JERUSALEM – For Sindy Benavides, a Hispanic community organizer from Virginia who was visiting Israel last week, the Jewish community is a newfound friend.
Three years ago, Benavides said, she had the “frightening” experience of seeing the number of anti-immigration bills introduced in the Virginia House of Representatives triple to 148 — a reaction, she said, to the influx of Latino immigrants in the area.
With funding and training from the American Jewish Committee, Benavides and her fellow Latino community members mobilized to defeat about 100 of the bills in the 2006-07 legislative session — all those whose passage ran counter to the interests of their community.
JERUSALEM – Here are some stories from the past few days in Israel that you may have missed.
Bridging the diaspora-Israel Gap
Billboards around Tel Aviv are hailing the arrival of the newest oleh to the city: the American retailer Gap. Last Sunday, Gap opened a 7,000-square foot store in the trendy Azrieli Mall.
Gap had made its Israeli debut in June at the Mamilla Mall outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, joining other American outlets such as Polo Ralph Lauren, Nautica and Tommy Hilfiger. A third Gap is set to open in Herzliya later this year.
JERUSALEM – Two weeks before the European Figure Skating Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, in mid-January, Israeli skater Tamar Katz was sick in bed and going crazy.
Though she had qualified already in international competition for the 2010 Winter Olympics, the tougher standards of Israel’s Olympic Committee required that Katz finish in the top 14 in Europe to punch her ticket to the Winter Games in Vancouver. Katz said that while she felt weak before leaving for Estonia, she felt good when she took the ice.
But Katz made a mistake in her performance, missing her triple lutz-double loop combination, the highest scoring element in her program. She finished 21st — half a point away from qualifying for the finals, where her free-skate routine might have propelled her into the top 14.
JERUSALEM – While an Israeli magician sat in an ice cube in Tel Aviv for 64 hours in a bid to shatter a world record, settler leaders in Jerusalem prepared to smash an ice cube of a very different sort this week opposite the prime minister’s residence.
The frozen block in Jerusalem that was shattered Monday by the leaders of west bank communities was meant to symbolize the 10-month construction freeze Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is imposing on Jewish communities in the west bank. Settler leaders are holding a weeklong demonstration outside the prime minister’s residence to protest the freeze, and the leader of the main settler umbrella group is encouraging people to keep building in violation of the freeze.
KARNEI SHOMRON, west bank – At my house, Thanksgiving was always a day spent eating good food and watching football. But in my husband’s family, Thanksgiving was truly a day of giving thanks, as each year his grandfather, J. Alex Link, spoke about his gratitude to the United States for taking him in on the eve of the Holocaust.
So when it came to our first Thanksgiving in Israel nine years ago, we had no doubt that we would celebrate — even though my three sisters-in-law, who grew up in the same household as my husband and made aliyah before us, do not mark the day.
As part of our support system in those first weeks after aliyah, we spent much time commiserating with another American family who had moved to Israel during the same year, and we found that we were kindred spirits where Thanksgiving was concerned.
JERUSALEM – After the news broke in Israel that a west bank settler was charged with murdering two Palestinians in 1997 and bombing the home of a prominent Israeli professor last year, many Israelis were asking why it took police so long.
On Sunday, Israeli authorities lifted a gag order on the arrest of Yaakov (Jack) Teitel, a 37-year-old American immigrant living in the settlement of Shvut Rachel, on a variety of charges dating back to the 1997 murders of a Palestinian cab driver and a shepherd.
Teitel is also charged with planting several explosive devices in 2006 and 2007 directed at Arabs, Christians, and police; sending a bomb hidden in a Purim gift basket to a messianic Jewish family that left a 15-year-old boy seriously injured; and planting a pipe bomb in 2008 near the Jerusalem home of Zeev Sternhell, a prominent left-wing academic.
JERUSALEM – Tensions between Israelis and Arabs simmered this week as Arab rioters clashed with Israeli police and Palestinian leaders accused Israel of trying to “Judaize” Jerusalem.
The clashes began on Sept. 27, Yom Kippur eve, when some 150 Arabs stoned a dozen or so Jews visiting the Temple Mount. Riots spread to several Arab neighborhoods in the Old City and lasted throughout Yom Kippur.
The violence resurfaced this week when Israel restricted access to the Temple Mount while thousands of Jewish pilgrims visited the Western Wall for Sukkot observances.
JERUSALEM – Coming as a self-described “pilgrim of peace,” Pope Benedict XVI vowed to fight anti-Semitism and called for a Palestinian state in the moments after his arrival in Israel for a five-day visit.
But controversy has marked the visit this week from the start, as the pope’s supposedly non-political trip abounded with politics and his hosts in Israel and the Palestinian Authority parsed his words with nearly talmudic precision, seeking support for their positions.
On Monday, his first day in Israel, the pope was criticized for not being contrite enough about the Holocaust on behalf of the Catholic Church. Later he cut short an interfaith meeting of clergy after a Palestinian Muslim cleric launched a surprise attack on Israel during an impromptu address.
JERUSALEM – In an election season compressed into just three weeks due to the military operation in Gaza, during which campaigning ground to a virtual halt, Israel’s political parties have begun to roll out their campaigns ahead of the national elections Feb. 10.
The first round of publicly sponsored and legally restricted TV advertisements aired during a special hour of political broadcasts Tuesday night. Each party was allotted a specific amount of time based on the number of seats it holds in the current Knesset. Due to flagging interest in this year’s campaign, Israeli TV channels have declined to air subsequent broadcasts of the ads during prime time.
KARNEI SHOMRON, west bank – Less than an hour-and-a-half after a long-range Grad missile struck a home in Ashkelon, the rebuilding began. As members of the United Jewish Communities national mission stood and watched on Monday, neighbors came and began carefully removing undamaged window frames, knocking out the broken glass in preparation for new glass.
