Join our Community

Support ToI and remove all ads

Learn more

English
Français
עברית

Get The Daily Edition
Account
Sign In
- Sign in
- Join our Community

Open Search form

Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
Podcasts
Video
Newsletters
Partners

Input search

English
Français
עברית

Latest Articles
Latest Alerts
Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
Podcasts
Video
Newsletters
Partners
Community
- Join our community
- Sign in
- About The Times of Israel
- Advertise on The Times of Israel
- Contact us
- Download our App
  - For IOS users
  - For Android users
- Get the Daily Edition
- Follow us
- © 2026 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved
  
  Terms and conditions Privacy policy Your Privacy Rights

Input search

The Daily Edition

What Matters Most On Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Facebook
Twitter

View previous edition

View next edition

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks before a map of the Jordan Valley as he gives a statement, promising to extend Israeli sovereignty to the Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea area, in Ramat Gan on September 10, 2019. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

Jordan Valley annexation said in ‘deep freeze’ due to international court probe

Inter-ministerial panel tasked with planning sovereignty extension over territory, as promised by Netanyhau, reportedly cancels first meeting, fearing ICC war crimes investigation

IDF soldiers clash with Palestinians in Al-Fawwar refugee camp, south of the West Bank city of Hebron, on December 31, 2017. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

Report: UN anti-racism panel to probe claims of Israeli apartheid in West Bank

International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda delivers a speech in Kotu, near Banjul, on October 15, 2018. (Claire Bargeles/AFP)

Israel media reviewWhatever it takes: 7 things to know for December 24

By Joshua Davidovich

The Black September terror group's chief of operations Ali Hassan Salameh in an undated photo (Courtesy)

We had a lot in common...but he killed 11 athletes in Munich

The top Mossad spy who befriended his terrorist target — then had him killed

When Agent D was sent to follow the Munich massacre’s architect, he was ordered not to make contact. He broke that rule, and then some: Salameh ‘was a friend — and a mortal enemy’

Hayley (Sevitz) Varenberg, killed in a bus crash near Ben Gurion Airport on December 21, 2019. (Courtesy)

Israeli bus crash victims include Philadelphia teacher, South African immigrant

Driver in Sunday crash near Ben Gurion airport remanded for 4 days; deceased include Hayley Varenberg from Jerusalem and Berta Schwartz who was in Israel for her grandchild’s birth

Illustrative: Likud supporters outside the Ashdod Likud branch during a primaries vote on February 5, 2019. (Flash90)

Reversing initial decision, Likud court calls off primaries for Knesset slate

Judges accept Netanyahu’s appeal to forgo vote on entire roster for March elections, block measure that would make it easier for members to cast ballot in leadership race Thursday

Netanyahu rejects as ‘spin’ Sa’ar’s proposal to make him president

Liberman blasts Netanyahu for not razing Bedouin village in light of ICC probe

Blue and White MK: Court should not disqualify Netanyahu

By ToI Staff and Raoul Wootliff

'Be Careful, It's My Heart,' is the song Irving Berlin sings during an interview in Berlin's New York office, July 16, 1942. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)

Author interview

How Jewish-American immigrant Irving Berlin started a Christmas revolution

By Rich Tenorio

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Netanyahu sends Christmas greeting to Christians: ‘We have no better friends’

On eve of holiday, PM says Jewish state wouldn’t have been established if not for ‘avid support’ of Christians through the years

A man dressed as Santa Claus rides a camel at Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, during Christmas tree distribution and a few days before the upcoming holiday of Christmas, December 19, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Christian Israeli community growing slowly, besting Jews in matriculation grades

A Palestinian Scout marching band parades during Christmas celebrations outside the Church of the Nativity, built atop the site where Christians believe Jesus Christ was born, on Christmas Eve, in the West Bank City of Bethlehem, December 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Thousands arrive in Bethlehem as Christmas festivities begin

By AP and ToI Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) speaks with Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan (left) in the Knesset on September 7, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Live updates (closed)

Coming off the fence, Erdan backs Netanyahu in Likud leadership race

Minister says he believes PM is ‘the most fitting person’ to head party but welcomes challenge from Sa’ar: ‘I’m convinced it strengthens Likud’

7:31 pm

Lawyer: Man tied to Jersey City kosher market shooters deserves bail
7:24 pm

Bennett says New Right will push for religious services ministry after elections
7:06 pm

Netanyahu vows to secure US recognition of sovereignty over settlements

Yochi Rappeport

Women can’t light the menorah in public?

Chief Rabbi Yosef’s ruling, which derides the practice as imitating Reform and Conservative Jews, negates most historic rabbinic opinions

4 ways not to celebrate Christmas

Help your kids experience the joy and the festivity of the season while you keep them away from Santa Claus

Alon Goshen-Gottstein

Hanukkah, Christmas and the light of the Messiah

A Hasidic teaching offers a way to see the two holidays as sharing more than winter timing and crass commercialization

At 33, I’m finally celebrating my first Hanukkah

My lifelong apathy about my Jewish heritage ended when I took a DNA test, dove in deeper and learned the value of embracing tradition

Historic synagogue in Alexandria set to be reopened following major renovation

Eliyahu Hanavi shul is one of two remaining Jewish houses of worship in the coastal city, where only a few Jews live today; Jewish leaders originally from Egypt welcome move

A view of the settlement of Modiin Illit, February 2019. (Flash90)

Torah scroll set alight in break-in at settlement synagogue

By JTA

Reporter's notebook

Amanda Borschel-Dan

This Hanukkah, kid sleuths help solve the case of the ghostly book thief

Israel’s National Library in Jerusalem hosts an after-hours program in which children solve a mystery — and learn about strange creatures like card catalogs

Colombians celebrate Dia de las Velitas at the Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Bogota, December 7, 2018. (Lokman Ilhan/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images/via JTA)

Colombia’s Day of the Little Candles looks an awful lot like Hanukkah

By Alan Grabinsky

The Leviathan natural gas platform off the shore of Israel. (Albatross)

State halts test of Leviathan gas rig, saying company didn’t meet criteria

Noble Energy is told additional approvals needed before it can conduct the pipe-flushing procedure, which has raised concerns of dangerous pollution along the coast

Join The Times of Israel Community!

Help support our journalism and enjoy the site ADS FREE - for as little as $6 a month

JOIN US

Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, gives an interview to The Associated Press at his office in Tehran, Iran, August 18, 2013. (AP/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)

Top Iranian official: Israel ‘will regret’ attacks in Syria

By ToI Staff and Agencies

Day after strike near Damascus, Russian news agency publishes interview with senior adviser Ali Akbar Velayati saying Israeli airstrikes ‘will not pass without a response’

Iranian protesters gather around a fire during a demonstration against an increase in gasoline prices in the capital Tehran, on November 16, 2019. (AFP/ File)

1,500 people said killed by Iranian security forces in protests

The exterior of the Arak heavy water production facility in Arak, Iran, 360 kilometers southwest of Tehran, October 27, 2004. (AP Photo)

Iran starts new action at heavy water reactor, pressuring Europe on oil sales

By AP

Bundles of khat (photo credit: SS BY-SA 3.0, by Abalg, Wikimedia Commons)

Dozens of Israelis being arrested, some jailed in Europe for smuggling khat drug

Criminals pay travelers to take suitcases full of leaves abroad, but European countries have increasingly been punishing those they catch

In an October 21, 1998, file photo, Ram Dass, best known for the 1971 bestseller 'Be Here Now,' smiles during an interview at his San Anselmo, California, home (AP Photo/Susan Ragan, File)

Psychedelic drug pioneer Ram Dass – born Richard Alpert – dies at home aged 88

By AP

Three of the cantors from JVocals: Motti Hasfari (left), Eliezer Charlap (center) and Yaki Lauer (right) (Jessica Steinberg/Times of Israel)

With online platform, these cantors want to sing in more than just one shul

By Jessica Steinberg

More Headlines

Illustrative image of a handshake (stnazkul; iStock by Getty Images)

Israel tech exits surge 102% in 2019, reaching $9.9 billion

By Shoshanna Solomon

Palestinians receive financial aid as part of $480 million allocated for assistance by Qatar, at a post office in Gaza City on May 19, 2019. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

Gazan banks hand out fresh round of Qatari grants to poor families

Illustrative: Children being airlifted from Yemen in Operation Magic Carpet, in front of an Alaskan Airlines plane. (Courtesy AJM)

High Court says lawsuit on disappeared Yemenite children should be heard

Immigrants from France arriving at Ben Gurion Airport, July 2018. (Nir Kafri, The Jewish Agency for Israel)

Population Authority dismisses claim 85% of immigrants to Israel aren’t Jewish

A view of Columbia University's Low Memorial Library in New York, September 25, 2019 (Josefin Dolsten via JTA)

Columbia U accused of anti-Semitism in first test of Trump executive order

Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for US President Trump, speaks in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Giuliani says he is ‘more of a Jew’ than George Soros

The Bakri House in Hebron. (Peace Now)

Court orders settlers to evacuate Hebron home after purchase invalidated

Illustrative: German federal police in Berlin, Germany, on April 19, 2018. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

German youth choked by classmates, who hurl anti-Semitic abuse at him

By JTA

A submachine gun found among school books in a bag belonging to an Arab Israeli high school student, December 23, 2019. (Israel Police)

Police find submachine gun hidden in high school students’ bag of books

Prof. Marcelle Machluf at her lab in the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology (Courtesy)

‘Ghost’ cell startup that targets deadliest cancers gets funding boost

By Shoshanna Solomon

Illustrative: Passengers stand waiting at Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow, June 27, 2013. (Sergei Grits/AP)

Israelis again delayed, questioned for hours after landing in Moscow

Clive Owen excels in the complex role of a man torn between his talent and the need to remember. (Sabrina Lantos/Sony Pictures Classics/via JTA)

SpoilersClive Owen plays a Hasidic violin virtuoso in new film ‘The Song of Names’

By Curt Schleier

View Edition by Date

November	December 2019					January
Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa	Su
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

The Times of Israel

Daily Edition

Free to Your Inbox

The email is either missing or invalid.

By signing up, you agree to our terms You hereby accept The Times of Israel Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, and you agree to receive the latest news & offers from The Times of Israel and its partners or ad sponsors.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Israel & the Region
Jewish Times
Israel Inside
Tech Israel
Real Estate Israel
The Blogs
podcasts
video

terms and conditions
privacy policy
Your Privacy Rights
about us
advertise with us
Jobs at The Times of Israel
contact us

Community

Join our community
Sign in

Get the Daily Edition

Enter your email address

Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Instagram Follow us on Whatsapp Follow us on X Follow us on Youtube Follow us on Telegram Follow us on Threads Follow us on Bluesky

© 2026 The Times of Israel, all rights reserved

Concept, design & development by

Developed by

Powered by

Never miss breaking news on Israel

Get notifications to stay updated

You're subscribed

Register for free
and continue reading

Registering allows you to manage your newsletters and alerts and helps us improve your experience. It takes just a few seconds.
Already registered? Enter your email to sign in.

Email address

Please use the following structure: example@domain.com

Or Continue with

By registering you agree to the terms and conditions. Once registered, you’ll receive our Daily Edition email for free.

Send me The Times of Israel Daily Edition

Register to continue

Email address

Or Continue with

Log in to continue

Email address

Something went wrong.
Please try again in a few minutes..

Sign in or Register

Email address * Password *

Incorrect password. Please try again or choose an option below.

I forgot my password / Send me a sign in link

Or Continue with

check your email

Check your email

We sent an email to you at .

It has a link that will sign you in.

Click the link in that email to complete your registration.