ARZA

By Anat Hoffman Talk radio is very popular in Israel. Animated debates on every topic under the sun fill the airwaves every day. One station, Kol BaRama, a station with a large Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) listenership, has the practice of not allowing women to speak on air. They say this is to respect the feelings of [...]

By Barbara Kavadias The past year has seen an increase in tension – and even violence – at the Kotel or Western Wall, one of Judaism’s holiest sites. Last Friday, progressive Jews worldwide were disturbed to learn of protests and near-rioting as the Women of the Wall came to pray for Rosh Chodesh at the [...]

By Resa and Stanley Davids According to Wikipedia, Nate Silver is a statistician, sabermetrician, psephologist and writer.  Two words in the previous sentence were rejected by our Google spell-check; truth be told, we needed to track the meaning of those same two words in an online dictionary.  Silver became famous in the United States in [...]

The World Zionist Organization (WZO) has developed an exciting new interactive game that puts a fun spin on Israeli politics. ARZA will be officially launching the game at a cocktail reception next month in New York City. Our staff has previewed the game and we’re very excited to introduce it to the greater Jewish community.

Last week, Anat Hoffman, leader of Women of the Wall and Executive Director of the Israel Religious Action Center was arrested at the Western Wall. Anat was praying with more than 200 women when she was taken into custody for wearing a tallit and disturbing public order by praying out loud. Her arrest and the [...]

By Rabbi Miri Gold I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of you Shana Tova, on behalf of Kehilat Birkat Shalom, and to bring you up to date on recent developments. As you can imagine, I’ve been interviewed numerous times since the historic decision of the Attorney General of Israel who announced at [...]

Since last summer’s tent city protests in Israel, there has been a great deal of public debate about the public subsidy for Yeshiva studies, coupled with its exemption from Israel’s Universal Draft, used almost entirely by Haredi Jews.  This topic was taken up by the Israel Courts, who found the current system unacceptable.  It was [...]

“Israel Amplified” raised my optimist quotient regarding Israel advocacy on college campuses by 100%. Established and hosted by the AEPi Fraternity, the more than 100 students who gathered for the conference earlier this week in Phoenix, Arizona represented many Greek houses, men and women, Jews and non Jews.  AEPi has been joined by AEPHi, The [...]

Activism is the theme of Parshat Pinchas. The first example is Pinchas, acting violently and alone in order to “solve a problem.” For this he is lauded. The daughters of Zlofchad present a picture of activism that is carefully thought out in order to achieve their goals. The Torah recalls them by name. Mahlah, Noah, [...]

“Freedom of Religion in Israel” was the message on the signs. They were held today by Reform, Conservative, and secular Jews in front of the office of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate in Jerusalem. At the same time, inside the building, Rav Amar, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi, was holding a meeting in order to attempt to [...]