Likud holding negotiations with several parties as it looks to secure government agreement before May 28 cutoff

Hundreds of thousands of Jews are participating in the annual celebration of Lag Ba’Omer in Meron.
Police in the quiet town situated just one mountain away from the mystical city of Tzfas are expecting half a million Jews to arrive, traveling in busses, private cars, and some even on foot.

Lag Ba’omer is a holiday that many people have a tendency to light bonfires. It is with this in mind that United Hatzalah has issued the following precautions to help people avoid injuries big or small and instructions on what to do should the worst occur and a person gets injured.
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A 22-year-old Jewish Russian woman was murdered in Moscow last week, allegedly by a shuttle driver, an Israeli report said Tuesday night.
Rivka (Irena) Tsipishev disappeared last Friday after getting on a shuttle that was supposed to take her home, the report said. Police investigations eventually led to the arrest of the shuttle driver, who told authorities where to locate the body.
Tsipishev was buried Tuesday, in a funeral attended by family, friends, Jewish community members and Russia’s chief rabbi Berel Lazar.
“Rivka was a special person with a special soul,” said Lazar, who had accompanied Tsipishev — along with a thousand other young Russian Jews — on a trip to Italy that ended last week.

U.S. Special Representative for International Negotiations Jason Greenblatt urged the Palestinians to stop their boycott of the U.S. administration and help make next month’s peace conference in Bahrain a success.
The “Peace to Prosperity” workshop will focus on economic programs to complement the political component of the peace plan, which will be unveiled at a later stage.
“It’s difficult to understand why the Palestinian Authority would reject a workshop designed to discuss a vision with the potential to radically transform lives and put people on a path toward a brighter future,” said Greenblatt.
Greenblatt has been entrusted with the peace efforts along with senior adviser to the president Jared Kushner and U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman.

Republican Rep. Van Taylor defeated Democrat Lorie Burch in Texas’ 3rd Congressional District in the 2018 midterm elections to replace retiring longtime Republican Rep. Sam Johnson.
Previously, he served in both houses of the Texas state legislature.
Taylor, 46, fought in Iraq as part of the U.S. Marine Corps and was a captain during “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
He and his wife, Anne, have three children.
JNS talked with Taylor in person. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Q: What’s your overall stance on the U.S.-Israel relationship, having served overseas, specifically in Iraq?

According to a report by Israel’s Channel 12 that was aired on Tuesday evening, Israel and Hamas have reached informal new understandings, designed to allow calm to prevail in the next six months.

Jerusalem – Its insistence on relying solely on technology and intelligence to identify hidden tunnels has had the IDF refusing to make use of a “secret weapon” that has successfully pinpointed multiple subterranean passages well ahead of the Israeli army for several years – a 50 year old kabalistic rabbi who lives in the Galil. [...]