JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Updated 02/10/12 @ 02:32PM EST

• Three Jewish groups that favor insurance coverage of contraceptives praised President Obama's comrpromise allowing religious institutions to direct staff to alternative health care plans funding such services.
• An Obama administration official said the United States urged Israel not to free Palestinian terrorists in the Gilad Shalit exchange deal who killed Americans.
• Turkey will never endorse a military strike on Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told a Washington audience.
• Israel's test of a missile defense system was declared a "major milestone" in its efforts to establish viable barriers to a missile strike.
• French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that the solution to the Iran crisis is "never military."

• The publication of a 2010 photograph showing U.S. soldiers with a logo resembling a Nazi symbol was greeted with condemnations by Jewish groups.
• A poll showed that nearly half of likely voters believed the United States should use military force to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
• Rabbi Gunther Plaut, a major figure in Reform Judaism, died in Toronto.
• The application for a proposed Hebrew-language charter school was accepted by the District of Columbia Public Charter School board.
• A truck driving calves from Eilat to the Golan Heights was hijacked into the West Bank.

• U.S. Rep. Howard Berman introduced legislation that would allow eligible Israeli nationals to receive non-immigrant investor visas in the United States.
• A columnist for casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's Israeli newspaper is also receiving a salary from the Israeli Prime Minister's Office for speechwriting and other services, according to an Israeli television station.
• Larry Greenfield, a longtime Republican Jewish activist, was named national executive director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs in Washington.
• Members of the Minnesota Rabbinical Association have signed a statement opposing a state ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriages.
• Former captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and his parents met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy at the presidential palace in Paris.

• Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was among the recipients of Israel's first President's Prize.
• Jewish French film director Claude Lanzmann denied accusations that he sexually harassed a guard at Israel's Ben Gurion Airport.
• The fence outside the Jerusalem offices of Peace Now was spray-painted with threatening graffiti.
• An Israeli tourist charged by Chile with accidentally starting a massive forest fire in a popular national park was fined and released.
• Bagels were granted equal status with soda bread in Ireland following a government decision to reclassify the traditionally Jewish favorite as ordinary bread for the purposes of taxation.

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