The Arthur Szyk Prize for Disruptive Thought and Zionist Art was recently launched to recognize artists whose works spark new ideas about Zionism in the 21st century. The prize, the first of its kind, acknowledges art that engages its audience in a conversation about Zionism and what it means to live in Israel in 2013. The prize is named after visionary Jewish illustrator Arthur Szyk, who created a legendary edition of the Haggadah. The prize will award $1,000 to an artist whose submission shows "exemplary and …More

Tablet Magazine has created a new project called “The Herzl Society: A New Conversation on Zionism’s Past and Future,” to encourage the topic of Zionism among college students. [Tablet] UC Berkley students denounced the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement’s involvement of an anti-Israel bill. [Times of Israel] The Canadian Jewish News is faced with potential closure, threatening the Jewish voice in Canada. [Huffington Post] The Sephardi Voices project has collected the firsthand …More

Anne Frank's stepsister says the famed diarist would have indeed been a "belieber." [Sun] Five Jewish responses to the Boston attack, from Rabbinic and Torah sources. [HuffPo] An Israeli college opens the Daniel Pearl journalism center. [Haaretz] A runner plans to cross Israel in 12 days. [Times of Israel] A letter facilitating Zionism is to be sold at auction. [Arutz Sheva] The Simon Wiesenthal Center is demanding a stop to a French rally in support of a known terrorist. [Arutz Sheva] …More

As part of this year’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebrations, Israel’s State Archive released a never before published transcript of a speech meant to be given by Albert Einstein. The Jewish physicist was scheduled to give the address to the American people via broadcast with ABC, NBC and CBS. The speech was planned to take place on Yom Ha’atzmaut in 1955, giving a plea to the US to support the Jewish state. Einstein died eight days before the scheduled address. “This is the seventh …More

The small green sign on West 43rd Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue in New York City is easy to miss among the neon cacophony that is today’s Times Square. But take a moment to notice ‘Adolph S. Ochs Street;’ its eponymous newspaper mogul died 79 years ago on April 8. And Adolph Ochs is a name worth remembering. Without him, Times Square would not have its name—and the world might not have the New York Times. Adolph was a first generation American, the son of two German Jews. His …More

It’s not a secret that the Jewish state faces plenty of hurdles. Committed lawmakers dedicate their lives to shaping the policies and security of the nation and, thankfully, those lawmakers receive support, as well. The Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS) is an Israeli think tank devoted to pinpointing key issues in the Jewish state. “Its main mission is to promote researchers and plans for politicians in Israel,” said Adi Arbel, project manager at IZS. “We have some programs that are …More

The Holocaust rarely produced happy endings—any such story would be a freakish aberration. Perhaps this depressing reality feeds our continual need to remember the few heroic instances of resistance. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising may not have been ultimately successful—the Nazis ruthlessly crushed the rebellion, razed the ghetto and shipped thousands more Jews to Treblinka—but it was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II. Flash forward to our time, and we have repeatedly memorialized …More

World leaders are biting back at comments by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan comparing Zionism to crimes against humanity. US Secretary of State John Kerry, in just his first few weeks at the post, met with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu recently, calling Erdogan’s comments an obstacle to peace. "We not only disagree with it, but we found it objectionable," Kerry said at a news conference. "I believe there is a way forward but it obviously gets more complicated in the aftermath such …More

Sean Savage, JNS.org In response to the Jewish community’s concern with the growth of anti-Israel bias and pro-Palestinian sympathies on college campuses, the field of Israel Studies has grown dramatically over the past decade. The newest player in that sphere of Israel Studies is the Washington, DC-based Israel Institute—a new non-partisan organization that was founded in 2012 but did not officially roll out its programs until this Tuesday. The institute is now seeking to consolidate the emerging …More

In late August 1948, general director of the Minister of Defense Levi Eshkol, code name Layish, sent the following message to his fellow operatives: “We are prepared to send two ships of ours to meet the Ishmaelite. The ships will go out in order to receive the cargo and will be careful not to enter the sea battle.” The ‘Ishmaelite’ was, in actuality, the Italian freighter Argero, which was loaded with rifles, ammunition and spare parts headed to Alexandria intended to aid the Arabs in the …More

Aaron David Gordon, better known as A.D. Gordon, was born into a wealthy Orthodox family in 1856 in the Russian Empire. Over the course of his life, he would become a leading force behind practical Zionism and Labor Zionism, a branch of left wing Zionism. When Gordon was young, he self educated himself in religious and academic studies, learning several languages as a child. He made aliyah to then Palestine in 1904, settling in the Galilee in 1919. He worked in agriculture, firming up his belief system that the …More

Perhaps no other author has had as much influence on Israel as writer Shmuel Yosef Agnon, the Jewish State’s first Nobel Prize winner, who died 43 years ago this Sunday. Israel was only 18 years old when, in 1966, the diminutive Agnon, well into his 70s, won literature’s highest honor. For a country in its infancy, soon to become embroiled in the Six Day War, Agnon’s award was more than a personal victory. It was a triumph for the revived Hebrew language. The prize gave legitimacy to a young …More