Day

International Women's Day marked by Knesset with special session and conference of religious Zionist women. Not all are aware of the day's origin.

An unusual trial begins in Israel this week that people around the world will be watching closely. It involves the tragic death of a 23-year-old American student named Rachel Corrie. On March 16, 2003, she was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer.

Women soldiers who fought the Nazis often are overlooked, but a Knesset committee Monday gave them a special salute on International Women’s Day.

(Videos recorded by Rachel Tabachnick; more videos coming shortly.)

The people of Gaza appear to have been the recent victims of the arrogance (or what some believe to be the bias) of the NY Times. The stubbornness of Bill Keller, the executive editor of the NY Times, in refusing to relocate his Jerusalem reporter has caused a considerable drop in the paper's coverage of Gaza. The Times has refused to relocate their reporter covering Israel and Palestine after the appearance of a conflict of interest surfaced.

The Talmud describes Jews as rachmanim b'nei rachmanim: a compassionate people who are sensitive to human suffering. They are unable to sit by and ignore the terrible drama of human misery. Instead, they get up and do something about it.

The modern state of Israel is composed of Sephardic Jews, Jews from Arab-Islamic lands, and Ashkenazic Jews, Jews who hail from Christian Europe. Occidental Jews have taken on many of the traits of Western culture, while the Oriental Jews, many of whom continued to speak Arabic and partake of a common Middle Eastern culture until the mass dispersions of Jews from Arab countries after 1948, have preserved many of the folkways and traits of Arab civilization.

Jerusalem residents celebrated “Shushan Purim” on Monday, one day after Jews around the world ended their Purim festivities.

MDA paramedics manage to save a baby and a toddler in a single day. Medics remind parents to learn CPR.

Consider it a meeting of minds, water minds. Water consultants, ambassadors who've built water treaties, and government specialists and negotiators from around the Middle East and Europe gathered in Montreux, Switzerland for a two-day workshop on Water Security in the Middle East last week. Green Prophet, the environment news blog I run, was invited to attend. The object was to explore sustainable and cooperative solutions to water security, and to use the problem of water and turn it into an instrument of peace.