Yosef Mendelevitch
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Yosef Mendelevitch
Yosef Mendelevitch (or Mendelovitch) (b. 1947 in Riga), was a refusenik from the former Soviet Union, also known as a "Prisoner of Zion" and now a politically unaffiliated rabbi living in Jerusalem who gained fame for his adherence to Judaism and public attempts to emigrate to Israel at a time when it was against the law in the USSR. Biography Mendelevich was born in Riga and started his Jewish activities in the 1960s. He formed a student group of underground Jewish Education in 1966 and became an editor of an underground newsletter Iton on Jewish issues in 1969. Being repeatably refused the right to immigration, he became one of the leaders of the Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair, recounted in his 2012 memoir, ''Unbroken Spirit''. As punishment, he was imprisoned for eleven years. During the imprisonment he was punished for keeping Jewish precepts. In 1981, after a worldwide struggle, he was released and immigrated to Israel. He served in Soviet prisons with famous Jewis ...
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Mercaz HaRav
Mercaz HaRav (officially, he, מרכז הרב - הישיבה המרכזית העולמית, "The Center of Rabbi ook- the Central Universal Yeshiva") is a national-religious yeshiva in Jerusalem, founded in 1924 by Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. Located in the city's Kiryat Moshe neighborhood, it has become the most prominent religious-Zionist yeshiva in the world and synonymous with Rabbi Kook's teachings. Many Religious Zionist educators and leaders have studied at Mercaz HaRav, where hundreds of future militants, opposed to territorial compromises and promoting Israeli settlement of the occupied Palestinian territories, received their formative education. Name The yeshiva's official name is The Central Universal Yeshiva, indicating its role in Rabbi Kook's vision as a central institution for the spiritual revitalization of the Jewish people. Kook, however, lacked the financial backing necessary to establish a full-fledged academic institution. The yeshiva grew ou ...
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Fear No Evil (book)
''Fear No Evil'' is a book by the Soviet-Israeli activist and politician Natan Sharansky about his struggle to immigrate to Israel from the former Soviet Union (USSR). The book tells the story of the Jewish refuseniks in the USSR in the 1970s, his show trial on charges of espionage, incarceration by the KGB and liberation. Awards 1989: National Jewish Book Awards The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.Books about the Soviet Union
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Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza...". ar, قِطَاعُ غَزَّةَ ' , he, רצועת עזה, ), or simply Gaza, is a State of Palestine, Palestinian Enclave and exclave, exclave on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The smaller of the two Palestinian territories, it borders Egypt on the southwest for and Israel on the east and north along a border. Together, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank make up the State of Palestine, while being under Israeli-occupied territories, Israeli military occupation since 1967. The territories of Gaza and the West Bank are separated from each other by Israeli territory. Both fell under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority, Palestinian Authority, but the Strip is governed by Hamas, a militant, fundamentali ...
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West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean in Western Asia that forms the main bulk of the Palestinian territories. It is bordered by Jordan and the Dead Sea to the east and by Israel (see Green Line (Israel), Green Line) to the south, west, and north. Under Israeli occupation of the West Bank, an Israeli military occupation since 1967, its area is split into 165 Palestinian enclaves, Palestinian "islands" that are under total or partial civil administration by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), and 230 Israeli settlements into which Israeli law in the West Bank settlements, Israeli law is "pipelined". The West Bank includes East Jerusalem. It initially emerged as a Jordanian-occupied territory after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, before being Jordani ...
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Israeli Settlement
Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli settlements to be illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. Israeli settlements currently exist in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), claimed by the State of Palestine as its sovereign territory, and in the Golan Heights, widely viewed as Syrian territory. East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights have been effectively annexed by Israel, though the international community has rejected any change of status in both territories and continues to consider each occupied territory. Although the West Bank settlements are on land administered under Israeli military rule rather than civil law, Israeli civil law is "pipelined" into the settlements, such that Israeli citizens living there are treated similarly to those livi ...
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Soviet Foreign Minister
The Ministry of External Relations (MER) of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (russian: Министерство иностранных дел СССР) was founded on 6 July 1923. It had three names during its existence: People's Commissariat for Foreign Affairs (1923–1946), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1946–1991) and Ministry of External Relations (1991). It was one of the most important government offices in the Soviet Union. The Ministry was led by the Minister of Foreign Affairs prior to 1991, and a Minister of External Relations in 1991. Every leader of the Ministry was nominated by the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and confirmed by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and was a member of the Council of Ministers. The Ministry of External Relations negotiated diplomatic treaties, handled Soviet foreign affairs along with the International Department of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and aided in the guidance of world communism and an ...
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Alexander Bessmertnykh (politician)
Alexander Alexandrovich Bessmertnykh (russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Бессме́ртных; born 10 November 1933) is a Soviet diplomat who briefly served as foreign minister of the Soviet Union. Early life Bessmertnykh was born in Biisk in 1933, first of four children. He lost his father when he was 10 years old. Career Bessmertnykh joined the ministry of foreign affairs in 1957. From 1970 to 1983 he served as a consul at the Soviet embassy in the United States, and then headed the US department in the foreign ministry. In 1986, he was appointed deputy foreign minister and in 1988, he became first deputy foreign minister. From 1990 to 1991 he was ambassador to the United States. Soviet Foreign Minister He briefly served as a Minister of Foreign Affairs of the USSR in 1991, replacing Eduard Shevardnadze, being approved by the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, 421 voted in favour, 3 against, and 10 abstained. During the August coup of 199 ...
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Arab–Israeli Conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century, but had mostly faded out by the early 21st century. The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict have been attributed to the support by Arab League member countries for the Palestinians, a fellow League member, in the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict; this in turn has been attributed to the simultaneous rise of Zionism and Arab nationalism towards the end of the 19th century, though the two national movements had not clashed until the 1920s. Part of the Palestine–Israel conflict arose from the conflicting claims by these movements to the land that formed the British Mandatory Palestine, which was regarded by the Jewish people as their ancestral homeland, while at the same time it was regarded by the Pan-Arab movement as historically and currently belonging to the ...
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Hebrew
Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved throughout history as the main liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period) and Samaritanism. Hebrew is the only Canaanite language still spoken today, and serves as the only truly successful example of a dead language that has been revived. It is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still in use, with the other being Aramaic. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew, with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around the 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity. For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as '' Lashon Hakodesh'' (, ) since an ...
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Jonathan Pollard
Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954) is a former intelligence analyst for the United States government. In 1987, as part of a plea agreement, Pollard pleaded guilty to spying for and providing top-secret classified information to Israel. He was sentenced to life in prison for violations of the Espionage Act, making him the only American to receive a life sentence for passing classified information to an ally of the U.S. In defense of his actions, Pollard said that he committed espionage only because "the American intelligence establishment collectively endangered Israel's security by withholding crucial information". Israeli officials, U.S.-Israeli activist groups, and some U.S. politicians who saw his punishment as unfair lobbied continually for reduction or commutation of his sentence. The Israeli government acknowledged a portion of its role in Pollard's espionage in 1987, and issued a formal apology to the U.S., but did not admit to paying him until 1998. Over the cours ...
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