Iran rhetoric Once again, we see Neoconservatism raise its ugly head. Gene Carton’s Feb. 15 letter sounds too familiar in its cry for Israel to attack Iran “NOW.” Most people know the horrible human and financial repercussions of, “Weapons of...
JERUSALEM -- A community in Maryland has suspended negotiations over a sister-city agreement with Beit Shemesh following violence in the Israeli city against women by haredi Orthodox residents. Montgomery County, which is home to a large Jewish population,...
JERUSALEM -- The faces of young girls modeling Purim costumes in a toy store ad have been blurred in haredi Orthodox newspapers in Beit Shemesh. In response, consumers have been urged to boycott the toy store chain, Ynet reported. The chain, Red Pirate,...
The U.S. State Department has revised its travel recommendations for tourists to Israel, advising travelers to dress modestly or risk getting attacked. The advisory for Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, updated last month, recommends under its section on...
By Steven A. Rakitt, JTA
• Published January 22, 2012
BEIT SHEMESH—It's raining as I write—a rare, cold, hard rain that is welcomed by Jerusalemites who know that it's good for them and the country. Water, like patience, is a treasured commodity here in Israel: temporarily inconvenient, but better for...
WASHINGTON -- Jewish federation officials excoriated a top Israeli official for reports of official discrimination against women and for a law targeting NGOs. The official spoke in a conference call with constituents of the Jewish Federations of North...
JERUSALEM -- Haredi Orthodox Jews clashed with police in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem. Some 200 protesters gathered in Shabbat Square Sunday afternoon after six respected members of the haredi Orthodox community were arrested for tax offenses....
The cascade of condemnations started pouring in almost as soon as the Israeli TV report aired. Its subject was an 8-year-old girl harassed by Haredi men on the way to her Modern Orthodox girls' school in the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh. The Israeli...
It's not common for citizens of Israel, a haven of democracy in a historically repressive region, to feel simpatico with those in surrounding nations. Yet as matters of gender equality move to the media forefront across the Middle East in the aftermath...
By Rabbi Yonason Goldson
• Published January 4, 2012
On March 16, 1968, soldiers of the 1st Battalion's Charlie Company committed one of the most notorious war crimes in American history when they brutally massacred over 300 villagers in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai. Was every soldier in the American...
Rabbinical Council statement on Beit Shemesh We, the undersigned pulpit Rabbis of the Rabbinical Council of St. Louis, strongly and unambiguously condemn the recent violence and intimidation committed by a group of misguided individuals in the Jewish...
BY Marcy Oster, JTA, JERUSALEM
• Published December 28, 2011
For several years now, the Jerusalem suburb of Beit Shemesh has been the site of on-again, off-again religious violence. But it wasn't until the plight of a fearful 8-year-old girl from a Modern Orthodox immigrant family from America was broadcast on...
