650 cases of illegally imported kosher wine were seized over the second Passover holiday in Montreal, CTV News reported. Two men are facing charges of illegally importing the wine after the cases were seized by police and the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ), a corporation responsible for the trade of alcoholic beverages within the…

Maimonides: One of the greatest Halakhic jurists of all time, and one of the most important philosophers of the Middle Ages; a scientist, physician, and leader of Egyptian Jewry; recognized as one of the few most influential and revered thinkers in Jewish history. “From Moses [of the Bible] to Moses [Maimonides], there was no one…

The Islamic State (ISIS) group has beheaded four teenagers and young men in its Syria “capital” of Raqa for allegedly providing intelligence to the American-led coalition, a monitoring group said Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS beheaded them after accusing them of “photographing sites and handing information to the crusader coalition causing…

Donald Trump holds a 15-point lead over Ted Cruz in the May 3 presidential primary race in Indiana, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released on Sunday found. Trump gets support from 49 percent of likely Republican primary voters — followed by Cruz at 34 percent and John Kasich at 13 percent, the poll found.…

Iran has filed a lawsuit against the United States in the International Court of Justice following the American Supreme Court’s ruling that it would have to compensate families of victims of terrorist attacks linked to the Islamic Republic. Iranian Vice President for Legal Affairs, Elham Aminzadeh, blasted the decision on Sunday and announcing that lawsuit…

CIA director John Brennan on Sunday said that the Islamic State (ISIS) jihadist group is more than just an organization. He was making the comments in an interview on NBC News on the fifth anniversary of the raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. “We will destroy [ISIS], I have no doubt in my…

The Israeli-Palestinian Authority (PA) peace process was among the topics discussed on Sunday between Jordan’s Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh and United States Secretary of State John Kerry in Geneva. According to Jordan’s official news agency Petra, Judeh underlined the importance of relaunching serious and effective talks between the sides within a set timeframe. Such talks,…

Britain’s Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday night rejected calls from Jewish leaders to denounce the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist organizations, vowing to continue talking to them, reports The Telegraph. “Jeremy Corbyn has been a longstanding supporter of Palestinian rights and the pursuit of peace and justice in the Middle East through dialogue and negotiation,”…

A security guard working for the Jerusalem Light Rail is suing Chanel 10 for one million shekels ($270 million) for breaching a confidentiality agreement and revealing his identity as the security guard who shot and neutralized a terrorist. On March 6, 2015, terrorist Mohammed Salaimeh ran over five people, including border patrol officers and a bicyclist,…

Maj. Rabbi Shraga Dahan, a military rabbi in the IDF, on Sunday revealed his unique way of confronting an extremist haredi youth who verbally assaulted him over his military service for the Jewish state. Dressed in uniform, Rabbi Dahan arrived at the Chabad synagogue in Beit Shemesh he regularly prays at, only to be confronted by…

Hundreds of people on Sunday attended the May 1st parade in Tel Aviv as a launch for the Israeli “Workers’ Week” organized by the Histadrut labor union. “What we need is an equal society and reduced gaps to bring the Israeli society to where it should be. It’s in our hands,” said Histadrut chairman Avi Nissenkorn. “We…

Israeli media has largely ignored covering how Arab assailants just before Passover on April 20 threw firebombs at Jerusalem’s northeast Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood, causing a massive brush fire that approached the homes of residents. A number of new buildings were evacuated and firefighters were forced to battle the blaze, eventually managing to control it. But despite the…

Leftist Jewish MK Dov Khenin of the near completely Arab Joint List party spoke with the British Sky News on Sunday, and claimed that Israel is committing an “ethnic cleansing in a very sophisticated way” in Judea and Samaria. Khenin referred to the demolition of illegal Arab construction in Area C, an array of regions classified as being…

A German official on Sunday denied a report in Der Spiegel the day before, according to which Chancellor Angela Merkel may end unconditional support for Israel due to frustration with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s policies. The German government official told Reuters in response to the report that “the guidelines of German Middle East policy have not changed.” His rejection…

A young 26-year-old woman from Jerusalem was bitten by a poisonous snake on Sunday evening as she hiked near the popular Ein Ampi Spring, in the region of Beit Hamekhes Junction in the Golan Heights. The woman was classified as being in serious condition as a result of the toxic venom. Magen David Adom (MDA) medics…

Gila Katzav, wife of former president Moshe Katzav, met twice in recent months with current President Reuven Rivlin, Channel 1 News reported on Sunday night. According to the report, during the meetings between the two, the last of which was four months ago, Katzav’s wife was repeatedly told that there was no chance that Rivlin…

Orthodox Jews have a strict rule regarding not eating chametz (leavened foods) which were owned by Jews during Passover – during which a strict prohibition on consuming or even owning chametz is in force. Chametz which was not either destroyed or at least sold to a non-Jew over Passover is subsequently forbidden for consumption under Jewish law.…

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum challenged a claim by the Iranian foreign minister that Iranian government authorities had nothing to do with a Holocaust cartoon contest. “The organizations associated with the contest are sponsored or supported by government entities, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Tehran Municipality, and the Ministry of Islamic Guidance,” the…

The Israeli police are recommending to give an honorary citation to a patrol officer and a police volunteer who killed the Arab terrorist responsible for the lethal Jaffa (Yafo) stabbing attack in early March. In the attack on March 8, the terrorist murdered US tourist Taylor Force and wounded 12 other victims, before the officer and…

US President Barack Obama decried the “rise of anti-Semitism” in his annual proclamation of May as Jewish American Heritage Month. “We cannot pay proper respect to the legacy of Jewish Americans without also reflecting on the rise of anti-Semitism in many parts of the world, and in remembering the lessons of the Holocaust, we recognize…

Two suspects have been arrested over the death of Israeli backpacker Ofer Gross in Hungary, according to German media reports. The two young suspects – aged 21 and 19 – were reportedly arrested by Hungarian police under suspicion of murdering 40-year-old Gross, who disappeared a week ago. Further details of the investigation have yet to be publicized,…

IDF Civil Administration forces accompanied by Border Police officers arrived on Sunday afternoon to Givat Gal, located adjacent to Kiryat Arba in Judea, and began seizing equipment from a home that is currently in the process of being built without a permit. “At 1:25 p.m. two people came dressed in civilian clothes to the neighborhood…

A senior Israeli official said Sunday that ties with Berlin remained “good” following a report about diplomatic tensions with Germany, considered to be the Jewish state’s main European ally. “Relations between Israel and Germany are, and will continue to be, close and good,” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official was responding to an article in German weekly…

An event co-sponsored by the Palestinian American Coalition (PAC) advertised MK Ahmed Tibi’s (Arab Joint List) arrival to California with an image of the politician adjacent to the American and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) flags. Also present was an image of the entire State of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, painted in the colors of the PLO flag.…

Police on Sunday arrested a 54-year-old man dangerously riding an electric bicycle on the sidewalk of Jerusalem Boulevard in Jaffa. After questioning, the cyclist told police officers that he drank “a small glass of vodka” before riding off. However, tests indicated that there were 725 micrograms of alcohol in his body – three times the…

Getnet Asnakew made aliyah to Israel from Ethiopia back in 2002, and as an oleh he is eligible for financial support from the government in buying an apartment – there’s just one problem. Several days ago Asnakew found out from the Construction and Housing Ministry and the Immigrant Absorption Ministry that he will not be…

Less than a year after becoming leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn is already facing calls for his ouster. The head of the UK’s second largest party has been severely criticized for his handling of a whole litany of anti-Semitic scandals within Labour, leading some to suggest that Corbyn, known for his far-left…

After a week without leavened bread, some shoppers are anxious to head for the nearest bakery following the end of the Passover holiday. In recent years, crowds of impatient customers have gathered around bakeries in religious neighborhoods in Israel, with some taking the hunt for hametz just a little too far. Speaking to his Hassidim…

Police have located the body of 40 year-old Jerusalem resident Ofir Gross in a local forest, they announced Sunday, one week after disappearing in Hungary.  The Foreign Ministry has stated that they are waiting for Gross’s body to be formally identified before confirming his death.  Gross, a bio-medical engineering student at a university in Berlin, flew…

Muslims are only allowed to acquire citizenship in non-Muslim countries in “life or death” situations, a Saudi scholar insisted last month – and even banned visiting the Western world. Saudi scholar Sheikh Muhammad Al-Habdan, a member of the Muslim Scholars Association, preached Muslim isolationism in the Ahwaz TV interview.  “The principle is that a Muslim is not…

The Romanian government has instructed state universities to allow Jewish students to miss exams and classes on Shabbat and Jewish holidays, the European Jewish Association (EJA) announced Sunday, following concerted efforts by director Rabbi Menachem Margolin.  Margolin met with EU leaders, including several countries’ Education Ministers, to facilitate the allowance.  “We want to assure you that…

Surveyors struck oil in Israel, with an oil deposit discovered near the Dead Sea. On Sunday the Hatrurim consortium, named for the Hatrurim formation in the Dead Sea area, announced that a report from the Dunmore Consulting company had confirmed the presence of an oil reservoir in an area under license by Hatrurim. A geological…

JTA – A reporter who wrote a critical profile of Melania Trump has been deluged with anti-Semitic abuse. Julia Ioffe told the Guardian that on April 28, the day her profile of the Republican presidential nomination frontrunner Donald Trump’s wife appeared in GQ, she had received a phone call playing a speech by Nazi leader…

The ongoing anti-Semitism scandal within Britain’s Labour Party has now reached news heights, with one of party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s closest aides – former London Mayor Ken Livingstone – suspended from the party for outrageous comments about Adolf Hitler, triggering calls for a party coup. That latest anti-Semitism controversy to rock the UK’s second-largest political party comes…

President Reuven Rivlin should pardon El-Or Azariya, the soldier who controversially shot dead a neutralized terrorist, MK David Bitan (Likud) opined in a special Arutz Sheva interview Sunday.  Bitan is heading a petition to call on Rivlin to issue the pardon, he explained, noting that it has had some difficulty taking off due to most of the coverage being…

24 year-old Sapir Nissani has been identified as a journalist suspected of attempted matricide, it was cleared for publication Sunday. Nissani, a Kfar Saba resident, was arrested Thursday after her mother was admitted to Meir Hospital in critical condition. She was suffering from burns on her head and scalp.  The journalist insisted that the burns were…

Last week’s Jerusalem bus bombing carried out by member of Hamas shows the Islamist movement’s “determination” to continue resisting Israel, the head of the Palestinian group in Gaza said on Thursday. Addressing thousands of supporters in the Gaza Strip, Ismail Haniya praised the “heroic action” of Abdel Hamid Abu Sorur, who killed himself and wounded 20 people in the April…

Israeli authorities arrested on Thursday two Palestinians who tried to stab IDF soldiers in Samaria, the army said, adding that one of them was shot and wounded. The suspects carrying knives approached Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint near Ramallah, in an apparent bid to attack them. The soldiers opened fire in self defense and one of the Palestinians…

As the annual Eurovision Song Contest approaches, the Stockholm theater hosting the event has published the rules about waving flags, and enumerated several flags that will be forbidden. Flags with commercial messages, those that discriminate against sectors of the population, those that disrupt the broadcast and those with messages in languages other than English will not be permitted.…

JTA — A Dutch Christian organization is planning to sail a “replica” of Noah’s Ark to reach Brazil during the Summer Olympics and the Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Longer than an official soccer field, the vessel was built following the biblical measurements given in Genesis 6:15, the director of the Ark of Noah…

JTA — Swastikas were spray-painted at a park and an elementary school in a Washington, D.C., suburb with a large Jewish population. The swastikas were discovered Sunday in Rockville, Maryland, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. A witness said he saw two white boys spray-painting the swastikas, according to the Post. Montgomery County police told the…

As Passover and Shabbat end tonight, people across Israel are celebrating Mimouna. Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel (Likud) is taking part in the festival at the Dahan home in Yavne, along with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara. Gamliel spoke to fellow attendees, saying that “the festival of Mimouna, in which the doors of…

(JTA) — Polish clergy and researchers will hold a seminar in Kielce about a historically significant pogrom in which locals killed Holocaust survivors in that city 70 years ago. Occurring amid an acrimonious debate in Poland on local complicity in the Holocaust and the attention it merits, the conference planned for July in Kielce, 110…

On Thursday, police in Italy released arrest warrants for six people for planning to join ISIS, Reuters reports. Three of the suspects reportedly wanted to carry out attacks on the Israeli embassy and the Vatican. Authorities have already arrested four, a man, a woman and a couple. The other two, a husband and wife, are still…

Two Bedouin students from the village of Rahat were released on Saturday night, after they had been kidnapped in Turkey. Reshet Bet reports that their families were asked to pay ransom for the pair. The kidnappers threatened to sell the youths to ISIS unless the families meet their demands. It is believed that the students, both of…

(JTA) — Nearly 500 people attended the first Jewish film festival of Casablanca, which was organized in the Moroccan city by a Sephardic Jewish woman from Atlanta. The three-day event, which ended Wednesday at the offices of Casablanca’s SOC club, featured three films about the “consequences of the emigration of the Jews from the fabric…

The Kinneret Authority reported that since the beginning of the Passover holiday, approximately 500,000 tourists visited the beaches of the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee).   With that, nearly 300 tons of garbage was collected in total from the shores. The Kinneret Drainage Authority, which is responsible for most of the beaches around the lake, helped run…

Jerusalem on Thursday responded to the looming French peace initiative, which is to involve an international effort forcing peace talks on Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA). As part of the French initiative, an international summit has been announced for May 30, in which ministers from 20 countries will prepare an international summit in the second half…

Doctors Without Borders condemned Thursday the “outrageous” air strike on a hospital it was supporting in the war-torn northern Syrian city of Aleppo, where doctors were among those killed. Local rescue workers said the overnight strike on the Al-Quds hospital and a nearby residential building left 30 people dead. Among them was the only pediatrician operating in the rebel-controlled eastern parts of Aleppo city,…

An horrific children’s play in which a seven-year-old Palestinian girl “stabbed Jews” took place at a recent event partly funded by Interpal, a UK charity supported by Labour party head Jeremy Corbyn and MPs of his party, reports the UK Daily Mail on Thursday. Footage of the play, in which the girl pretends to stab two boys dressed as…

North Korea fired a medium range missile in a test on Thursday that failed spectacularly, marking the second such failure in two weeks during tests of the Musudan missile. A South Korean Defense Ministry official was quoted by CNN as saying the missile, which was fired around 6:10 a.m. local time, “seems to have failed.” While it is…

Johannesburg’s Randburg Magistrates Court ruled on Thursday that Rabbi Eliezer Berland, who is wanted in Israel on suspicions of multiple cases of sexual assault, will remain in prison until a decision regarding his extradition to Israel is made. During his hearing, the head of the Shuvu Banim sect urged the court to let him post bail while…

(JTA) I was feeling nervous about coming to Brussels for seder with my family. Making the 130-mile trip there from my home in Amsterdam meant taking my 5-month-old son on a train that last year saw an attempted jihadist attack, and into a city that is still reeling and on alert from the March 22…

(JTA) A civil trial focused on control of the $500 million Koret Foundation is pitting its founder’s widow, Susan Koret, against its former president and current board member, Tad Taube. And while the suit centers on the allocation of foundation grants and a series of real estate deals, the trial this week in a courtroom…

In honor of the last day of Passover in Israel – which starts Thursday evening – Arutz Sheva will be going offline, and returning on Saturday evening with the end of Shabbat. For some insights into Passover and the Omer period, visit our Judaism section here. Arutz Sheva wishes all of our readers a Chag…

After a heat wave hit Israel during Chol HaMoed (the Intermediate Days of Passover), the weather is expected to cool down, especially for cities in the mountainous regions. Tonight, as the holiday of the seventh day of Passover commences, temperatures are expected to reach 11° C (51.8° F) in Tzfat (Safed), 17° C (62.6° F) in Haifa,…

In what has become a yearly tradition at the holy site, hundreds of Jewish worshipers packed the Cave of the Patriarchs (also known as the Cave of Machpela) in Hevron for a mass prayer led by two leading rabbis from Tzfat (Safed), the heart of Jewish mysticism in Israel: Tzfat Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu and Rosh…

It appears to be the end for the Bernie Sanders campaign. While the Vermont Senator is not formally withdrawing from the race, his campaign’s recently announcement “reassessment” appears to signal a turn away from pursuing the party’s nomination – and towards securing a position of influence at the Democratic National Convention. Following Tuesday’s primary votes…

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders said he plans to lay off “hundreds” of campaign staffers throughout the country a day after winning just one of five primaries on Tuesday. Sanders, the first Jewish candidate to win major nominating contests, told The New York Times that he is focusing his campaign on winning the California primary…

A three-year-old child was injured on Wednesday during a BBQ accident at the Mayan Tzvi Fishing Park in Zichron Yaakov. The boy suffered burns all over his body. United Hatzalah volunteer emergency responders from the Sharon branch arrived on the scene to provide first aid treatment. The child was then evacuated to a local hospital.…

Yitzhak Geniram, one of the founders of the post-1967 Jewish community in Hevron and a member of the Jewish underground in the 1980s, passed away Wednesday night. Geniram was also a founder of the Gush Etzion Field School. As a resident of Ramat Magshimim in the southeastern Golan, Geniram was one of the first to…

A freedom-of-the-press watchdog cited the Sheldon Adelson-owned Israel Hayom daily in downgrading Israel’s status from “free” to “partly free.” “Israel declined due to the growing impact of Israel Hayom, whose owner-subsidized business model endangered the stability of other media outlets, and the unchecked expansion of paid content — some of it government funded — whose…

This week marked the 96th anniversary of the first international recognition of Jewish national rights in the Land of Israel – namely, the San Remo Conference. The San Remo Conference was an international meeting of four of the leading Allied powers of World War I, known as the post-World War I Allied Supreme Council. Held in the Italian city…

On Thursday, a Hainan Airlines flight landed in Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport, marking the first commercial Chinese flight to Israel. The plane’s arrival was welcomed by state ceremony at the airport, with Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) and Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz (Likud) in attendance. After the welcoming ceremony, Katz spoke to reporters, calling the…

Hundreds of Jewish worshipers prayed at Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem on Wednesday night, defying Muslim violence at the holy site. The Jewish pilgrims were accompanied by a heavy IDF security escort into the Palestinian Authority-controlled city, in honor of Passover. As the busloads of visitors made their way into the city, they came under attack…

Anti-Semitism is on the rise again, said Secretary of State John Kerry, and the US is reaching out to Jewish communities across Europe suffering from harassment and hate crimes. Speaking on Tuesday at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University in Houston, Kerry addressed the issue of religious freedom worldwide,…

Belgium extradited Paris terrorist Salah Abdeslam to France on Wednesday, causing a media frenzy after his own lawyer called him a “moron.”  Abdeslam, 26, was one of four terrorists who murdered over 130 people in Paris in November in a series of coordinated attacks throughout the city.  Despite this, Abdeslam is a “moron” with the…

JTA – The combative tone in Bernie Sanders’ campaign statements faded on Tuesday evening to a softer pitch of suasion. “I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victories tonight, and I look forward to issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests to come,” Sanders’ statement began after his rival for the Democratic presidential nod, former Secretary of…

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis once again flocked to Israel’s parks and beaches on Wednesday, celebrating the last full day of Chol HaMoed Pesach (the Intermediate Days of Passover) before the Chag begins again Thursday.  The main tourist sites Wednesday were the Caesarea National Park, the Eshkol National Park, Ein Gedi, the Einot Tzukim nature…

Speaking at the Center for the National Interest, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump laid out his vision for American foreign policy on Wednesday, attacking the Obama administration for a whole host of issues, including the president’s treatment of Israel and the controversial Iran nuclear deal. After dominating all five of Tuesday’s east coast primary votes, Trump…

Palestinian Authority (PA) envoy to the UN Riyad Mansour held a provocative press conference Wednesday, in which he compared the actions of Israeli security forces in Judea and Samaria to the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising by the Nazis in World War Two. “Any comparison between the Nazi regime and the democratic State of Israel…

Ahead of a scheduled “major announcement” by Texas Senator Ted Cruz, Politico has revealed that the GOP presidential hopeful is set to declare former HP CEO Carly Fiorina as his choice for Vice Presidential candidate, should he secure the Republican nomination in July. Three sources have reportedly confirmed that Fiorina, who ended her own presidential…

An Israeli man was killed in a minibus fire in Bnei Brak Wednesday night under otherwise unclear circumstances. The man, a well-known driver in the city in his fifties, was found dead in the burning bus on Nehemia St., according to haredi news site Kikar Hashabbat. Magen David Adom and United Hatzalah medics arrived at the…

JTA – On an army base in northern Israel, a scrawny nerd with glasses shakily patrols in the dead of night. Suddenly he’s ambushed by a group of militants in kaffiyehs, and he’s forced to fight for his life, using everything from a gun to a knife to a desk lamp, until he’s left with…

Oshra Attia knew of her proud Egyptian heritage. Her Christian parents spoke of their Egyptian childhood, and Oshra had been to Egypt to visit her relatives there. While working in a Jewish school in LA, Oshra was told many times that she has a Jewish neshama (soul) but she thought nothing of it. She became…

Mimouna celebrations Saturday night may extend beyond the normative 11:00 pm noise limit, Walla! News reports Wednesday, following an amendment making an exception for specific days in the calendar year.  Likud MK Mickey Zohar initiated the amendment, after many Israelis turned to him complaining that the time limit had cut their celebrations short.  The amendment passed a…

A shocking report on Wednesday reveals that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has fooled Western governments, raking in over a billion dollars in aid from them annually despite breaching their demands that it stop paying salaries to terrorist prisoners. The report by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), which can be read in full here, exposes how the PA has coped since August…

An Arab ran after and attacked a Jew in Eilat on Monday, stabbing him and leaving him with moderate injuries. Police determined that the attack was criminal in nature and not an act of terrorism.  A female resident of Eilat at the scene of the crime stated that the stabbing was a terror attack, and…

For the first time since its founding in 1947, the United States Air Force is going to be under the command of a Jewish Chief of Staff. On Tuesday the Pentagon announced that it had appointed General David L. Goldfein to succeed incumbent USAF Chief of Staff, General Mark Welsh. Welsh is set to retire…

Just when things couldn’t seem worse for the UK Labour Party, yet another party member has sparked controversy with anti-Israel comments. Less than a day after Bradford West MP Naz Shah (Labour) was outed for social media posts calling for Israel to be ethnically cleansed of Jews, her parliamentary aide was found to have made…

Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) inspectors were shocked to find on Wednesday that the Ashdod-Yam Citadel, which is one of the most well-preserved historical sites in Israel, had been vandalized.  The ancient fortress, which dates back to the 8th century CE, was found with paint splattered across its walls.  IAA inspectors found containers and paint brushes upon arriving…

A letter from 83 of the 100 total senators demanding US President Barack Obama to hurry and settle a new defense aid package to Israel, encouraging him to raise it from $3 billion a year, will not make a difference in practice, a senior American official opined Wednesday.  If anything, additional support for Israel is a given,…

MK Moshe Gafni (United Torah Judaism), Chairman of the Knesset’s Finance Committee, on Wednesday blasted Jewish visits to the Temple Mount, claiming that Jews who ascended to the holy site were violating Jewish religious law. Speaking to Israel Radio, Gafni argued that religious Jews who visited the Temple Mount were leading the country to war,…

Twenty-four hours after Israel Police cleared the arrest of a 26 year-old suspected serial rapist, arsonist, and murderer Fyodor Beizhneri, neighbors of the Haifa-resident have come forward with horror stories.  “A few months ago this man made a barbecue, and the smoke wafted into our apartment during construction – and my mother was with me,” a neighbor, who…

After an initial refusal to do so, the UK Labour Party has formally suspended Bradford West MP Naz Shah. Shah, who has repeatedly stirred up controversy with her comments on Israel and Jews, earlier sent an apology to the UK Labour Party headquarters. Labour redacted the apology and later released it, excising all references to anti-Semitism,…

Tuesday saw heat wave conditions sweep over Israel, but Wednesday is to offer a reprieve from the scorching heat as temperatures drop considerably, amid partially cloudy weather. After the highs on Tuesday which soared closed to 40° C (104° F) in the coastal region, Wednesday’s temperatures are to be around seasonal norms, as the heat wave breaks over…

A haredi man from Beit Shemesh aged around 40 was arrested on Wednesday morning, on suspicions that he threatened and shouted at three 15-year-old girls who walked around in clothes that he considered to be “immodest.” The girls complained to the police on Tuesday, telling them that as they walked on a street in one…

Beavers don’t often strike terror into the hearts of people walking the streets late at night, but one particularly toothy specimen late last week proved there is much to fear from a hostile beaver. A man identified only as Sergei was taken hostage – yes, taken hostage – by an irate beaver in Daugavpils, the second…

Six IDF commanders of the Judea-Samaria division revealed Wednesday that while the current Arab terror wave may have claimed the lives of 34 victims since last September, the next terror wave is likely to be even worse. In an interview with Yedioth Aharonoth, the commanders spoke about the methods used in recent months to bring about…

Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has fired the PA governor of Shechem (Nablus) in Samaria, Ahram Rajoub. Rajoub served in the post for the past two years, and before being the Shechem governor he held senior positions in the PA Security Forces. The official reason for Rajoub being fired was not made public by…

Samarian high priest Yitzhak ben Amram ben Shalma ben Tabia (circa 1900). View other pictures of priests here and here The Samaritan population in the Land of Israel numbered more than a million people 1,500 years ago, according to some estimates.  This ancient people lived in northern Israel and claimed to have been descendants of those tribes of Israel which were not sent out…

A stabbing attempt took place on Wednesday at the Kalandiya checkpoint in northern Jerusalem. Two Arab terrorists, one male and one female, launched the attack before being shot dead. The knife-wielding terrorists tried to stab the Border Police officers stationed at the checkpoint, but did not manage to inflict any wounds before being subdued. As the…

Following the Passover holiday, the last day of which falls on Friday, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is expected to try to rebuild the puzzle of governmental portfolios by upgrading several Likud ministers. Netanyahu is waiting it out for a decision by the High Court on a petition against Shas chairman Aryeh Deri as Interior Minister.…

Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists have infiltrated Sweden and are planning an imminent attack on the capital city of Stockholm, according to intelligence received by the Scandinavian nation. Security services in Sweden are investigating undisclosed information about the ISIS attack, local media reported Tuesday as cited by Reuters on Wednesday. Swedish security police (SAPO) were tipped off by Iraq…

A groundbreaking Israeli security system could have helped French authorities prevent the Paris massacre last November – but authorities balked at the deal under pressure from the anti-Israel boycott movement. Speaking to Fox News, an Israeli counter-terrorism source with intimate knowledge of both the software involved and the deal itself said that after the Charlie Hebdo and…

Israel Police arrested a 26 year-old Haifa man over a month ago on suspicion of being a serial killer and serial rapist, it was cleared for publication Tuesday.  Moldovan immigrant Fyodor Beizhneri has been linked to dozens of rape and sexual assault cases all over Israel, police said, and is suspected of murdering at least 4 victims.…

The overwhelming majority of young Palestinians believe the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot be resolved through negotiations. A poll of Palestinian youth, defined as ages 16-30, published Monday by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center depicts a community that is socially conservative, supports violence against Israel, is skeptical about its leadership and opposes the Islamic State. It…