Illustrative photo: This image, from a video posted on September 18, 2013, shows Syrians in protective suits and gas masks conducting a drill on how to treat casualties of a chemical weapons attack, in Aleppo, Syria. (AP) Israel’s security establishment maintains that the Syrian army still possesses “significant” stockpiles of ready-for-use arms primed with chemical toxins, in contravention of the

Birthright Israel participants at Masada, summer 2012 (photo credit: Courtesy Taglit-Birthright/JTA) WASHINGTON — The first comprehensive survey of American Jews in the 21st Century, which has been making waves this week, reveals some dramatic changes in Jewish identity. The most significant, according to one of the study’s lead authors, is that one-fifth of American Jews don’t even call themselve

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — She speaks only Japanese and is not entirely sure what country she’s in, but 18-year-old Haruna Matsui is happy to stand in the rain for an hour with two friends to see the home of a person she has never met yet nonetheless considers her soul mate. “We visited Paris and Brussels, so I just had to come here to see Anne’s home,” an excited Matsui told JTA last week outside Amsterda