Jewish Agency

The head of the agency primarily responsible for organizing the immigration of Jews to Israel stepped down after prosecutors charged him with fraud, breach of trust and fraudulent receipt of goods. Jewish Agency chairman Simcha Dinitz was accused of running up thousands of dollars of personal charges on an agency credit card. "I am innocent beyond any shadow of a doubt," said Dinitz, also a senior member of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's Labor Party.

Israeli police detained five women for wearing prayer shawls at the Western Wall on Thursday, days after a new proposal emerged to set aside part of the holy site for men and women to pray together. Female worshippers at the sacred site are barred from performing religious rituals that Orthodox Jewish religious authorities say are solely for men. Women have repeatedly been detained for violating those rules, a continuing clash between the Orthodox rabbis who steer Israeli religious institutions and more liberal strains of Judaism in which women can use prayer shawls and lead congregations as rabbis.

Avraham Burg, an observant Jew and a political dove, this week vaulted into the nation's power elite by ascending to the Jewish Agency's chairmanship. The agency's 120-member board of governors on Wednesday elected Burg head of the oldest and most important institutional link between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora.

"Call Me Maybe" has gone Jewish, just in time for Rosh Hashana. The French arm of the Jewish Agency for Israel created "Call Me Maybe-Chana Tova," a parody video of the Carly Rae Jepsen song to ring in the Jewish New Year. ( Shana Tova is how you say Happy New Year in Hebrew). The video was posted to YouTube on Sept. 3 and had already racked up close to 675,000 views by Monday afternoon. That's hundreds of thousands more views than it had Monday morning. The Jewish Agency for Israel was instrumental in establishing the state of Israel, but now the organization has made strengthening Jewish identity in young people around the world and in Israel its mission.

Red and green pins dot the six-foot-wide map of the former Soviet Union--all spots where sizable Jewish communities remain, where economic collapse could bring political unrest and ethnic conflict but where Israel now has its own agents able to help the Jews to flee. "There must be the option for every Jew to leave and to come to Israel, and I can say now that there is," Baruch Gur, the head of the Jewish Agency's Eastern Europe department, declared with a sweep of his hand across the map.

At a time of great uncertainty in the relationship between the Jewish state and the Jewish people, at least one man passionately believes that the beleaguered Jewish Agency can play a powerful role in reshaping the ties between the two communities. The chief advocate for the bureaucracy that many Israelis have long viewed as little more than a dumping ground for fading politicians is Avraham Burg, the agency's newly elected chairman.

Israel is in the midst of a tough reworking of its relationship with the Jews worldwide who raise hundreds of millions of dollars for it each year but want a bigger voice here on how the money is spent. At issue is who runs the Jewish Agency, the semi-governmental organization that now brings about 100,000 immigrants to Israel each year and in the process helps promote and guide the country's development. But equally at stake is the long-term role of the Jewish Diaspora in decision-making here.

"Call Me Maybe" has gone Jewish, just in time for Rosh Hashana. The French arm of the Jewish Agency for Israel created "Call Me Maybe-Chana Tova," a parody video of the Carly Rae Jepsen song to ring in the Jewish New Year. ( Shana Tova is how you say Happy New Year in Hebrew). The video was posted to YouTube on Sept. 3 and had already racked up close to 675,000 views by Monday afternoon. That's hundreds of thousands more views than it had Monday morning. The Jewish Agency for Israel was instrumental in establishing the state of Israel, but now the organization has made strengthening Jewish identity in young people around the world and in Israel its mission.

Soviet Jewish immigrants living in Israel have submitted a record number of invitations for their relatives to come from the Soviet Union, Israel Radio reported. It said about 79,000 invitations were submitted to Soviet authorities last year, the highest annual figure since the late 1960s. An invitation from relatives living abroad is a necessary step for a person wishing to emigrate from the Soviet Union. Uri Gordon, head of the Jewish Agency's immigration department, was quoted by the radio as estimating that Soviet Jewish emigration will reach 50,000 this year.

Israel should heed Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev's threat to stop the flow of Jewish immigrants if they are settled in occupied territories, the top Israeli immigration official said. "Gorbachev holds the Jews. We do not have to erect obstacles in his path," Simcha Dinitz, chairman of the semiofficial Jewish Agency, said in remarks published in Israeli newspapers Tuesday.

Alvin Bronstein, executive director of the Jewish Federation Council of Greater Los Angeles from 1968 to 1978, has died. He was 90. Bronstein died of natural causes Aug. 9 in Ojai, according to his son, Phil. During his tenure, the council expanded its outreach to the community, opening branch facilities in the South Bay and the San Fernando Valley. It also created the Menorah Housing Foundation to address the growing need for dignified housing for seniors.

JERUSALEM -- In one of those extraordinary turnarounds of history, the position of the Palestinians today mirrors the position the Jews were in nearly 60 years ago, between the end of World War II and the founding of the state of Israel. In those years, there were two Jewish paramilitary organizations in Palestine -- the Haganah and the Palmach -- affiliated with David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency, which represented the mainstream of the Jewish community.

In a landmark decision that strikes at the heart of Israel's identity as a Jewish state, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the government may no longer allocate land to its citizens based on their religion or ethnicity and may no longer prevent Arab citizens from living where they choose.

United Jewish Communities is the new name of an umbrella Jewish charitable agency that will disperse more than $700 million annually to Jewish causes in the United States and abroad. The agency was formed by combining the Council of Jewish Federations, the United Jewish Appeal and the United Israel Appeal. Stephen D. Solender, executive vice president of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, has been named the new group's acting head.

Jewish Family Service of Orange County is holding weekly discussion sessions to help interfaith families handle problems with child-rearing, holidays and other issues. "The predominant problem is there are often conflicting points of views," said Mel Roth of the organization. "Sometimes it's confusion as to how to raise the children. Sometimes, they feel pressure from the grandparents." The best course "is to choose one religion . . . and stick with that," Roth said.

Alarmed and angered by an escalating debate in Israel over who is a Jew, liberal Jewish leaders in the United States have launched a major shift of charitable giving to Israel.

JERUSALEM -- In one of those extraordinary turnarounds of history, the position of the Palestinians today mirrors the position the Jews were in nearly 60 years ago, between the end of World War II and the founding of the state of Israel. In those years, there were two Jewish paramilitary organizations in Palestine -- the Haganah and the Palmach -- affiliated with David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency, which represented the mainstream of the Jewish community.

In a landmark decision that strikes at the heart of Israel's identity as a Jewish state, the Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that the government may no longer allocate land to its citizens based on their religion or ethnicity and may no longer prevent Arab citizens from living where they choose.

At a time of great uncertainty in the relationship between the Jewish state and the Jewish people, at least one man passionately believes that the beleaguered Jewish Agency can play a powerful role in reshaping the ties between the two communities. The chief advocate for the bureaucracy that many Israelis have long viewed as little more than a dumping ground for fading politicians is Avraham Burg, the agency's newly elected chairman.

Avraham Burg, an observant Jew and a political dove, this week vaulted into the nation's power elite by ascending to the Jewish Agency's chairmanship. The agency's 120-member board of governors on Wednesday elected Burg head of the oldest and most important institutional link between Israel and the Jewish Diaspora.