Yael Zoldan
On Shavuos she lit the candles. So many candles, melting into wax puddles in their flimsy silver tins. The small flames were a thin pale blue like the veins on the back of her hand. To me they were nameless and faceless, just empty heat and flickering light. But not to her.
To her those candles were people. They were family. Sometimes whole families, who had worked and struggled and lived and died. Aunts and uncles. And cousins, with whom she had played and shared and fought and laughed. To her this was a sacred duty, this remembrance.
In the cozy cheerful kitchen, cheesecakes cooled on the counter and blintzes fried happily in the pan. But here in the cool darkness of the dining room at the long mahogany table my grandmother sat to talk. Her hands shook slightly in her lap, but her voice when she spoke was steady.
“You know, for the Hungarian Jews, Shavuos is special. But not special good, special bad. You understand why? Because that is the day we arrived. Over there. In Auschwitz.” She said that when she got to the barracks, dazed and confused, the Blockaltester told her roughly, “Remember good ...   more »

    JERUSALEM, June 5 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Thursday that Israel is likely to launch act against Palestinian militant groups in the Gaza Strip before ceasefire agreement can be reached.
    Barak made the remarks during a tour to Kibbutz Nir Oz, where a51-year-old Israeli man was killed earlier in the day by a mortar shell fired from the nearby Gaza Strip.
    "The military operation is closer than ever, and it will precede the cease-fire," Barak was quoted by the website of local daily Yedioth Ahronoth as saying, "We are nearing the day of reckoning in the Gaza Strip, in which we will decide whether to goin the direction of an agreement of calm or a wide military operation."
    Israeli Finance Minister Roni Bar-On had called for a military action to Gaza to solve the problem, according to Israel Radio.
    Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is expected to convene his security cabinet to discuss the situation in Gaza.
    Earlier in the afternoon, an Israeli man was killed and four other people were wounded when Palestinian militants in Gaza Stripfired a mortar shell into Kibbutz Nir Oz in the western Negev.
    Hamas' ...   more »

Gil Hoffman
"We will rule the country for a very, very long time," Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday in a phone call from Washington to a Kadima rally in Tirat Carmel.
"I know that your backing is the basis of Kadima's strength. Not the pressures and not the intimidation but the real power of Kadima members, whose strength is spread across the country and who want a united and unified party that will lead Israel," he told supporters.
Nevertheless, Olmert's optimism appeared to be misplaced, since Labor Party ministers earlier warned that their faction would support a bill to disperse the Knesset and set a November date for the next general elections if Kadima does not initiate primaries to replace Olmert.
The seven ministers issued the threat at Labor's headquarters in Tel Aviv's Hatikva quarter. Labor secretary-general Eitan Cabel went a step further and said Labor would support elections if Kadima did not set a date for a primary by the end of July
Likud MK Silvan Shalom intends to bring his bill to a preliminary reading at the Knesset on June 18. It would then have to pass three more times in the Knesset plenum and once in ...   more »

Israel will attack Iran if it doesn't abandon its nuclear program, a Cabinet minister hoping to replace embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was quoted Friday as saying.
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz also said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad "will disappear before Israel does," the Yediot Ahronot daily reported. Ahmadinejad has called repeatedly for Israel's destruction.
Mofaz's spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment on the remarks, which were much more explicit than anything Olmert himself has said. Olmert has gone no further than hinting that Israel was prepared to use force against Iranian nuclear facilities, saying only Tuesday that "the Iranian threat must be stopped by all means. "
According to the newspaper report, Mofaz — a former chief of staff and defense minister — has concluded that international sanctions haven't curbed Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
"If Iran continues its nuclear arms program — we will attack it," the newspaper quoted Mofaz as saying. "The sanctions aren't effective. There will be no choice but to attack Iran to halt the Iranian nuclear program."
There is a precedent for Israeli military action: In 1981, Israeli planes destroyed an unfinished Iraqi reactor.
An Israeli military strike against Iran would have U.S. backing, ...   more »