The roof of a men’s yeshiva in Sderot may not seem like a place to find inspiration and hope, but the roof of Sderot Yeshivat Hesder is an exception. On the roof of this yeshiva there is a special menorah, one made of Qassam rockets. The Qassam, a symbol of fear and death has been […]

My purpose here at ZOA was not clear until recently. I applied to come on this student leadership mission trip because I felt I was at a disadvantage on campus when it came to Israel advocacy. This trip was supposed to be a learning experience for me, and it ended up being just that. Today, […]

Fireworks and grenades. That’s what we heard coming off of the bus in the holy city of Hevron. We were afraid for the two were nearly indistinguishable. Hevron is a precarious place. As home to one of the holiest sites in Judaism, the Cave of Machpelah, it houses the tombs of the matriarchs and patriarchs […]

  Yesterday we literally travelled through Jewish history. Many of us have been to Jerusalem before, but this specific tour was unique and eye-opening. We started the day visiting an archeological site on the Mount of Olives. This site is unique in that it serves as the archeological site of the history of the Temple […]

Yesterday we saw Syria. Across the border, we heard rockets and booms and saw a puff of smoke. And on the Israeli side, there was silence–a deceptive quiet. Yesterday, we heard from Nir Atir, a former commander in the IDF who fought on the border with Syria during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. On the […]

Growing up, we are often taught how to act and develop our values. From a young age we learn that it is polite to say please and thank you, greet people when greeted, and always treat people with respect when in their home. We also learn to respect our neighbors and to treat them as […]

So far I have had a wonderful time on this trip on the first day. We went first to Ariel to look at the West Bank situation where it is a very high strategic area for Jewish people. It was my second time in Ariel, having been there before during the summer of 2013 for a […]

Last month Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Jordan’s King Abdullah II to discuss the ongoing violence and terrorist attacks in Jerusalem. By most accounts the meeting was uneventful. Secretary Kerry spoke of “creating a climate where we can move forward in a positive and constructive way” […]

Legislation is under consideration in Jerusalem that formalizes Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people. We support it. Why?  Because it is historically, legally, politically and religiously the case that Israel is the Jewish nation state. The Balfour Declaration, later incorporated into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, recognized the historical fact […]

The Obama Administration’s contempt for Israel reached a new low when a senior administration official told Atlantic Monthly reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, “The thing about Bibi is, he’s a chickens**t.” A second senior official called the Israeli Prime Minister (and former elite special ops commando) a “coward” for obliging U.S. policy and not bombing Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. I […]