National

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Mitt Romney returned from a Middle East tour saying that he saw no alternative to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict other than the two-state solution. The Utah Republican, his party’s 2012 presidential nominee, has just assumed the chairmanship of the Middle East subcommittee in the Senate. Romney’s conclusion… Read more »

(JTA) — The alleged gunman in the attack on the Chabad of Poway synagogue near San Diego was charged with murder. John Earnest, 19, was charged on Sunday afternoon with one count of murder in the first degree and three counts of attempted murder in the first degree, according… Read more »

POWAY, California (JTA) — Lori Gilbert-Kaye, who was killed in the attack at a Chabad synagogue near San Diego, is credited with jumping in front of the synagogue’s rabbi to shield him from the gunman’s bullets. Gilbert-Kaye, 60, of San Diego, is survived by her husband and 22-year-old daughter.… Read more »

POWAY, California (JTA) — Poway’s mayor said preparations made in the aftermath of the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue “contributed to saving lives” in his hometown. On Saturday, a gunman entered Chabad of Poway, killing Lori Gilbert-Kaye, a 60-year-old congregant, and injuring three others, including Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein, the… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — After widespread condemnation, and an initial statement that critics slammed as inadequate, The New York Times apologized for publishing an “anti-Semitic political cartoon.” The image, which appeared Thursday in the opinion section of the international print edition of the newspaper, depicted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu… Read more »

(JTA) — A crowdfunding campaign established to help the victims of an attack on a Chabad synagogue near San Diego, California, has raised more than $18,000 in its first 10 hours. More than 600 people donated nearly $32,000 toward a goal of $50,000 on GoFundMe, with many donations ranging… Read more »

(JTA) — An Israeli girl whose family moved to San Diego to escape rocket attacks in Israel and her uncle also from Israel were among the injured in a shooting attack at a Chabad synagogue near San Diego. Noya Dahan, 8, and her family moved to California from Sderot… Read more »

(JTA) — The shooting on Saturday that left one woman dead and three injured happened in a synagogue focused on welcoming and outreach. The shooter, who has been apprehended by police, entered the synagogue, Chabad of Poway, at approximately 11:30 a.m. and began shooting. He is 19 years old… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona are heartbroken and horrified by the senseless act of violence on Saturday at Congregation Chabad in Poway, California. This act came on the exact six-month anniversary after the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, on… Read more »

(JTA) — A shooting at a Chabad synagogue in Poway, near San Diego, California, has left one person dead and three injured, including a child. Police in Poway detained a white 19-year old San Diego man in connection with the shooting on the last day of Passover, and hospitals said… Read more »

Eleven members of the Jewish Latino Teen Coalition, a program founded by the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona Jewish Community Relations Council and the Office of U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, visited Washington, D.C., March 31-April 5 to lobby lawmakers on immigration reform. In addition to meeting with a dozen… Read more »

(JTA) — The Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan will be unveiled in June, White House special adviser Jared Kushner said. Kushner, one of the main authors of the plan, told a group of about 100 ambassadors in Washington, D.C., that the plan will be made public after a… Read more »

(JTA) — Two professional soccer teams — one in England and one in the United States — will send a joint delegation to the March of the Living. The Chelsea Football Club and New England Revolution announced Wednesday in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that they will… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish Florida state representative called one of his constituents a “Judenrat” on Facebook. The constituent, also Jewish, says the lawmaker should apologize for describing him with a term that refers to Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust. Randy Fine, a Republican who represents… Read more »

(JTA) — Pete Buttigieg will no longer use the word “Pharisee” to refer to those he deems religious hypocrites, a campaign official said. Buttigieg, a Democratic presidential candidate and mayor of South Bend, Indiana, had called Vice President Mike Pence a Pharisee on multiple occasions because he claimed Pence… Read more »

(JTA) — A coalition of more than a dozen conservative groups, most of them Jewish, sent a letter to President Donald Trump tacitly asking him to respect a potential Israeli annexation of West Bank settlements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is almost certainly headed to a fifth term after… Read more »

(JTA) — SooJi Min-Maranda rarely sees other Jewish people who look like her. “I often feel very isolated as a Jew of color living in the Midwest,” she said. Min-Maranda, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband and two children, was born in Korea but moved with… Read more »

(JTA) — One week after winning election to a fifth term as Israel’s head of state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people. Other Jewish people on the list include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; Jennifer Hyman, whose $1 billion company… Read more »

(JTA) — Arizona has eased its rules to a state ban on doing business with companies that boycott Israel in an attempt to avoid potential lawsuits. The amendment would exempt individuals and businesses valued at less than $100,000 or employing fewer than 10 full-time employees from the ban. In… Read more »

(JTA) — “This is my anti-Semitic song,” Tamer Nafar, a Palestinian-Israeli rapper, said at the opening of a conference on Gaza last month at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “I know it might sound R&B stuff, but don’t think of Rihanna when you sing it,… Read more »