Ashdod, whose population of more than 200,000 is almost a quarter Russian-speaking, became the focus of disgruntlement with Novy God this year after the ultra-Orthodox deputy mayor, Avi Amsalem, objected to a spruce tree displayed beside a Hanukkah lamp at a city mall.
After the U.S. slapped sanctions on Putin pal Viktor Vekselberg, his interests in Israel, among them firms involving the likes of Benny Gantz and Ehud Barak, are on shaky ground.
Several new kosher or Israeli restaurants have opened over the past five years not only in Warsaw, but in cities as far west as Poznan and as far east as Lublin.
Sofia Andrukhovych, a rising star of Ukrainian prose, participated in a unique project in the two house-museums where the future Nobel Prize in Literature recipient Shmuel Yosef Agnon lived. Buchach, in Galicia, and then Jerusalem in Israel, offered inspiring locations for her writing.
Ukraine expresses its deep condolences to the friendly people of Israel on the deaths and wounds of Israeli citizens because of rocket attacks from the territory of the Gaza Strip.
The personal ties between Lieberman and his Russian counterpart Shoygu have been severed, and the Kremlin is rejecting any attempt by Netanyahu to schedule a meeting with Putin.
