Jewish & World News

Israel - In the wake of the heavy criticism leveled at the IDF following Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter, the military has written, for the first time, an operational doctrine for how forces should operate when fighting within a civilian-populated area, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Israel - When Dr. Mirela Siderer picked up Yedioth Ahronoth's "7 Days" supplement on Friday, she saw on its cover the judge she had tried to convince that Israel did not commit war crimes in Gaza. "Had I known who this man was," she says, "I would never have gone to testify." Dr. Siderer, a gynecologist from the southern city of Ashkelon, was severely injured when a Grad rocket hit a local mall. When Judge Richard Goldstone was appointed to investigate the Israel Defense Forces' activity in the Gaza Strip during Operation Cast Lead, Dr. Siderer was one of the only people to testify in favor of Israel. She flew to Geneva and spent hours telling her story and the story of southern Israel's rocket-stricken residents to the Goldstone committee. But in the final report released by committee, she was mentioned in only four lines. After reading the Yedioth Ahronoth investigation, which revealed Goldstone's dark past as a South African judge u...

Judicial decisions Richard Goldstone made in South Africa that resulted in sending black South Africans to their deaths under the apartheid regime have nothing to do with his report on the Gaza war, he told Haaretz yesterday.

Richard Goldstone, the South African judge who presided over the UN commission charged with investigating Operation Cast Lead, will attend his grandon's bar mitzva ceremony in Israel, a South African Jewish organization announced Sunday.

The U.S.-based Jewish progressive magazine Tikkun has opted to give its annual prize to Judge Richard Goldstone for upholding what the publication called the "best ethical" Jewish values. 

Richard Goldstone, the judge who authored a UN report on war crimes in the Gaza Strip, has criticised South Africa's chief rabbi after being effectively banned from attending his grandson's bar mitzvah - a key religious ceremony for young Jewish boys.

Justice Richard Goldstone, whose UN report on Operation Cast Lead accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza, has been prohibited from attending his grandson's bar-mitzvah by the South African Zionist Federation, the Writing Rights blog reported Thursday. It said recent negotiations between the federation, the Sandton synagogue at which the ceremony will take place, and the bar-mitzvah boy's family concluded that the judge will be banned from attending the event. A synagogue official who refused to be named confirmed in an interview with Ynet that the bar-mitzvah would take place there and that Goldstone would not be in attendance. "We only suggested that he refrain from coming in order to prevent a scene. No one forced him not to come," the official said. "If he arrives extensive security measures will have to be taken, and no one wants that. Apparently he doesn't want a scene at his grandson's bar-mitzvah either. There are many people who don...