While they may not all be among the “most important” stories of 2022, here are the top 10 stories that our readers clicked on most this year:
No. 1: Esther Pollard dies after being rushed to hospital with COVID
By Maayan Hoffman
Esther Pollard, 68, the wife of convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, died on Monday, January 30, at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. She had been battling COVID-19 and was suffering from septic shock.
Read the full story published in January >>
Related story >>
No. 2: Doctors find bullet in woman’s back three months after she felt ‘crazy pain’ at Samaria wedding
By JNS.org
An Israeli woman discovered in January 2022—three months after the fact—that she had been shot in the back while attending a wedding in Samaria.
Read the full story published in January >>
No. 3: Russian businessmen resign from Jewish group after giving $10 million to Ukraine
By JNS.org
Three Russian oligarchs who founded the Genesis Philanthropy Group stepped down from the Jewish charitable foundation in late March after it pledged to donate $10 million for humanitarian needs in Ukraine.
Read the full story published in March >>
No. 4: Top Iranian general: ‘When we strike at America, it will be with great force’
By MEMRI
The deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said in a January interview that when the time was right, Iran would strike the United States “with great force.”
Read the full story published in January >>
No. 5: Dave Chappelle and normalizing black antisemitism
By Jonathan Tobin
You have to live in a bubble of New York Times readers and NPR listeners to think that what happens on “Saturday Night Live” is of earth-shattering importance. But the controversy about what guest host comedian Dave Chappelle said about recent antisemitic controversies involving African-Americans during the course of his opening monologue on the latest edition of the show is significant.
Read the full column published in November >>
No. 6: Iran’s UAVs tip the balance of power in the Middle East
By Uzi Rubin
Iran has been developing and expanding its Unmanned Aerial Vehicles fleets ever since the 1980s. They now comprise a wide spectrum of types that range in size and function from aircraft size, high-flying reconnaissance UAVs to small, low-cost “suicide” drones.
Read the full column published in January >>
No. 7: Statement on Ukraine by scholars of genocide, Nazism and World War II
By Izabella Tabarkovsky and Eugene Finkel
Scholars come together to fight fake Russian narrative in the media: Russian propaganda has painted the Ukrainian state as Nazi and fascist ever since Russian special forces first entered Ukraine in 2014, annexing the Crimea and fomenting the conflict in the Donbas, which has smoldered for eight long years. It was propaganda in 2014. It remains propaganda today.
Read the full statement published in February >>
No. 8: Modern Orthodox high school student makes top 24 contestants in ‘American Idol’
By Alan Zeitlin
If Danielle Finn had to choose between her faith and her dreams, it would have been a bummer.
Read the full story published in April >>
No. 9: Ben Shapiro says Kanye West is spouting anti-Semitism that resembles Nazi propaganda
By JNS.org
Popular conservative pundit Ben Shapiro said in October that the wave of recent anti-Semitic rants by Kanye West—who now goes by “Ye”—resemble Nazi propaganda.
Read the full story published in October >>
No. 10: Report: IAF struck Syrian radar station in south
By JNS.org
The Israel Air Force attacked a Syrian military radar station in the country’s southwest on December 10, a local opposition media report said.
Read the full story published in December >>
We look forward to providing you with your top 10 reads next year.