JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

JTA, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, is the definitive source for American Jewish community news and opinion.

Israeli media criticism of Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, seen at a Knesset session on June 29, 2009, has mounted over his inability to advance Israel's foreign policy interests.

Lieberman being sidelined as foreign minister

Israeli media criticism of Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, seen at a Knesset session on June 29, 2009, has mounted over his inability to advance Israel's foreign policy interests. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA) Read more »

New rules have Diaspora converts waiting on Israel

New Israeli regulations that make it more difficult for converts from the Diaspora to obtain Israeli citizenship constitute the latest chapter in the long-running battle over who is a Jew -- a question that repeatedly has strained Diaspora-Israel relations. Read more »

Top Stories

ORTs settle name dispute

Two operators of Jewish vocational schools settled a lawsuit over which can use the ORT name for fund raising in the United States. Read more »

U.S. denies settlement compromise report

The United States denied a report that it would allow the completion of 2,500 housing units in the West Bank as part of a compromise on settlements. Read more »

Op-Ed: Russia should return the Schneersohn collection

The collection of papers of the sixth Lubavitcher rebbe, Joseph Isaac Schneersohn, which is being held in Russian state archives after being seized by the Nazis, is war booty that should be returned to its rightful owners, the Jews, says former special U.S. envoy Gregg J. Rickman. Read more »

Maverick researcher Gary Tobin, 59, reached out to Jews of color

There are probably few students of American Jewry equally comfortable arguing for more aggressive efforts to grow Jewish numbers through conversion as they are assailing the hostility toward Israel of reflexively liberal academics. But Gary Tobin, who died late Monday at 59 after a long illness, was just that sort of thinker. Read more »

Blogs

The Fundermentalist

JDC faces significant budget crunch

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is facing a significant budget shortfall, according… Read Blog »

Capital J

Satmars for Obama’s Middle East policy

The mayor of Kiryas Joel, N.Y., sends a letter to the president praising his efforts to stop the “senseless… Read Blog »

The Telegraph

Trading outposts for large settlement blocs

If Benjamin Netanyahu insists on keeping illegal settlement outposts, he will be defending lawlessness… Read Blog »

Photos and Videos

Natan Sharansky, right, the new chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, welcomes new South African immigrants during a ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on July 7, 2009. (Brian Hendler) North American cantors, wrapped in a Torah scroll, chant morning prayers on July 2, 2009 on the grounds of the Auschwitz death camp during their tour of Poland organized by the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture. (Piotr Malecki) Bernard Madoff, shown here in a mug shot, was sentenced to 150 years in prison on June 29, 2009 -- the maximum sentence allowed -- for bilking investors of up to $65 billion in a Ponzi scheme. (U.S. Department of Justice) Campers from Camp Sabra in Missouri arriving back at the Jewish Community Campus in Overland Park, Kan., on June 23, 2009 after the camp was shut down for a seven-day cleanup due to an outbreak of the swine flu virus. (Edmee Rodriguez) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a major policy address at Bar-Ilan University in Israel on June 14, 2009 for the first time endorsed a Palestinian state, but with conditions. (Michael Kramer/flash90/jta) President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, flanked by Holocaust survivors Elie Wiesel, left, Nobel Prize-winning memoirist, and Bertrandt Herz, president of the International Buchenwald Committee, placing white roses at a memorial at the former Buchenwald concentration camp during their visit on June 5, 2009. (German Federal Press and Information Office / Bergmann) Former Israeli president Efraim Katzir died May 30, 2009 in his home in Rechovot, Israel. He was 93. (Flash90/JTA) Late Israeli President Efraim Katzir, first from right, toasts Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis who had just arrived from Lubavitch world headquarters in New York on a mission from the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson on January 20, 1976. (Chabad.org) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington on May 18, 2009. (Moshe Milner/GPO/Flash90/JTA) Residents of Ashkelon took to the streets on April 29, 2009 to celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day.  (Edi Israel / Flash 90 / JTA)

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  • Natan Sharansky, right, the new chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, welcomes new South African immigrants during a ceremony at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on July 7, 2009.
  • North American cantors, wrapped in a Torah scroll, chant morning prayers on July 2, 2009 on the grounds of the Auschwitz death camp during their tour of Poland organized by the Taube Foundation for Jewish Life and Culture.
  • Bernard Madoff, shown here in a mug shot, was sentenced to 150 years in prison on June 29, 2009 -- the maximum sentence allowed -- for bilking investors of up to $65 billion in a Ponzi scheme.
  • Campers from Camp Sabra in Missouri arriving back at the Jewish Community Campus in Overland Park, Kan., on June 23, 2009 after the camp was shut down for a seven-day cleanup due to an outbreak of the swine flu virus.
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a major policy address at Bar-Ilan University in Israel on June 14, 2009 for the first time endorsed a Palestinian state, but with conditions.
  • President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, flanked by Holocaust survivors Elie Wiesel, left, Nobel Prize-winning memoirist, and Bertrandt Herz, president of the International Buchenwald Committee, placing white roses at a memorial at the former Buchenwald concentration camp during their visit on June 5, 2009.
  • Former Israeli president Efraim Katzir died May 30, 2009 in his home in Rechovot, Israel. He was 93.
  • Late Israeli President Efraim Katzir, first from right, toasts Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis who had just arrived from Lubavitch world headquarters in New York on a mission from the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson on January 20, 1976.
  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House in Washington on May 18, 2009.
  • Residents of Ashkelon took to the streets on April 29, 2009 to celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel's Independence Day.
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Updated 07/09/09 @ 01:48PM EDT

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