To coincide with this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut theme—Heritage—the Prime Minister’s Office rolled out a special campaign to highlight past prime ministers in private moments. The project began this week and entails photo albums on the PMO’s Facebook page, with archived images of past leaders like David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin. The photos range from the mundane, like a haircut for Yitzhak Shamir, to the historic, like Menachem Begin’s accords with Jimmy …More

Darkness descended on the airport in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, and the Hercules aircraft opened up. The red lights flashing from inside the plane, the hot air whizzing off the propellers, and the great roar of the engine combined to create a surreal scene as the Ethiopian Jewish olim (immigrants to Israel) continued their march towards freedom in the land of Israel. While the sounds first appeared nightmarish to the Ethiopian olim, it also provided a great sense of relief – the relief of the end …More

Yair Shamir says he doesn’t discuss hypotheticals. For the Israeli Air Force commander turned technocrat turned politician, these topics include how to respond to settlement evacuations or achieve Palestinian statehood, a fracture in the US-Israel relationship or Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman’s departure from politics. Shamir, the 67-year-old scion of the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, is the hard-line Yisrael Beiteinu’s No. 2. With Lieberman, the former foreign minister, …More

A small seed of an idea planted by former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in 1992 has turned into one of the most successful Jewish high schools in Israel. Naale Elite Academy, a life changing, all-expenses paid high school program for Jewish teenagers from the Diaspora, celebrates its 21st birthday this month. Naale Elite Academy is a microcosm of Israeli society, a real melting pot of young people from different countries, cultures and outlooks. Started in the early ‘90s for youth from the Former …More

Rob Lattin is Jspace News' Foreign Affairs Correspondent. In addition to covering foreign affairs for Jspace, Rob is a blogger on Israeli and Middle Eastern foreign policy for the Foreign Policy Association, as well as a freelance writer. He can be reached by email at rob@jspacecorp.com. The election is over and the incumbent President Barack Obama has come out victorious. This should come as a huge relief to those Jews who are basing their vote on foreign policy. As stated in previous articles, Massachusetts …More

Both Israelis and Palestinians speculate over the causes of the last-minute cancellation of the Abbas-Mofaz meeting. [The Jerusalem Post] Meanwhile, Kadima party chairman Shaul Mofaz refuses to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu after Netanyahu dissolved a Kadima-led panel focusing on drafting new universal draft legislation. [The Times of Israel] Leaders come to see former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir being laid to rest in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl cemetery. [Haaretz] Masada College in St. Ives receives a $4.7 …More

Yitzhak Shamir, past Israeli prime minister who championed settlement expansion and Soviet Jewish immigration and was a key fixture in the Menachem Begin cabinet, died Saturday at the age of 96. Shamir was born in Belarus in 1915 and went on to study in Poland. As a young man he was involved in a Zionist movement while attending Warsaw University, working toward his law degree. However, those studies were cut short by the outbreak of war and Shamir fled with his parents to the British Mandate of Palestine, what …More

Past Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, 96, died Saturday at a nursing home in Tel Aviv. [The New York Times] Yad Vashem tones down its account of Pope Pius XII’s conduct toward the massacre of Jews during World War II. [Boston.com] An archeological dig in the lower Galilee finds a 1,600-year-old mosaic floor describing the story of biblical Samson and a Hebrew inscription from a synagogue. [The Jerusalem Post] Mario Balotelli, Italian soccer star and foster son of a Jewish mother, leads Italy to the …More

Shulamit Shamir, the wife of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, has died in Tel Aviv. She was 88. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement of condolence to her family on Friday. Shulamit was born in Bulgaria in 1923. She was arrested upon arrival in what was then British-ruled Palestine due to a limitation on Jewish immigration, and was sent to a detention camp. There she met Yitzhak, held for his activities in a Jewish underground group. They married in 1944. Yitzhak served as prime …More