It’s summertime and the living should be easy, but we are being tossed by a tsunami of big-time bad news. more

New York’s governmental leaders took a quick trip to Israel last week to show that the state stands with Israel in its current conflict with Hamas. more

News coverage of the month-long battle between Israel and Hamas has triggered strong reaction among readers of some daily newspapers, particularly The New York Times. more

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave a concise summary of recent international events: “To put it mildly, the world is a mess." more

Long Island women arrived in Israel on July 21 with their regular luggage and something extra — several heavy duffle bags of supplies for Israeli soldiers. more

On July 22, the Federal Aviation Administration banned U.S. flights to and from Israel due to security concerns after a rocket fell near Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. more

Rabbi Elliot Skiddell and his wife, Julie, of Beth Emeth Synagogue in Rockville Centre, were visiting their children in Israel last week. They lived in Israel for many years, and they usually go every July to reconnect with family and friends. This year’s trip included a rabbinic mission with the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, which is headed by Rabbi Skiddell. The trip turned out to be four days longer than they planned, thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration’s temporary ban on all U.S. flights to and from Israel, issued not long after a rocket landed a mile away from Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on July 22. more

Time goes by quickly. We’re well into April, and there seems to be so much to do and so little time to do it. Except when you’re Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. more

Long Island Democrats came out in force Monday night for a dinner fundraiser at Crest Hollow Country Club in Woodbury that paid tribute to Carolyn McCarthy, of Mineola, for her 17 years representing Nassau County in Congress. The gala’s guest list included Democratic notables from the region and beyond, like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and it likely netted hundreds of thousands of dollars for the party. more

It didn’t hit me until I laid my head down to the pillow at the hotel on my first night in Jerusalem — following a meet-and-greet session with 40 Jews in JFK airport, a 12-hour flight plus a two-hour layover in Switzerland, and overall, a 30-hour period in which I got two hours of sleep — when I finally said to myself … “Woah, I’m in Israel.” more