Two sensitive and potentially explosive issues have always clouded the relationship between the Jewish community in the United States and the State of Israel. The first relates to claims of “dual allegiance” to both Israel and the United States; the other concerns the pro-Israel, American “Jewish lobby.”

The Israeli blogosphere’s obsessive preoccupation with food is making veteran culinary writers reel. The Internet has become a flesh-eating plant that devours recipes in an insatiable frenzy. When you Google the word “recipe” in Hebrew − you get close to three million hits.

It was girls’ night out at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv for Rihanna’s one-night-only show in Israel as part of her “Diamond World Tour.” Teenage girls linked arms, mothers accompanied ten year old daughters, 20-something young women took selfies, and small percentage of men - reluctant boyfriends, benevolent fathers and gay couples - all waited on the grass for RiRi to alight upon the stage.

Stands selling jewelry, embroidery and beer imported from Ethiopia lined the entrance to Tel Aviv’s Habima Theater on Friday, as people waited in line for about half an hour to buy the flat, lemony Ethiopian bread injera at the entrance to the Sigdiada, a festival celebrating the culture and folklore of Israel’s Ethiopian Jewish community.

In an eatery here, 28-year-old Israeli human rights activist Avner Gvaryahu described the first time he came face to face with a Palestinian. He was 19 and serving in the Israel Defense Forces when his unit invaded the home of a Palestinian family in the dead of night. They were there to perform a “straw widow,” a raid during which soldiers forcibly seize control of a Palestinian civilian home.

Over three years ago, on January 22, 2009 - in the immediate aftermath of Operation Cast Lead - the government of Palestine lodged a declaration with the Registrar of the International Criminal Court, accepting the Court's jurisdiction "for the purpose of identifying, prosecuting and judging the authors and accomplices of acts committed on the territory of Palestine since 1 July 2002".

On most days, Emanuel Shfaim, 45, works from morning til night at his dry cleaning business, often joined by his wife, Nava. They are well known in the neighborhood, Jerusalem's German Colony, for the excellence and variety of their services. Need a sheepskin ottoman cleaned after an unfortunate collision with a glass of red wine? Shfaim will find a way to make the stain disappear.

Lebanese-US director Ziad Doueiri said Friday he was willing to face jail to film his award-winning movie "The Attack" in Israel, flouting Lebanon's laws against entering the neighbouring Jewish state. Describing the production there as a "crazy trip", he told an audience at the Frankfurt Book Fair that it still bothered him that the movie, released this year, had been banned in the Arab world.