WorldcrunchStay updated with comprehensive news on Israel from Worldcrunch. Discover insights on Israeli politics, economic strategies, societal issues, and cultural landmarks with translations from top international sources. Highlights include Jerusalem, Israeli history, and cultural events.
TEL AVIV — “One of my mentors and a very dear Jewish friend once shared with me the meaning of the Hebrew words Tzdakah (“alms’) and Tikun Olam (“healing the world”)…” So began Chinese billionaire Li Ka-shing, speaking in Tel Aviv recently, just before his Hong-Kong foundation signed a $130 million grant to the Technion, […]
TEL AVIV — It has been a while since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pulled out some impromptu economic graph or catchy slogan. You can say he matured. Netanyahu of the third term is not the same man he was during his first or second, where he’d been drunk on victory from decimating the left […]
RAMALLAH — In this Palestinian city in the central West Bank, some 300 technology companies employ at least 4,500 people. Despite enormous potential, the industry is still nascent and suffers from a lack of development centers and productive ties with the outside world. Most of the companies in this Palestinian Silicon Valley are still small […]
HAIFA – His pack is ready: spare clothing, two clean uniforms, his combat boots and a charger for his smartphone. If he is called, Haim Halévy, a 32-year-old from Haifa, will only have a few hours to join his field regiment stationed on the Golan Heights. The fateful phone call may arrive today, tomorrow, in […]
TEL AVIV — While we talk about a certain economic stability in Ramallah, the economy in Gaza is in free fall, which is due in no small measure to the massive closing of the tunnels used to smuggle in products across the border from Egypt. The Palestinian economy, at least in the West Bank, is […]
Israeli authorities granted some one million visas to vacationers from the West Bank to cross the border during the recent Ramadan holiday. Some had never set foot in Israel before.
TEL AVIV — Israeli officials are under the impression that the United States soon will conduct a Syrian military operation even without a decision from the U.N. Security Council. This comes after a Friday phone call between U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Martin Dempsey and Israeli Army chief of staff Benny Gantz. A […]
TEL AVIV — The school year is starting soon, and with it comes another not-so-small burden on families around Israel: pre-school and pre-elementary education can cost up to one-third of a person’s gross salary, even in upper-income cities and towns. Indeed, child care expenses for young families was a central point of contention during the […]
John Kerry has convinced Israeli and Palestinian leaders that the region’s upheaval requires them to at least search for a solution. Whether they find it is another question.
Young Israelis and Palestinians alike are getting caught by the wave of Korean pop music, television and attitudes. For some, it’s just good fun — for others, a much-needed escape.
After top tech companies were shown to be dodging taxes in several European countries, similar questions have now emerged in Israel. An exclusive from top Israeli business daily Calcalist.
The Israeli Defense Forces’ one-of-a-kind Internet strategy aims to bypass an international media known for unfriendly fire.
Cases of vandalism are multiplying against Arab villages and places of worship.
Though Israeli leaders were pleasantly surprised by some aspects of Mohammed Morsi’s reign, they are not sorry to see him go. For one thing, it’s a big blow to Hamas.
BEERSHEBA – “If we need to be violent to be heard, we will be violent. We will lay down under the bulldozers…” A few kilometers south of Beersheba, the largest city in the Negev desert, Fahdi, his brothers and dozens of other relatives of his large family are gathered in a corrugated sheet metal hut […]
SAHARONIM – Last summer, Israel passed an amendment to the 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law, which allows refugees to be held for a minimum of three years without detention without a trial or charges being brought against them. According to the law, refugees from “enemy states” can be held in indefinite detention, even if they […]
GIVAT ASSAF – U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry passed right by this town’s entrance — just a few dozen meters away — while on his way to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas last Thursday. We can only hope that his driver slowed down, and that one of his accompanying local diplomats showed him […]
Monday, May 26, 2014 POROSHENKO WINS UKRAINE PRESIDENCYAs many observers expected, multibillionaire Petro Poroshenko will become Ukraine’s next president. The man dubbed “The Chocolate King” leads the race with 53.75% of the votes in the first round, with 70% of the votes counted, The Kyiv Post reports. He said during his victory speech that his […]
DONETSK AND LUHANSK START UNIFICATION TALKS The self-proclaimed People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk have initiated talks that could lead to the two cities forming a single state after Sunday’s referendum demonstrated that voters wanted to secede from Kiev, Ria Novosti reports. This comes after Donetsk voiced its collective wish to follow in the footsteps […]
TEL AVIV – The apartment in downtown Tel Aviv could feature in any architecture magazine as the quintessential artist’s digs. Two cats doze picturesquely amid piles of photographs, books, scripts. At the big round table sits Sara von Schwarze against a backdrop of trees swaying in the wind visible out the window behind her. The […]
TEL AVIV – February 2013. Tel Aviv gets ready to celebrate Purim, a biblical celebration that along the centuries has become a sort of carnival where Israelis drink — as the tradition goes — “until they cannot remember their name.” There are long lines in front of costumes shops. Riff Cohen, will get as drunk […]
UKRAINE’S ULTIMATUM TO PRO-RUSSIAN PROTESTERS Ukraine’s acting Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said that the situation in Eastern Ukraine, where pro-Russian separatists are still occupying state buildings, will be “resolved in 48 hours,” threatening “the minority who want conflict” with a “forceful answer”, the BBC reports. “There are two options — political and negotiations, and […]
President Obama’s arrival in Israel with no new peace proposal to offer is reassuring to many Israelis. They should be worried instead.
Palestinians are victims not only of Israeli power politics, but of linguistic deception.
Perhaps the most acclaimed Israeli writer of his generation, and a fixture of the peace movement, Oz continues to surprise at the age of 73.
KFAR KAMA – Bent down in his field in this lower Galilee town, Amjad Shami points out the countless underground tunnels dug by voles. Three years ago, he says, these rodents destroyed his entire harvest. Shami says he continues to try to fight them with pesticides, which do little more than poison his land, infect […]
Israel’s January 31 aerial attack on a Syrian research facility and arms complex has raised once again the thorny question of when preemption against a developing threat may be justified under international law—as opposed to simply strategic calculation. Predictably, the Israeli bombardment elicited a hail of criticism from some regional and global players. Syria has […]
Algerian-born, French-bred Haim Amsalem is a member of the Knesset, and now the sworn enemy of the ultra-orthodox Shas party that he helped found.
Let’s be real, says this commentator, Israeli settlers on the West Bank aren’t going away, UN statehood for Palestine notwithstanding. Here’s another way to imagine a two-state solution.
BERLIN – Benjamin Netanyahu tried to be a polite guest. That’s why, when he visited the Federal Chancellery, he was careful to play down his disappointment with Angela Merkel. But the Israeli Prime Minister only made it worse. He said: “I think Chancellor Merkel was of the opinion that this vote would in some way […]
TEL AVIV – Following the example of President Shimon Peres, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Ehud Barak did not bide their time in congratulating Barack Obama on his electoral victory November 6. They declared that the two countries “will continue to work together” and that their strategic alliance is “stronger than […]
On November 1, under the nave of the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem, an archeological park called “Durch die Zeiten” (Through Time) opened. It provides the answer to a question that has long eluded researchers: just where Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified, buried and resurrected, is really located. Planned and built […]
A Tel Aviv Tale Of Manners
JERUSALEM — While it is a community that has lived in the city for centuries, not many have heard of the Dom in Jerusalem. “Few people know that we are the Gypsies of the Middle East,” says Amoun Sleem, director of the Domari Society of Gypsies in Jerusalem. The cultural center she runs was founded […]
TEL AVIV – A small synagogue nestles in a dead-end street near the ocean promenade in Tel Aviv. The synagogue, used by Jews from Aleppo, Syria, was crowded last week for prayer services on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. As in the other 10,500 places of worship in Israel, the congregation recited a special […]
JERUSALEM – It is almost prayer time in Ramot, the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood in north Jerusalem, and men in black suits, white ties and black hats with wide brims are hurrying to the synagogue. On July 31, the 10-year-old “Tal Law” exempting ultra-Orthodox Jews from military duty expired, sparking a nationwide debate in Israel over the […]