Camera Op-Ed: Egypt, Israel And The Arc Of History
On Sept. 13, 2021, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in Sharm El-Sheikh in the Sinai Peninsula. The event was the first public invitation for an Israeli premier to meet on Egyptian soil in a decade. But while the meeting was well covered by Western news outlets, many in […]
The Last, Last Jew? Simentov Relative Flees Afghanistan after Taliban Takeover
AP — For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as the “last Jew of Afghanistan,” the sole remnant of a centuries-old community. He charged reporters for interviews and held court in Kabul’s only remaining synagogue. He left the country last month for Istanbul after the Taliban seized power. Now it appears he was not the last […]
Journalist Forced To Flee After Capturing Rare Images Of Iranian Jews Publishes Book
JTA — Jewish prayer in a mosque. Hookah smoke in a kosher kitchen. Hebrew school study under portraits of ayatollahs. When former Associated Press photographer Hassan Sarbakhshian spent almost two years between 2006 and 2008 among the Jewish communities in Iran, those are some of the images he collected for a book project. The photographs offer […]
Attacking Israeli Food? Your Racism Is Showing
Every Friday, my mother and her 11 brothers and sisters have lunch at my grandmother Hela’s home in Petah Tikva. There, they find dozens of pots simmering on stoves filled with various dishes that had been prepared with love all day — some even overnight. These Fridays, my grandmother serves her famous kubbah, a Mizrahi dish […]
Still Living: Remembering Morocco’s Jews
When I think about Israeli culture, I think of startups, I think of gorgeous museums with modern art exhibits, of Sabich, falafel, and hip new musicians, of the Tel Aviv boardwalk and the new lineup of hit Israeli TV shows on Netflix. Israel has a rich culture, and yet often we see it as separate […]
The man who flew 120,000 Iraqi Jews to Israel | Lyn Julius | The Blogs
Jews with roots in Iraq are today the third largest community in Israel – after the Soviet and the Moroccan. Did you ever wonder how they got there? The mass aliya of some 120,000 Iraqi Jews between 1950 and 1951 is attributable largely to the efforts of one man — Shlomo Hillel, who died on 8 February […]
Only One Jew Remains in Yemen, U.N. Says
A lone Jewish person remains in Yemen, down from seven a month ago, according to a new United Nations report about the treatment of religious minorities in conflict zones. The report, which was published by the U.N. special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, described the treatment of religious minorities around the world. “In recent years, the rise […]
