Over the past three months, some 200 firebombs and 80 explosive devices have been thrown at worshippers and Israeli soldiers at Rachel’s Tomb on the outskirts of Bethlehem in the West Bank. The figures were provided by senior Israel Defense Forces and Border Police officers on Monday during a meeting of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Israel Hayom reported. The committee gathered to discuss the security threats facing worshippers at the tomb. Committee Chairman MK Avigdor …More

A young Russian immigrant received her Israeli citizenship Wednesday, and will now be able to represent Israel in official gymnastics tournaments. Twelve year-old Ksanya Kasrin has been waiting for this day for six years. Until recently, she registered for international competitions with her Russian passport, not as a part of Team Israel. Kasrin is currently ranked third in Israel, and recently won the Bronze medal in a Russian competition for her age group. She is considered a great talent and hope for …More

As part of its Yom Hazikaron commemorations, the Knesset honored fallen soldier Michael Levin, a Philadelphia-born man who made aliyah and was killed in the Second Lebanon War. Levin immigrated to the Jewish state in 2002 at the age of 17. He joined the Paratroop Brigade, cutting short a vacation in the US to rejoin his squad at the outbreak of the war with Lebanon in 2006. On August 21 that same year, he was killed by a Hezbollah sniper in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta a-Shayeb. He was just 21. Last …More

Knesset member Nitzan Horowitz insists that Israel must work with its regional neighbors to improve the environment. "I want people to understand that when locusts come from Egypt, this is a regional problem. To understand that borders are not hermetic seals—water, air, diseases and climate have no borders,” Horowitz said in a recent interview with Al-Monitor. Horowitz is planning a lobby group to promote cooperation between Israel and its regional neighbors—the first of its kind in the …More

A ruling last week in Israel’s High Court of Justice has made polluting much more expensive. Under the current law, which the court upheld, companies manufacturing polluting materials could be held responsible for the cost of the cleanup. Last year, the Knesset passed a landmark bill to fund a nationwide asbestos cleanup project. The program, led by the Environmental Protection Ministry, called for both the government and the manufacturers of polluting materials to be held responsible for the cost of …More

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the allocation of some $14 million to benefit Holocaust survivors and other elderly Israelis. Just before the start of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Netanyahu also asked the Knesset to approve an additional $7 million to pay for medicine to help the elderly population. "We have a deep obligation to the elderly in general and to Holocaust survivors in particular, first of all to their welfare and also to their security," he said Sunday at the beginning of the …More

Elie Wiesel, the speaker of Israel's Knesset and two former Israel Supreme Court justices are among those who will select the winner of a new $1 million prize for serving as a role model for Jewish values. The Genesis Philanthropy Group, a consortium of mega-wealthy philanthropist-businessmen from the former Soviet Union, announced the formation of the two committees that will determine the inaugural winner of the Genesis Prize, which will be given out annually. Dubbed the Jewish Nobel Prize by Time Magazine, …More

President Obama may have landed yesterday in Israel, meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Shimon Peres and members of the new Knesset, but someone else is stealing his thunder: Christiano Ronaldo. The soccer star landed last night in Israel with the Portuguese National team in preparation for a match against Team Israel on Friday as part of the early stages of the World Cup. At the moment, both teams share the same amount of points in their group. Team Portugal was led out the back of Ben …More

Six weeks after Israeli national elections and with just a day to spare before the deadline, Benjamin Netanyahu has finally secured himself a coalition. Bibi’s Likud-Beiteinu party will join with Yesh Atid, Jewish Home and Hatnua to make a 68-seat coalition, ensuring Netanyahu a majority rule in the Knesset and allowing him to retain his premiership. Hatnua joined the prime minister’s coalition early on, bringing just six seats to the table, making it ever more pressing that Netanyahu ink a deal with …More

Coalition talks between Israel's major parties resulted not in a government, but an agreement to raise the threshold for Knesset representation from two to four percent, potentially eliminating minor parties from holding seats in the future. [Times of Israel] Western Cape’s leader faces backlash from the Jewish Board after making suggestions of Jewish businessmen being favored over their Muslim counterparts. [Times Live] Further protection is demanded for Israel’s Mount of Olives Cemetery, whose …More

“The army is the supreme symbol of duty and as long as women are not equal to men in performing this duty, they have not yet obtained true equality. If the daughters of Israel are absent from the army, then the character of the Yishuv will be distorted.” —David Ben-Gurion, first Israeli Prime Minister Women have served as IDF soldiers since the very beginning. On 26 May, 1948, Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion established the IDF as Israel’s armed forces. Less than three months later, the …More

Menachem Begin’s political accomplishments read like a tribute: the sixth prime minister of Israel, creator of the Likud party, leader of the Zionist group Igrun, signer of the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, Nobel Peace Prize winner. Begin was born August 16, 1913, in the then Russian Empire. As a child he studied the Zionist movement, joining the Zionist Socialist youth movement at the age of 12. He earned a law degree from the University of Warsaw, which would serve him well in his later career as a …More