JERUSALEM — A teary-eyed President Bush stopped in front of an aerial photo of Auschwitz on Friday at Israel’s Holocaust memorial and said the U.S. should have sent bombers to prevent the extermination of Jews there. Yad Vashem’s chairman, Avner Shalev, quoted Bush as saying the U.S. should have “bombed it.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Bush referred to … Read More
JERUSALEM — Sixty years after jumping off a bridge to his death, the last descendant of Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern Zionism, was buried Wednesday in a Jerusalem cemetery bearing his grandfather’s name _ bringing an end to a torturous family saga and finally fulfilling Herzl’s century-old will. Herzl’s son also committed suicide. He had a daughter who was … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — In 1939, 5-year-old Erna Blitzer left France with her parents and older sister for a vacation to visit relatives in Poland. They never made it home. She was on the run from the Nazis for the next five years. During that time, she watched her mother die. Her father was forced to witness the execution of his wife’s … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — Thousands of trees line Yad Vashem’s Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations, honoring the people who saved Jews during World War II. On Monday, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial honored its first “righteous tree,” a hollow 33-foot high birch that hid Jakob Silberstein as he escaped Auschwitz. Polish-born Silberstein, 83, recently returned to the Czech countryside to recover … Read More
MOSHAV HIBAT ZION, Israel — The charred hut and blackened chimney are all that remain of what was one of Israel’s best-kept secrets. It was the Jewish state’s first and only crematorium. But more than that, it was a symbol. To secular Jews it meant the right to choose one’s own exit from this world. To religious Jews it was … Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel — Shahar Peer is wearing an olive green military uniform now, far removed from her star turn at the U.S. Open two weeks ago. Peer, ranked No. 16 in women’s tennis, made it to the quarterfinals in New York. But in a country where military service is mandatory, the Israeli player has other duties these days. She … Read More
Published in Fall 2007 edition of Guilt & Pleasure magazine. Aunt Jeanette passed away on Oct. 16, 2008 [url href=”http://aronheller.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Aunt-Jeanette.pdf” content=”See ‘Globe and Mail’ obituary” target=external] I remember visiting my Aunt Jeanette’s cluttered, mothball-smelling apartment in Toronto as a teenager. Inspecting her collection of memorabilia, I stumbled upon a black-and-white photo from the 1930s of a stunning woman in provocative … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) – Police said Sunday they have broken up a cell of young Israeli neo-Nazis accused of a string of brutal racist and anti-Semitic attacks, videos of which were played on television to a stunned national audience. The eight suspects, all immigrants from the former Soviet Union in their late teens or early 20s, are seen in the videos … Read More
PETAH TIKVA, Israel (AP) _ My first childhood dream was to be a major league baseball player. My second was to be a broadcast journalist. It’s always good to have a backup plan, and growing up in Israel, with its zero tradition of baseball, I needed one. After all, one’s chances of becoming a shortstop in the Middle East were … Read More
JERUSALEM — A drop in the percentage of Israelis serving in the military has Israel’s leaders warning that the Jewish state is losing touch with its most admired institution. “From the army of the people, the Israel Defense Forces are gradually becoming the army of half the people,” Defense Minister Ehud Barak said at an academic conference at Tel Aviv University … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s official Holocaust memorial and museum has unveiled the private archives of one of the most contentious Jewish figures from the Holocaust era in an attempt to exonerate the man’s tarnished legacy. Yad Vashem officials said the material released Sunday should finally put an end to what it said was an unjustified smear campaign against Rudolf (Israel) … Read More
JERUSALEM — When an explosion goes off on a busy Israeli street these days, it seems as likely to be a mob hit as a Palestinian attack. Rival underworld gangs are waging bloody battles for control of gambling and protection rackets, targeting each other with bullets, bombs and anti-tank missiles. Organized crime, long overshadowed by the Arab-Israeli conflict, has become … Read More
JERUSALEM — Shimon Peres helped build the Israeli army, repeatedly served as prime minister in difficult times and won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts at ending the conflict with the Palestinians. At 83, the elder statesman was chosen as Israel’s ninth president Wednesday — shattering an embarrassing record of electoral defeats — and pledged he will work to … Read More
HEBRON, West Bank — When 14 Jewish families moved into a Palestinian house in Hebron _ a sacred West Bank city and traditional burial site of biblical patriarch Abraham _ Israel vowed to kick them out. But three months later, they’re still there _ children huddling on a single mattress, mothers cooking in a makeshift kitchen, and soldiers patrolling the … Read More
JERUSALEM (AP) — The diary of a 14-year-old Jewish girl, dubbed the “Polish Anne Frank,” was unveiled Monday by Israel’s Holocaust museum more than 60 years after the teenager vividly described the world crumbling around her as she came of age in a Jewish ghetto. “The rope around us is getting tighter and tighter,” Rutka Laskier wrote in 1943, shortly … Read More