by Lela Gilbert | Aug 30, 2017 | Current Events, Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Muslims and Muslim Majority States
In the scorching heat of a troubled Jerusalem summer, the government of Israel announced that it intends to shut down Qatar-based Al Jazeera News Service. Shuttering a large and well-known news outlet in a democratic nation is not to be taken lightly. This is...
by Lela Gilbert | Jul 6, 2017 | Current Events, Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State
In recent days – both in Israel and in Jewish communities in North America – a burning debate has ignited amongst political and religious leaders and has flared up in the media. This argument focuses on Jerusalem’s Western Wall: Who can worship there? Where and how...
by Lela Gilbert | Jun 13, 2017 | American Foreign Policy, Current Events, Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State
The United States Embassy to Israel has been located in Tel Aviv since the 1940s. But now, in 2017, the address of the embassy has become the center of a contentious political discussion, both in and around Israel. Why? Well, as the saying goes, it’s complicated. But...
by Lela Gilbert | Jun 5, 2017 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State
Every year in Jerusalem, when early June arrives, poignant recollections of the Six-Day War come to mind. We remember the life-and-death battle that Israel fought in 1967 against an array of Arab nations. And this year – June 2017 – marks that war’s 50th anniversary....
by Lela Gilbert | Apr 24, 2017 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State
Once a year in Israel, when spring flowers are at their most beautiful, it happens at precisely 10 a.m. At that moment, the wail of an air raid siren suddenly pierces the morning air, and as the whine fades, silence steals across the land for two long minutes. Cars...
by Lela Gilbert | Apr 10, 2017 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State, Perspectives, Religious Freedom and Dialogue
Holidays in Israel are interwoven into daily life so beautifully that to me, after just a few years, they seemed to ebb and flow like the tide. Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Purim. And, of course, Passover – Pesach – which is about to begin, marking both the...
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