Dina Kraft

Eight members of the Levi family adjust to rockets in Ashkelon

Published on December 29, 2008

Another rocket warning siren wails and eight members of the Levi family, including a grandmother and a newborn, quickly cram into the small bedroom made of reinforced concrete that serves as the family's bomb shelter. "Come on, come on! Get in!" they shout. Just before the metal door thuds shut, the family dog, Pick, is whisked inside.

Despite diplomas, Ethiopian Israelis can’t find jobs

Published on December 25, 2008

Of the approximately 4,500 Ethiopian Israelis who have earned university degrees, fewer than 15 percent have found work in their professions, according to a recent study. Instead, most end up working temporary public-sector jobs serving the Ethiopian Israeli community, remaining disconnected from the larger professional Israeli workforce.

Showdown in Hebron as IDF evicts settlers

Published on December 4, 2008

The violent eviction Thursday ended one standoff between Jewish settlers and the Israeli government but spurred another

African AIDS fight uses Israeli circumcision skills

Published on November 26, 2008

The United Nations announced last year that the procedure could reduce the rate of HIV transmission by up to 60 percent. It was in Israel, with its experience performing adult male circumcision on a wide scale, that the international medical community found an unlikely partner in the global fight against AIDS.

Discovery of King David-era fort stirs debate on size of kingdom

Published on November 19, 2008

Some scholars argue that David's Jerusalem was merely a backwater village glorified into a mythical place by those they say penned the Bible centuries later. Others suggest that true to its biblical description, it was a genuine power overseeing a strong and united kingdom. The discovery of what is being called the Elah Fortress has quickly been used to reinforce the latter argument.

Israelis catch U.S. election fever

Published on October 28, 2008

Israelis -- including the American citizens among them, as many as half of whom hail from swing states -- have been closely following the election campaign across the ocean with a mix of interest, concern, bemusement and validation

Diverse trio running for mayor in troubled Jerusalem

Published on October 22, 2008

It sounds like the beginning of a joke: A rabbi, a Russian oligarch and a high-tech millionaire are running for mayor of Jerusalem. Except there's no punch line, just each of them offering up himself as salvation for the hallowed capital's many troubles.

Candidate Profile: Tzipi Livni—a clean record but some say untested

Published on September 8, 2008

Polls show that Livni, 50, is the leading contender to win Kadima Party primaries Sept. 17 to succeed Ehud Olmert

Israel taps ‘political outsider’ as new U.N. ambassador

Published on August 12, 2008

Criticized by some in Israel because she is a political outsider, Gabriela Shalev, Israel's incoming U.N. ambassador, wins the praise of past and current colleagues who say she is an exceptional legal mind with an unflappable exterior

Red-Dead canal idea stirs controversy

Published on August 3, 2008

The World Bank is conducting a $14 million study of a plan to build a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea. Environmentalists say the canal idea is a risky proposition to save the Dead Sea, which is rapidly shrinking.

Israeli women gymnasts train long and hard for Beijing games

Published on July 30, 2008

On one side of a cavernous gym in Netanya, halfway between Tel Aviv and Haifa, six members of Israel's first Olympic rhythmic gymnastics team warm up in a circle, chatting softly in a mix of Russian and Hebrew while stretching their legs in effortless splits on the mat

Sderot welcomes Obama

Published on July 24, 2008

Sderot's residents expressed optimism about the latest of a series of high-profile visitors to the town, the man who one day may be U.S. president, Barack Obama

Food prices squeeze Israel’s needy

Published on July 21, 2008

As the price of food staples have risen, Israel's poor and the nonprofit groups that serve them have been hardest hit, with some impoverished Israelis skipping meals to pay their monthly bills

Israel's clean tech advances attract foreign investors' green

Published on July 14, 2008

Spurred by skyrocketing oil prices and growing interest in energy alternatives, a wave of new companies and investors are scouting out new clean technologies in Israel.

Israel invests in clean tech as energy crunch looms

Published on July 2, 2008

Industry observers say more aggressive government policies, such as underwriting renewable energy initiatives and granting more land for power plants, are needed to bolster the development of alternative energy.

Israelis are not in a partying mood

Published on May 1, 2008

Israel is turning 60, but few here in the Jewish State seem in the mood to crack open the champagne.


Israelis are still gloomy about the country's perceived failures in the 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, and every day brings fresh reminders that no solution has been found for the growing problem of cross-border rocket fire from the Gaza Strip.

Segway inventor Dean Kamen brings his high-tech vision to Israel

Published on April 24, 2008

Dean Kamen, the multimillionaire inventor renowned for the Segway personal transporter, traveled to Israel with a message for teenagers: Careers in science will help make them the rock stars of their generation

Fending off the end of aliyah

Published on April 3, 2008

Founded with the express purpose of "ingathering of the exiles" -- but with no more large groups of Jews to save -- Israel is facing the end of the era of mass aliyah.

Yeshiva terror attack cut religious Zionists deeply

Published on March 9, 2008

In the close-knit world of religious Zionism, no one feels far removed from the grief for eight young people gunned down while studying Talmud in their Jerusalem yeshiva.

Ashkelon is the new front line in the war with Gaza

Published on March 8, 2008

Practically overnight, life in this quiet coastal city has changed dramatically. Thirteen rockets landed in Ashkelon over the course of four days, and with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) having launched a ground invasion into Gaza over the weekend, shaken residents here suddenly find themselves in a war zone.

As U.S. dollar plummets, Israelis rediscover the shekel

Published on March 1, 2008

No longer the subject of derision or victim of hyperinflation, the shekel is now among the strongest currencies in the world. For the first time in years, businesses and real estate agencies that once dealt only in dollars are now instead setting their rates to the shekel.

Fund assists Israeli cancer researchers

Published on February 21, 2008

Howard Cedar is among hundreds of Israeli scientists whose research has been supported by the Israel Cancer Research Fund (ICRF), a charitable organization funded predominately by North American Jews that aims to keep Israeli researchers in the country performing cutting-edge research instead of losing them in a "brain drain" to institutions abroad with more money and resources.

‘Meadow Soprano’ explores her Jewish spirit in Israel

Published on January 31, 2008

Jamie Sigler, who played the daughter of Mafia kingpin Tony Soprano on the acclaimed HBO show "The Sopranos," grew up in a Jewish home in Jericho, N.Y., going to Hebrew school and having a bat mitzvah. But it was only during her recent visit to Israel that she said she felt a true spiritual and emotional connection to her roots.

Israelis keep a close eye on U.S. elections

Published on January 17, 2008

With a mix of concern for their future and amusement at the marching bands and baby-kissing style of U.S. electoral politics, Israelis are tuning in to see who might be the next U.S. president.

‘Non-Jewish’ Jews endure challenges living in Israel

Published on January 3, 2008

In Israel, the "non-Jewish Jews," as some Israelis call them, are everywhere. They drive buses, teach university classes, patrol in army jeeps and follow the latest Israeli reality TV shows as avidly as their Jewish counterparts. For these people -- mostly immigrants from the former Soviet Union who are not Jews according to Israeli law -- the question of where they fit into the Jewish state remains unanswered nearly two decades after they began coming to Israel.

Splinter group keeps settler outpost movement alive

Published on December 13, 2007

Her heart pounding, the 15-year-old girl with a long, honey-colored braid down her back scrambled down the steep hillside in the black of night, running from police who had swarmed in to evacuate her and others who had come to set up an illegal settlement outpost.

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev reaches out to Bedouin women

Published on June 28, 2007

Bedouin women are increasingly attending college. Here at Ben-Gurion University, there are 250 female Bedouin students.

Does Hamas takeover mean new hope for kidnapped Israeli soldier?

Published on June 21, 2007

Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip is spurring hope for the safe return of an Israeli soldier kidnapped nearly a year ago by the fundamentalist Islamic group, even as it issued a terse warning to Israel not to harm its leaders "or forget about Gilad Shalit."

We’re goin’ to Ha Aretz and we’re gonna get married ...

Published on June 7, 2007

Some couples marry in candlelit caves, others choose a chuppah wrapped in gauzy silk and lilies on the beach or a rooftop overlooking Jerusalem's Old City at sunset. Welcome to destination weddings, Israel style.

Army base provides haven for refugees from Sderot

Published on May 24, 2007

Driven from their homes by Qassam rockets, Eimvet Yitao and her colleagues from a Sderot day care center gathered under the shade of a sprawling tree at an army center in Givat Olga, swapping stories of their fears.

What now after Winograd?

Published on May 3, 2007

With "failure" officially stamped on Ehud Olmert's management of last summer's war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, the question is: What happens now?

Israelis fear anti-Semitism imported from Russia

Published on April 26, 2007

n recent years, sporadic acts of anti-Semitism have hit Israel, most of them carried out by disaffected immigrant youths from the former Soviet Union (FSU). Although the youths came to Israel under the Law of Return, they are among those who identify not as Jews but as ethnic Russians. Under Israel's Law of Return, a cornerstone of Israel's identity as a haven for all Jews, anyone with a Jewish parent or grandparent is permitted to immigrate and be granted citizenship.

Sudanese Discover Parallels in Visit to Yad Vashem

Published on April 5, 2007

A group of refugees from Darfur on a visit to Yad Vashem lingered next to a model of the crematorium at Auschwitz, taking in the ghastly sight of bodies carried on cots and pushed into ovens.

Poverty in Israel: The divide deepens between the haves and have-nots

Published on March 8, 2007

Once idealized as a socialist paradise, Israel is increasingly becoming a country of two classes -- those who have soared in the increasingly capitalist economy and those who have stumbled in its wake.

American ideas boost bid to get Israelis to work

Published on March 8, 2007

STRIVE, an intensive work-readiness program, is modeled after an initiative of the same name that began more than 20 years ago in New York's Harlem in an effort to help women on welfare overcome their severe difficulties in finding and keeping meaningful jobs.

Tough neighborhoods, hard times feed cycle of poverty

Published on March 8, 2007

Anti-poverty activists and residents say the situation of many towns like Shechunat Hatikvah is the result of decades of government neglect and poor planning -- places seen as dumping grounds where immigrants were settled in demographically strategic locations but far from job opportunities.

Palestinian terror reaches Eilat

Published on February 1, 2007

Eilat generally has escaped the violence of the six-year Palestinian intifada, but even its remote setting couldn't forever insulate the Red Sea resort city from the region's tensions.

Teddy Kollek, Jerusalem’s modern-day Herod, dies at 95

Published on January 4, 2007

Teddy Kollek, the longtime Jerusalem mayor who died this week at the age of 95, is being remembered as the most prolific builder of the city since King Herod.

Depression grips Sderot as rockets continue to fall

Published on December 7, 2006

Sderot is far, by Israeli standards, from the country's more prosperous center. But in the last six years, it has found itself unwittingly on one of the front lines of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Its location, about two miles from the Gaza border, has made Sderot an easy target for terrorists' Qassam rockets. Before a surprise and partial truce went into effect about a week ago, fighting had escalated, especially in recent months, between the Israeli army and Palestinian terrorist groups.

Could Pride rally tension put gay issues on Israel’s agenda?

Published on November 22, 2006

Gay issues have never been at the forefront of Israeli domestic politics -- unlike in the United States -- but some wonder if that will change after ultra-Orthodox protesters used violence to prevent a gay pride parade.

‘Secular Yeshiva’ answers young Israelis’ questions

Published on October 26, 2006

The goal is to give young, secular Israelis an education that will show them that they too have a rich culture to tap into and explore.

American-Born Spokeswoman Big Asset to Israel

Published on August 17, 2006

The former army intelligence officer with an easy smile was busy as the face of Israel's foreign media outreach, giving more than 80 interviews to international media networks and newspapers during the war.

Pets left behind in the North are focus of Israeli volunteers

Published on August 14, 2006

When tens of thousands of Israelis fled their homes as Hezbollah rockets began raining down on northern Israel, they left behind not only hastily locked-up houses but, in many cases, their pets. After days and weeks of being left to fend for themselves, many of the animals were found starving and dehydrated in the streets of northern towns and cities. Estimates put the number of animals in distress at about 8,000.

Israel Holds Off on Bombing Response

Published on April 20, 2006

More than 40 people were injured in attack, several of them critically, rescue officials said. Guy Sadeh was among the first at the scene, passing by on his way to pick up new business cards. He helped treat and calm the injured.

"I saw things no one should see," Sadeh, 36, said as he lay on a hospital gurney while being treated for cuts on his right foot. His khaki pants were splattered with blood.

‘State Department for Jews’ Hits 100

Published on April 13, 2006

In a meeting room with gold silk curtains and tiled walls, a delegation from the American Jewish Committee (AJC) takes their seats at a long, glass-topped table facing Tunisia's foreign minister and his aides. Soon the questions begin: When will Tunisia resume official relations with Israel? What is the country's stance on Iran?

Settlers See Grim Future

Published on March 30, 2006

The Israeli withdrawal from Gaza last summer, and Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's pledge to withdraw from isolated settlements like Avne Hefetz by 2010, haunts the settler community.

The New Face of the Israeli Right

Published on March 30, 2006

Avigdor Lieberman's party, Yisrael Beiteinu, became the fourth-largest party in Israeli politics Tuesday, winning seats in the next Knesset from a strong base of Russian-speaking voters as well as tens of thousands of veteran Israelis.

Israeli Candidates Battle Voter Apathy

Published on March 23, 2006

Shimon Peres joins a young couple having lunch at a seaside restaurant and asks them who they are voting for in Israel's upcoming election. They smile nervously, glance up at the swarm of photographers and TV cameras that surround the former prime minister and admit the truth: They don't know.

Pupils Vote Yes on Democratic School

Published on February 23, 2006

The Hadera Democratic School, which receives funding from both public and private sources, was the first of its kind in Israel. Since its founding in 1987 in this city about 60 kilometers north of Tel Aviv, 23 other schools have opened around the country based on its model of democratic education, in which student participation and choice is emphasized.

Program Tries to Sell Youth on Negev

Published on January 19, 2006

The two-day event over Chanukah, dubbed "Light Up the Negev," was organized by the Jewish National Fund-Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (JNF) with the express purpose of "selling" the Negev to Israel's youth.