Leaders of the fervently Orthodox Shas Party have been meeting secretly with the 11 Arab Knesset members in a bid to win their support for a bill that would codify Orthodoxy’s sole authority over Jewish conversions in Israel, according to the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. In exchange for the lawmakers’ support for or abstention from the bill, Shas reportedly pledged to support legislation that would benefit the Israeli Arab community.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.