Some Jews involved in the Occupy Wall Street protests are turning their focus to Jewish institutions under the banner of Occupy Judaism. With succot being built at many protest sites, the Jewish presence has become a visible part of Occupy Wall Street’s self-proclaimed “99 percent” of those suffering in this current economy. “There are a lot of Jews who have been really affected by the economy,” Rabbi Alana Suskin, a participant in Occupy D.C., told the Jerusalem Post. “There …More

A special Israeli committee announced its recommendations to ease the high costs of living after a summer filled with country-wide protests. Headed by Tel Aviv economics professor Manuel Trajtenberg, the committee’s plan calls for an $8 billion investment over five years with a focus on education, housing and increasing taxes on the rich. “Social security is no less important than physical security,” Trajetenberg said, urging the country to find a balance between the two. To address housing …More

Israel's ambassador returned to Jordan  after a supposed “million man march” against the Jewish state in the capital city of Amman only produced around 200 protesters. Israel had evacuated most of the embassy’s staff in a move motivated by the recent events in Egypt where protesters stormed the Israeli embassy, forcing an emergency rescue of Israeli staffers. The Jordanian protest called for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador and an annulment of the peace treaty between the two …More

As he visits Egypt today, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan finds himself more popular than ever in the Middle East. Some of the protestors who stormed the Israeli embassy in Egypt last weekend carried pictures of Prime Minister Erdogan, who recently expelled the Israeli ambassador from Turkey after the Jewish state refused to apologize for a 2010 attack on a Gaza aid flotilla that left eight Turkish citizens dead. The Egyptian protesters were angry over Israel not apologizing for accidentally killing …More

Jordan citizens are planning to stage a million man march towards the Israeli embassy in Amman. The protest's organizers say that they will try to break into the embassy and take down its Israeli flag. Jordan has increased security around the building, including deploying two armored vehicles. The Israeli embassy in Cairo was stormed over the weekend. Jordan's King Abdullah II has called Israel's current position in the Middle East "more problematic than it has been in the past." …More

Israeli protesters clashed with police after authorities attempted to dismantle a tent city that was part of the ongoing protests focused on the country’s high cost of living. The Israeli government had previously said that protesters would be given until the end of the month to clean up their tents. However, this morning, city municipal workers began to confiscate the protester’s tents and belongings. In response, dozens of protesters stood outside the Tel Aviv mayor’s house, chanting for him …More

"IF THE situation here remains unchanged," warns Avia Spivak, "we'll get the sort of violent protests they had in England." A professor of economics at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Mr Spivak was deputy governor of the Bank of Israel until 2006. Now he heads a team of economists advising the young leaders of a huge, inchoate social protest movement that has been demonstrating and camping out in city centres across Israel for much of the summer. The movement, which has neither name nor structure, held its …More

The wave of social protests that washed over Israel is splitting into two main camps. One wants to fix the economy by making it truly competitive, free of giant pyramidal conglomerates that stifle competition; and free of the powerful labor unions that strangle any nascent competition to the monopolistic infrastructure behemoths. The other camp envisions a sharp transition from a liberal economy based on values of enterprise to a quasi-socialist economy based on central planning and state involvement at all …More

More than 400,000 Israelis demonstrated in cities across the country under the banner of social justice in what some say was the largest protest in Israel's history. A crowd estimated at 300,000 showed up in Tel Aviv Saturday night for what organizers had billed as a nationwide "March of the Million." Israeli media reports variously put the number of protesters who gathered in Jerusalem at between 40,000 and 60,000. Tens of thousands more turned out in Haifa, and sizable demonstrations were also held in more …More

This past Saturday night in Tel Aviv was the culmination of the protests in Israel with a demonstration that had over 400,000 participants. For over a month, protestors have taken to the streets initially addressing just the issue of high housing costs, but have grown to encompass a larger protest addressing all issues including taxes, salaries, and schooling. The protestors are taking down their tents, but the fight on social issues is far from over; with new strategies to address these issues, Prime Minister …More

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responding to the latest massive demonstrations by a disgruntled middle class in the country's business center, Tel Aviv, and other cities, stuck fast to his pledge to implement change but not at all costs. "People now know their strength, it is something addictive and it cannot be stopped," Yonatan Levy, one of the leader of Israel's new social movement, said on Israel Radio. Organisers said more than 450,000 people took part in Saturday's protests, maintaining pressure on …More

The Telegraph gave the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of Anton Webern’s Passacaglia three out of five stars, saying the Palestinian protestors at Albert Hall overshadowed the evening’s music. At beginning of the performance, the protestors inside the Hall started to sing a loud pro-Palestinian song to the the tune of Beethoven’s "Ode to Joy." According to the British newspaper, the piece Israel was performing was a “melancholy sunset glow of Viennese romanticism, which …More