JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Updated 12/10/09 @ 04:05PM EDT

• Forty-one percent of Israelis have favorable feelings toward President Obama, with 37 percent expressing an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. president, according to a New America Foundation poll.
• Four national Jewish groups are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a lower court decision that strips individual foreign government officials of immunity from civil lawsuits in the United States.
• Activists are organizing a "day of solitary" in support of women's right to pray at the Western Wall in "dignity, in safety and in shared community."
• The Israeli ambassador to the United States blasted J Street, saying the organization was "fooling around with the lives of 7 million people."
• Israeli President Shimon Peres broadcast a Chanukah blessing to Jews around the world on his new YouTube channel.

• The rule of the Hasmonean dynasty extended south to the Negev, new archaeological excavations have found.
• Orthodox Jewish boxer Dimitriy Salita made his first visit to Israel four days after losing a bout for the world light-welterweight title.
• A new map of priority areas in Israel contains dozens of settlements, including outlying communities not part of any settlement bloc.
• An amendment approved by the Knesset will advance a bill requiring a referendum on Israeli territorial withdrawal as part of any future peace deals.
• Elie Wiesel urged Hungary's leaders to do more to combat racism and anti-Semitism, and also to consider banning Holocaust denial.

• Holocaust memorial institutions in France and Israel commemorated the roundup 67 years ago of Tunisian Jews.
• The Goldstone report drove the Israelis and Palestinians apart, a U.S. State Department official said.
• The instruments of war have a part in preserving peace, President Obama said as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo.
• The Palestinian Authority prime minister in a meeting with Jewish Council for Public Affairs leaders said he opposed a Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood.
• A Palestinian man was stopped at a checkpoint north of Jerusalem after he tried to smuggle in six pipe bombs.

• Thousands of right-wing activists converged on Jerusalem to protest against the construction freeze in the West Bank.
• The "Chanukah Caravan" is visiting Scandinavia.
• Chabad-Lubavitch is offering a menorah to college students who request one.
• Quebec has ended a 24-year arrangement that allowed fervently Orthodox Jewish students to study at a Montreal junior college at public expense.
• Latin America's largest television station will feature a Chanukah awareness campaign.

Get JTA alerts via Twitter · Facebook

View All