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Daily Briefing

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

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Featured Stories Can gay friendliness boost Israel's image? Two of the five gay couples who married symbolically at the first Tel Aviv municipality same-sex wedding ceremony under the wedding canopy on June 12, 2009. (Dina Kraft) Israel advocates, including the Foreign Ministry, have found Israel's relatively gay-friendly society a good way to sell a more progressive image of Israeli society to the world. Read more » Can Jewish groups balance security with access? After a massive upgrade in security since 9/11, the question for Jewish organizations in the aftermath of the Holocaust museum shooting is how to balance security needs while keeping institutions open and inviting. Read more » In endorsing two states, Netanyahu adopts popular Jewish position In accepting the notion of a demilitarized Palestinian state, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adopted what is essentially the position of a large swath of Israelis and American Jewish groups. Read more » Editors' Picks Did Bibi really shift? While Benjamin Netanyahu's speech on Sunday seems to have gone over well in many quarters, there were a few notable exceptions. Did it mark a shift in policy, or just language, asks JTA Managing Editor Uriel Heilman. Maybe we can all get along (at least in S.F.) j. The Jewish Weekly of San Francisco reports on the graduation of participants in a unity-building program for Jewish and Muslim students. The communist in the kipah What was a Jewish communist to do after being purged from the public schools in the 1950s? A photo in The New York Times has the answer: teach at a yeshiva. A good stretch for Bar-Ilan Twenty-two letters for: just as good as hosting Bibi's speech: a-m-e-n-t-i-o-n-i-n-N-Y-T-c-r-o-s-s-w-o-r-d. What did the Bush administration promise Israel? Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer says in the Washington Post that there was never any understanding reached between Israel and the Bush administration on settlement growth. More on the jailhouse bar mitzvah The nearly weeklong saga of the prison rabbi who presided over a lavish jailhouse bar mitzvah may be coming to a close. Breaking News A Jewish communal commission says there has been "intimidation, harassment, ridicule and virulent anti-Israel sentiment" at one of Canada's largest universities. More than 60 percent of $15 million in security grants released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will go to Jewish-affiliated groups. A Jewish soldier from London was killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. Jimmy Carter on a visit to the Gaza Strip met with Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Iran will be able to launch its first nuclear weapon by 2014, the head of the Mossad said. Some 60 percent of Israelis support using their tax money to assist Diaspora Jewish communities, a new survey found. The American Jewish Committee has received a $500,000 grant to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. White supremacists and anti-Semites have charged that Jewish control of the government is behind a Supreme Court nomination, the Anti-Defamation League says. A New York City Corrections Department official and a prison chaplain have resigned in the wake of a lavish bar mitzvah held in prison. Italy and Israel will cooperate on space exploration. The District of Columbia Council introduced a resolution urging federal prosecutors to charge the accused Holocaust museum shooter with violating the city's hate-crimes law. There can be no lasting peace in the Middle East unless the claims of Jews displaced from Arab countries are redressed, Canada's former justice minister said. A New York-based foundation says it will release original documents showing that controversial wartime Pope Pius XII worked to aid Jews during the Holocaust.