JDate and Ha’aretz: the naked untruth?

jerusalem (jta) | Ha’aretz accused JDate of posting pictures of porn stars to draw lonely Jewish bachelors. The newspaper reported Monday, Aug. 23, that the site’s banners “systematically use fictitious characters based on pictures of models taken from pornography sites.”

JDate is alleged to have renamed a Hungarian nude model as “Hila from Tel Aviv,” who allegedly is “looking for a single Jewish guy.”

JDate, the largest Jewish singles network online, says it has 500,000 members. Company officials said they took the promotional photographs from a database in Germany.

Home-wrecking Shin Bet?

jerusalem (jta) | An Israeli whose estranged husband was a Shin Bet agent is suing the government.

The lawyer for the woman, a mother of seven identified only by her first initial, H., told Israel Radio on Monday that she divorced her husband after discovering that he had served for 15 years as a Shin Bet spy among suspected extremist settler groups.

Now H., who also claims her husband beat her, wants part of his government pension, in addition to alimony. Government officials did not immediately comment.

Historic death toll in Palestinian conflict

jerusalem (jta) | More Israelis have died in the current Palestinian conflict than in two Middle East wars.

Security officials said Tuesday, Aug. 24, that 1,001 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian terrorist and guerrilla attacks since the intifada erupted in September 2000.

The death toll outstrips the 803 Israelis killed in the 1967 Six-Day War and 738 killed in the three-year war with its neighbors that followed.

In terms of civilian fatalities, Palestinian violence has claimed a heavier price over the past four years than in any other period in Israel’s history.