NEW YORK (JTA) — President Obama appealed to the United Nations to recognize Israel’s security concerns in considering the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“We believe that any lasting peace must acknowledge the very real security concerns that Israel faces every single day,” Obama said in his address Wednesday to the U.N. General Assembly plenary.
Obama repeated his administration’s calls on [...]

Jewish groups say U.N. resolution is inevitable, but its wording isn’t set
By RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON (JTA) — All but resigned to the inevitability of a Palestinian push for statehood at the United Nations later this month, Jewish groups are hoping that its effects can be blunted through aggressive diplomacy and the threat of action by the [...]

By MARCY OSTER
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israeli parliament’s adoption of a controversial anti-boycott bill has been greeted with a firestorm of protest from liberal Israeli NGOs and civil rights groups.
On Tuesday, a day after the Knesset voted 47-38 to enact the measure following six hours of contentious debate, the liberal Gush Shalom movement appealed to [...]

Israeli novelist Etgar Keret plays diplomatic correspondent for a day, when he covers Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with Italian President Silvio Berlusconi in Rome. His account appears in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

Etgar Keret (Photo: Alon Ron)

Keret is on a mission, spurred on by his wife, to find out what practical steps the prime minister [...]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama said his call for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations based on the pre-1967 lines did not mean the future state of Palestine would have those exact borders.
“By definition, it means that the parties themselves — Israelis and Palestinians — will negotiate a border that is different than the one that existed on June [...]

By DINA KRAFT
RAMAT GAN, Israel (JTA) — On television Lisa Edelstein, a star of the hit Fox show House, and her fellow actors work medical miracles every episode. But at an Israeli hospital she stumbled trying her hand at simulated arthroscopic surgery.
“I’m so glad this is not a living person,” she said Wednesday, shifting the [...]

By GARY ROSENBLATT
NEW YORK (N.Y. Jewish Week) — A second-year rabbinical student at the Jewish Theological Seminary (www.jtsa.edu) says her year-in-Israel experience, as part of her academic training, has been “enriching and incredibly painful” in terms of what she sees of Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians.
“The Israel I see does not seem to reflect so many [...]

Members of the Israel Defense Forces’ Paratroopers Reconnaissance Brigade, (l to r) Second Lt. Yakir David, Second Lt. Ashager Araro, Lt. Naor Shmuel and Lt. Gal Howard, are in the midst of a two-week visit to the Minneapolis area. (Photo: Mordecai Specktor)

A group of young Israeli soldiers arrived in Minneapolis last week to share their [...]

In interview with CNN, Israeli prime minister says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei effectively runs Iran, warning that if Iran ‘gets atomic bombs, it will change history’
Haaretz Staff Report
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei poses the greatest worldwide threat after the death of Osama bin Laden, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN on [...]

Israel’s only NBA player and former star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar  are making news in the Jewish state

(JTA) — The face of Israel’s first and only NBA player will be seen soon in his native land endorsing the “Cornflakes of Champions.”
Omri Casspi, who plays for the Sacramento Kings,  has a long way to go before he graces [...]