Tag: Haifa

Allow us to introduce you to young Kochav Segal Halevi. The 26-year-old Israeli is receiving death threats. In fact, he had to go into hiding. His offense? He purchased an apartment in the Arab town of Ibillin, not far from Haifa.

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The city of Haifa is still recovering from the trauma of the summer of 2006, when it, along with the rest of northern Israel, was targeted by thousands of Katyusha rockets, fired from southern Lebanon by Hizbullah terrorists. Haifa has also been targeted by several suicide bombers who carried out mass murders against civilians in buses and restaurants.

An outrageous assault by Israeli authorities against academic freedom of speech took place in recent days in what is becoming known as the Bukay Affair. The affair combines leftist undermining of democracy, the attempt at thought control by governmental officials and the police, harassment of a university lecturer by an over-zealous prosecutor, and an attempt to create in Israel a political Inquisition against incorrect thinking.

The children of Sderot are the finger in the Gaza dike. They are there to save us all from the great flood.

Israel's politicians are pursuing a policy of "divide and conquer" vis-à-vis those of us who live in Judea and Samaria.

By now just about everyone in the Jewish world has heard about the blood libel affair that has emerged from Bar Ilan University in Israel.

Purim, which is not too far away, reminds us that people often can wear masks to hide their true identity.

I remember my first visit to Israel in 1956. I was attending the first American Bnei Akiva Hachshara training program in Israel.

Israel celebrated its 55th birthday last week. The good news is that five years ago it did not look like it was going to make it to 55. The bad news is that 60 is still in doubt, 65 even more so.

''We are three blocks away; you will be home in a minute.''
The taxi driver nudges me rudely into semi-consciousness. I try
to shake the fog from my head. I am still half asleep, staring
through the window at the Christmas lights. As consciousness
slowly seeps through, something here is out of place. Why is there
a giant Christmas tree on display in Budapest when it is months
after Christmas? I shake my head some more. No, it is not
Budapest. I left Budapest six hours ago and have been flying all
night. I must have succumbed to exhaustion on the ride up to
Haifa in the taxi from the airport.

Erudite and outspoken, Steven Plaut is a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press whose essays, many of which have appeared in this front-page space, always generate enthusiastic reader feedback.

I had a long conversation with my children recently and explained to them that nearly 1000 Jews had been murdered in the past decade because Israeli children had never been taught to read the siddur (Jewish prayer book). Should that sound to you bizarre - if not medieval and superstitious -- then let me explain to you what I mean, the same way that I explained it to my children.

Haifa is Israel?s third city, but by international standards it is a small town. It is also the least Israeli of Israel?s cities. It has weather like the Riviera. It is cosmopolitan: On the top of the mountain German is still spoken, at the bottom Arabic, and in the middle Russian. It has the country?s only subway train. It has lots of trees and a huge environmentalist movement. In Haifa, children dare not venture outside nor make noise during the siesta hours of the afternoon. A dirty park bench will produce storms of protests and letters to the editor.