Holocaust survivor and partisan Vitka Kovner, who was active in the Vilna Jewish underground, has died. Kovner, the widow of the poet and partisan Abba Kovner, died Wednesday in her home at Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh at the age of 92.
Journalist Gal Beckerman has been awarded the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature for his first book. Beckerman will receive the Jewish Book Council\’s first prize award of $100,000 for \”When They Come for Us We’ll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry.\” The non-fiction book is a comprehensive chronicle of the history of the Soviet Jewry movement.
An Ethiopian immigrant to Israel, who serves as the director of Tel Aviv University, is the first Ethiopian Jew appointed to Israel\’s Council for Higher Education.
The ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak one year ago was supposed to be the harbinger of an era of democracy, freedom, justice and, ultimately, freedom of press. But only a few days removed from the anniversary of Mubarak’s “departure,” journalists – foreign media and locals alike – are facing the heavy hand of the Egypt’s governing military council as they seek, day-by-day, to do their jobs.
It was a semi-revolution for Yemeni women in terms of being able to participate strongly in the public sphere in a way they had never done before. For certain women, it was the first time ever they had a voice which they could display publicly and feel safe and accepted by the male-dominated society. But other than that, I don’t think it had any sustainable or institutional element so I wouldn’t say it was a revolution, I would say it was a phenomenon that happened for a purpose and doesn’t have any long-term consequences.
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