Ben Harris Email RSS

is JTA's former associate editor.

Latest

• When Shimon Peres needed a speechwriter — and I needed a nap

  September 27, 2016 10:40pm

  (JTA) — It was 9 o’clock on a weekday evening and I was lounging around my Brooklyn apartment in pajamas when the call came summoning me to a Midtown Manhattan hotel. Shimon Peres needed a speechwriter; I was a speechwriter at the time for Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations. It was the fall of…

• Palestinian teen reportedly killed, dozens wounded in Israeli army raid

  August 16, 2016 3:56pm

  (JTA) — A Palestinian teenager reportedly died from wounds sustained in clashes with Israeli troops at a West Bank refugee camp near Hebron. The Palestinian Health Ministry said Mohammad Abu Hashash, 17, died Tuesday after sustaining live fire to the chest, according to news reports. Dozens of other Palestinians were wounded in the overnight action,…

• Jewish swimmer Anthony Ervin becomes oldest individual swimming gold medalist

  August 15, 2016 5:04pm

  (JTA) — Jewish swimmer Anthony Ervin became the oldest Olympic gold medalist in an individual swimming event, at 35 capping a comeback from burnout and drug use in the aftermath of his gold medal at 19. Ervin edged France’s Florent Manaudou by one one-hundredth of a second in the men’s 50-meter freestyle race Friday night in…

• Black church group in Missouri condemns Black Lives Matter statement on Israel

  August 15, 2016 4:29pm

  (JTA) — An association of hundreds of predominantly African-American churches in Missouri condemned the recent platform of the Black Lives Matter movement labeling Israel an “apartheid state” and accusing it of genocide. In a statement published Sunday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bishop Lawrence Wooten, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Ecumenical Leadership…

• Israeli officers who took Palestinian girl’s bicycle won’t face prosecution

  August 15, 2016 4:15pm

  (JTA) — The Israeli Border Police officers filmed taking away a Palestinian girl’s bicycle will not face criminal prosecution. The conduct of the officers, who were filmed in July by the human rights group B’tselem tossing the bike in bushes, was “inappropriate and unprofessional,” the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigations Department said Monday, according to The Times of…

• Reform and Conservative men’s clubs agree on ‘historic’ collaboration

  August 15, 2016 3:12pm

  (JTA) — The men’s clubs of the Reform and Conservative movements agreed to a “historic” collaboration. The agreement between the Men of Reform Judaism and the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, announced last month on the blog of the Union for Reform Judaism, emphasizes that the arrangement is not a merger. But the groups have…

• Bronze for judo is Israel’s first Rio Olympics medal

  August 9, 2016 5:26pm

  (JTA) — Yarden Gerbi became the first Israeli to medal at the Rio Olympics, bringing home a bronze in the women’s 63-kg judo competition. Gerbi defeated Miku Tashiro of Japan on Tuesday for Israel’s first Olympic medal since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.  She had also beaten China’s Yang Junxia and lost to Brazil’s Mariana…

• Jewish lawmaker in Britain threatens to quit Labour over anti-Semitism issue

  August 9, 2016 3:40pm

  (JTA) — Parry Mitchell, a Jewish member of Britain’s House of Lords, said he will resign if Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected as Labour Party leader. Writing Tuesday in The Times of London, Mitchell said a report which found that anti-Semitism is not endemic in Britain’s Labour Party was an “insipid whitewash” and vowed to leave the party if…

• West Bank Jewish resident charged with inciting attacks on Israeli soldiers

  August 9, 2016 3:34pm

  (JTA) — A 24-year-old Jewish woman from the West Bank settlement of Yizhar was charged with incitement for online comments in support of attacks on Israeli soldiers and Arabs. Eliraz Fein was arrested two years ago for participating in an online discussion in which she said it was permissible under Jewish law to use potentially lethal…

• Trump adviser reportedly meets senior Israeli officials in Jerusalem

  August 9, 2016 3:30pm

  (JTA) — David Friedman, an adviser to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, visited Jerusalem and met with senior officials from the Prime Minister’s Office. According to a report in Haaretz, a senior government official told the newspaper that Friedman had sought the meeting and that to maintain balance, an adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…