No one loves the stranger

By Gina Nahai
Published on May 15, 2013

I know what happened with those three women in Cleveland, how one man was able to imprison and torture them in the middle of a residential neighborhood for 10 years, even though he had grown children, brothers, cousins who visited the house for hours at a time. It’s not a pretty tale, but we’ve all heard it, although to a lesser degree, countless times before.

Israeli officials order halt to underhanded contraception of Ethiopian women

Published on January 28, 2013

Following a TV report alleging that Ethiopian Israeli women were being given contraceptive shots against their will, Israel’s Health Ministry has ordered physicians to put a stop to the practice.

Abbas asks Israel to let in Palestinians fleeing Syria

Published on January 25, 2013

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas tried to get Israel to let 150,000 Palestinians fleeing war in Syria resettle in the West Bank, but dropped the request after the Jewish state demanded they first give up their right of return, he said.

Palestinian mob attacks Israeli troops in Jenin

Published on January 3, 2013

Residents of the Jenin refugee camp attacked a unit of Israeli soldiers who entered the area to arrest a Palestinian wanted for involvement in terrorism.

Gazans in Jordan scramble for news about relatives

Published on November 19, 2012

With one eye on Skype and the other fixed on the television screen, Salma anxiously searched for news about her father, two brothers and younger sister in the Gaza Strip. “I am suffering so much. I do not know how I will handle not being near my family, even under the bombardment,” Salma, 23, who grew up in Gaza and moved to Jordan in 2010 after she married, told The Media Line. She asked not to use her last name out of concern for her family.

Morsi removed Israel-friendly references from speech

Published on October 31, 2012

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi removed from his prepared speech to the United Nations two positive references to peace with Israel.

Palestian power issues: The night that the lights went out?

Published on August 14, 2012

The Palestinian Authority (PA) owes more than $170 million to the Israel Electric Company, and Israel is threatening to cut off the flow unless the debt is paid. Palestinian officials say that could cause widespread blackouts throughout the West Bank.

Syrian refugees flood into Jordan, straining country’s resources

Published on August 9, 2012

As the violence worsens in neighboring Syria, what began as a trickle of refugees into Jordan has turned into a flood. The United Nations estimates there are now 150,000 refugees in Jordan, and the Jordanian government, struggling with an economic crisis, has been hard-pressed to help them.

House considering Jewish refugees bill

Published on August 1, 2012

A bipartisan group of six Congress members is sponsoring a bill that would ensure recognition of the plight of 850,000 Jewish refugees displaced from Arab countries since Israel's War of Independence in 1948.

Wiesel, Jewish leaders rap changes to Canada’s refugee policy

Published on July 9, 2012

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel joined a growing list of Jewish leaders who are calling on Canada to reverse changes to legislation that denies health care to refugee claimants.

Israel’s refugee crisis: How about a Jewish response?

Published on June 25, 2012

What shall be done about the large number of non-citizens who dwell in Israel? This question is no longer merely vexing; it is urgent, inflammatory, sometimes violent, often vulgar.

Australia giving $90 million to Palestinian refugees

Published on May 30, 2012

Australia is donating $90 million over five years to aid the health and education of Palestinian refugees.

Senate distinguishes between Palestinian refugees and descendants

Published on May 24, 2012

The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee approved language that would distinguish between Palestinian refugees alive in 1948 and their descendants.

South Sudanese migrants in Israel get reprieve

Published on March 29, 2012

South Sudanese migrants will not be forced to leave Israel by the end of the month as planned.

Jewish groups urge renewal of refugee fast-track

Published on February 17, 2011

A number of Jewish groups have joined two senators in an appeal to the U.S. House of Representatives to renew a provision that fast-tracks religious refugees. "If the Lautenberg Amendment is not renewed by March 2011, hundreds of Iranian religious minorities will be stranded in Iran, unable to access the protection of the United States," says the letter signed by the Jewish Federations of North America, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and other Jewish and Christian groups and first reported last week by Politico.

U.S. builds Palestinian refugee community center

Published on May 20, 2010

A new community center built with a $1.4 million donation from the United States was opened in the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus.

HIAS supporting new refugee legislation

Published on March 17, 2010

The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society is backing new legislation aimed at protecting refugees and asylum seekers.

The Refugee Protection Act was introduced Monday by U.S. Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.) on the 30th anniversary of the Refugee Act of 1980.

Solving the riddle

By Gina Nahai
Published on December 31, 2008

In Los Angeles and New York and elsewhere in the West, families who had left Iran "for the summer," to"wait out the troubles" and "return in time for the kids to start school in September" realized there was no going back.

Escape, exile, rebirth: Iranian Jewish diaspora alive and well in Los Angeles

By Karmel Melamed
Published on September 4, 2008

Thirty years have passed since the massive and violent demonstrations against the Shah of Iran that began in September 1978, and for many, the start of that country's bloody revolution might seem a faded memory. Yet I have carried those shattering events with me all of my life: I was born on in Tehran on Sept. 11, 1978, as chaos unfolded on the streets outside

Boy proves key in getting grandparents into U.S.

By Karmel Melamed
Published on September 4, 2008

The five got into a van and were driven to a tent in the middle of the desert, near the Pakistani border. By this time, my great-grandmother had realized that they were not headed for a vacation but instead were fleeing Iran, and she began loudly protesting.

Terrifying journey marks escape of widow and children

By Karmel Melamed
Published on September 4, 2008

"It was one of the longest nights in my life.They kept telling me to go to sleep, but I just could not, because I had young girls with me. Then one of the smugglers came into the room and fell asleep at the entrance."

Emergency aid mission to Georgia: Find every Jew

Published on August 19, 2008

As Russia occupied Georgia, pushing ever closer to the capital Tbilisi and bisecting the country, the relief effort for nearly two weeks has had only one prime directive: Find every Jew.

Jews trapped on both sides of Russian-Georgian conflict

Published on August 13, 2008

As the conflict between Georgia and Russia moved toward an uneasy stalemate Tuesday, the migration of refugees away from the devastated capital of the breakaway republic of South Ossetia spread farther and more Jews emerged from the fog of war.

Israel and its relationship to the Shoah

By Michael Berenbaum
Published on March 20, 2008

Did Israel attempt to address the problems uncovered by the Jewish condition in the Holocaust? Absolutely and surprisingly successfully. However, it has neither ended Jewish vulnerability nor achieved normalcy for the Jewish people, something that does not surprise religious Jews but astonishes secular ones. At 60, it has not -- or at least not yet -- achieved the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations. That will have to be the achievement of the succeeding generation.

Bearing witness a world away from L.A.

Published on November 1, 2007

Email excerpts from Janice Kamenir-Reznik and Tzivia Schwartz-Getzug of Jewish World Watch as they travel to Chad to assess the success of a program to provide refugees from Darfur with solar cookers.

Blogging under African skies

Published on October 21, 2007

Saturday, Oct. 13, three leaders of Jewish World Watch flew from Los Angeles to Africa for a two-week trip, with their ultimate destination the Sudanese eastern border refugee camps, Iridimi and Touloum in Chad. Jewish World Watch's Solar Cooker Project, led by Board President Janice Kamenir-Reznik, Executive Director Tzivia Schwartz-Getzug and project leader Rachel Andres, has raised $850,000 to date, to provide self-sufficient and easy-to-use cookers to women in the camps so they don't have to put themselves in grave danger of rape or murder when they leave the camps to collect firewood.The Jewish Journal invited the three travelers to record diaries while on their journey, the first entry of which, written by Kamenir-Reznik, an attorney, longtime activist and Jewish leader, we reprint here. It was written four days before departure.

Israel’s Darfur refugees require worthy action

By Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky
Published on August 23, 2007

I was in Jerusalem in early July when a news story about Sudanese refuges demonstrating in front of the Knesset caught my eye.

The wrong Zionist response to refugees

By Larry Derfner
Published on July 12, 2007

If Israel goes ahead and sends 1,000 southern Sudanese refugees back to live under the Pharaoh, after what they went through in Sudan, then once and for all we Jews ought to get off our high horse about how "the world stood silent" when we needed help.

Israel Policy of Imprisoning Refugees Being Challenged

By Yosef Israel Abramowitz
Published on April 5, 2007

Israeli activists and lawmakers are challenging in court the current policy of incarcerating Sudanese refugees who illegally enter the country under a law dealing with "enemy nationals" that allows them to be detained indefinitely.

From Darfur to Israel: A Family’s Perilous Exodus

By Yosef Israel Abramowitz
Published on April 5, 2007

Sudanese Discover Parallels in Visit to Yad Vashem

By Dina Kraft
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.

A Troubled Exodus

By Yosef Israel Abramowitz
Published on April 5, 2007

With two miles of bare footprints behind them, Ahmed and Fatima and their three children approached the border with Israel in the middle of a cold winter night. Snow was falling in the Sinai.

A meaningful peace plan

By Judea Pearl
Published on February 8, 2007

We are constantly being told that the ball of peace lies entirely in Israel's court, because Palestinians have no control over their destiny and Israel's economy is so much stronger. It ain't necessarily so.

Helping the Congo, person by person

By David Brinn
Published on November 30, 2006

Gila Garaway says that the vision for her organization, Moriah Africa, came to her as she was lying in a hospital bed in Nigeria in 2001.

Can Artwork Mend Fences?

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on August 24, 2006

"Sovereign Threads: A History of Palestinian Embroidery". "Threads" offered a different window into the region: a rare opportunity to view Palestinian embroidery, considered among the finest in the world, in what is perhaps the first show of its kind in Los Angeles.

Mission To Israel

By Amy Klein
Published on August 10, 2006

They say that Israel is a place where a man might push you over on the bus to get to his seat and break your leg, but he will drive you to the emergency room and stay up with you all night to make sure you are all right -- better than all right, actually.

Fleeing Nazis Breaks His Father’s Spirit

By Tom Tugend
Published on June 15, 2006

In the beginning of the Nazi era, my father, thanks to his international reputation, was offered various positions abroad, including, oddly enough, at the main hospital in Tehran, but he couldn't conceive of leaving Germany. Like many old-time German Jews, he looked on Hitler as a temporary aberration, which the good sense of the German people would soon reverse.

Jewish World Watch Eyes National Stage

By Tom Tugend
Published on June 15, 2006

As of now, the 3-year-old Darfur genocide is no longer unknown, but its horrors continue. Currently spreading from the Sudan to neighboring Chad, it has claimed 400,000 civilian dead and 4 million refugees, accompanied by mass rapes of women and starvation among children.

Tracks of an Ethiopian Exodus

By Uriel Heilman
Published on March 2, 2006

Along with thousands of other Ethiopians fleeing their country, which at the time was ruled by communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, the Jews settled in refugee camps in Sudan and waited for Mossad operatives to take them out.

Super Sunday Aims at Aiding Programs

By Marc Ballon
Published on February 16, 2006

"The Federation improved our lives," said Khananashvili, now a 48-year-old social worker and Beverly Hills resident. "They gave us our start here and protected us under their shield. We're very grateful."

U.S Must Defend U.N. Terror Definition

By Paul Kujawsky
Published on June 23, 2005

Should the United States try to reform the United Nations, or give up on it? Tough choice.

On the one hand, the United Nations is the only club that every nation can join. It has become the principal source of international law. It embodies humanity's hopes for international cooperation and world peace.

Safe Harbor From Shoah in ‘Shanghai’

By David Finnigan
Published on January 13, 2005

Boys can be squirrely when any adult visits a classroom to lecture. That's why when Ursula Bacon comes in to talk about her Holocaust experience, she tells stories about how she once had a cockroach for a pet, and that she didn't have use of a toilet for eight years.

Writer Confronts Intifada Lethargy

By Michal Lemberger
Published on October 14, 2004

Yom Kippur in Chad: Fasting a Way of Life

By Rabbi Lee Bycel
Published on October 7, 2004

I am sitting in Adam's living room -- a carpet on a dirt patio. On one side is a small tent for his five children, as well as two nephews and a niece who have been orphaned.

World Briefs

Published on December 4, 2003

World Briefs

First Israeli Arab Wins Asylum in U.S.

By Tom Tugend
Published on July 24, 2003

An Israeli Arab is eligible for asylum in the United States based on a long history of persecution in Israel, a U.S. appeals court in San Francisco ruled on July 11.

Bush, Sharon to HoldKey Mideast Talks

By Leslie Susser
Published on May 15, 2003

With a new strategic balance in the Middle East and pressure building to implement a U.S.-backed peace plan, next week's meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush could be their most important to date.

World Briefs

By Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Published on November 14, 2002

Variety, the daily newspaper covering the entertainment industry, admonished Egyptian television in a Nov. 13 editorial for running its 41-part series called "Horseman Without a Horse," a series which is based on the anti-Semitic tract "Protocols of the Elders of Zion."

The Hunger Question

By Gil Sedan
Published on August 15, 2002

"We will never go hungry," Ahmad Zughayer boasted as a truck from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) unloaded sacks of flour, sugar, oil, rice and milk powder in the Balata refugee camp near Nablus.

Madeleine’s War

By Rob Eshman
Published on February 14, 2002

The trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic got underway at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague this week.

A Boy and His Golem

By Tom Tugend
Published on August 9, 2001

"Snow in August" is an offbeat TV movie, part gritty reality and part fantasy, at the center of which is the curious friendship between an Irish Catholic altar boy and a refugee rabbi in post-World War II Brooklyn.

Liaison to the Past

By Michael Aushenker
Published on February 22, 2001

Since she fled the former Soviet Union more than a decade ago, Anya Verkhovskaya has come more than full circle.

Oscar ! Oscar !

By Tom Tugend
Published on February 15, 2001

A film on the Nazi-era rescue of refugee children, most of them Jewish, has been nominated for an Oscar in the documentary feature category.

‘Haven’ for Sweeps

By Tom Tugend
Published on February 8, 2001

"Haven" is an intriguing but seriously flawed depiction of how nearly 1,000 European refugees were transported and admitted to the United States in 1944, which CBS-TV will present as a four-hour miniseries on Feb. 11 and 14 at 9 p.m.

Experiencing Exile

By Tom Tugend
Published on October 19, 2000

here are some 39 million refugees and displaced persons in the world today, and Angelenos can get a hint of how they live and survive at "A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City" exhibition, now in Exposition Park through Oct. 22.

Barak at Camp David

By Gene Lichtenstein
Published on July 13, 2000

There is a sense at this moment that "time has stopped." That all political voices have become silent, in Israel no less than in the United States, while Messrs. Arafat, Barak and Clinton struggle over language, issues and principles in an effort to reach a peace agreement.

Enrico Suavé

By Curt Schleier
Published on October 28, 1999

In 1961, a saddened and disheartened 23-year-old Algerian school teacher and musician named Gaston Ghenassia was merely one of the thousands of refugees on a ship bound for France, leaving his homeland in the aftermath of the Algerian Revolution. Little did he know at the time how defining a moment it was to become in his life.

Thankful Kosovar Refugees Leave Israel for Home

By Gil Sedan
Published on July 29, 1999

Never in his wildest dreams did Astrid Kuci believe that he would fall in love with Israel. In fact, he hardly knew anything about Israel.

Director Comes Full Circle with ‘The Envoy’

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on April 8, 1999

In 1961, a saddened and disheartened 23-year-old Algerian school teacher and musician named Gaston Ghenassia was merely one of the thousands of refugees on a ship bound for France, leaving his homeland in the aftermath of the Algerian Revolution. Little did he know at the time how defining a moment it was to become in his life.

Hungarian Haven

By Michael J
Published on April 1, 1999

In other circumstances, there would be nothing unusual about busloads of Yugoslavs visiting the capital of their northern neighbor, Hungary.