News

Dems’ panel drafting platform includes critics of Israel, friends of Israel — and a BDS backer

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, left, embracing philosopher and social activist Cornel West in Des Moines, Iowa, Nov. 14, 2015. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
May 24, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Democratic Party platform drafting committee is top heavy with veterans of political battles over Israel — some friendly, some critical, and including at least one major backer of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. The Democratic National Committee named the committee on Monday, a day… Read more »

Netanyahu: Arab nations can help bring ‘real peace’
May 22, 2016 / Written by Jesse Lempel/TPS on May 22, 2016

Jerusalem (TPS) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday night that the Arab nations in the region can help facilitate a “real deal with the Palestinians,” adding that he has been discussing the issue with regional leaders “over the last few hours.” “The initiatives I’m referring to are regional initiatives… Read more »

Anti-Semitism charges stir the calm waters of bucolic Oxford

A Jewish student speaking during a debate featuring Alan Dershowitz at Oxford's Chabad Centre, Nov., 1, 2015. (Courtesy of Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters)
May 22, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

OXFORD, England (JTA) — For a city that has made headlines recently for its anti-Semitism problem, Oxford has a pretty laid back Jewish scene. On a recent Friday night, dozens of recognizably Jewish families and students wearing kippahs were enjoying the afternoon sun as they strolled to one of Oxford’s two… Read more »

House passes bill protecting circumcision, ritual slaughter as international religious freedoms

An infant being carried before his circumcision at an Orthodox synagogue in Berlin in 2013. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
May 22, 2016 /

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A bill unanimously approved by the U.S. House of Representatives would extend religious protections to advocates of circumcision and ritual slaughter as well as atheists, addressing what its sponsors describe as an increase in religious persecution in recent years. The bill, passed Monday, would broaden the definition of… Read more »

BLOG What Avigdor Liberman could learn from the last non-general to be Israel’s defense chief

Avigdor Liberman, head of the Yisrael Beiteinu party, speaking at a news conference at the Knesset, May 18, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
May 22, 2016 / Ben Sales, JTA

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — He was an outspoken politician with little military experience, appointed by a rival and promising to bring a new approach. Current and former officials at the Defense Ministry called his appointment an “enigma,” fretting that “it will take some time until he understands how things work”… Read more »

New hard-line defense minister said to join Israeli government in surprise turn to right

Avigdor Liberman speaking at a news conference in the Israeli parliament, May 18, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
May 19, 2016 /

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The unity government was about to form: Likud and Labor, right and left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Isaac Herzog. Then, according to media reports, Netanyahu swung to the right and instead embraced an old partner: Avigdor Liberman, head of the hard-line… Read more »

Beating health scares, Jonathan Sarna seals status as rock star Jewish historian

Jonathan Sarna at Brandeis University, his undergraduate alma mater and where he has taught for more than 25 years, May 10, 2016. (Uriel Heilman)
May 18, 2016 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

WALTHAM, Mass. (JTA) – When Jonathan Sarna was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 1999 at the age of 44, it changed his life. Already a highly regarded historian at Brandeis University, Sarna was in the midst of writing his seminal study of American Jewish history when he realized with… Read more »

Netanyahu keeps calling for talks with Abbas. Is he serious?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, center, shaking hands with Deputy IDF Chief of Staff Yair Golan, and standing with President Reuven Rivlin, at an Israeli Independence Day ceremony honoring soldiers, May 12, 2016. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
May 18, 2016 / Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For a leader often accused of not wanting to talk peace with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sure does a lot of talking about wanting to talk to the Palestinians. In a series of three statements this month, Netanyahu repeatedly stressed the need… Read more »

In D.C., Tucson’s unique Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition advocates for the poor

Members of Tucson’s Jewish-Latino Teen Coalition with Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) in her office on April 13, 2016. (L-R): Samantha Ybarra, Sayanna Molino (chaperone), Emma Galligan, Slaughter, Zoe Holtzman, Michael Artzi, Sophie Gootter, Joshua Cohen, Aaron Gomez, Shari Gootter (program coordinator), Alexander Senti, Daniel Vogel, David Bracamonte (Courtesy Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona)
May 12, 2016 / Sarah Chen, Special to the AJP

“For me, it all came together when we were sitting in Sen. Cruz’s office, speaking to his chief of staff, and I realize that it’s this clash of strong opinions, this is why solutions to our most pressing social problems are so hard to find.” Strong words coming from… Read more »

Hadassah to celebrate Jerusalem Day with wine tasting, Iran nuclear update
May 12, 2016 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor
Carolynn Scherer Katz

Hadassah Southern Arizona will celebrate Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day) with “A Taste of Gold,” a kosher wine tasting with snacks on Sunday, June 5, 4-6 p.m. at Catavinos, 3063 N. Alvernon Way. Carolynn Scherer Katz, regional advisor for Hadassah, will speak on the recent Iran nuclear agreement and its… Read more »

Art, video at Handmaker to mark success of ‘Tracing Roots’

Sharon Glassberg, left, director of the Coalition for Jewish Education at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, views internet research with Natalie Feldman, a Tucson Hebrew High student, and Gloria Lindsman, a resident at Handmaker Jewish Services for the Aging, as part of the “Tracing Roots and Building Trees” program, April 17 at Handmaker. (Karen Schaffner/AJP)
May 12, 2016 / Karen Schaffner, Special to the AJP

On a recent Sunday afternoon, 15-year-old Erika Spivack sat next to 93-year-old Betty Light, searching online for any information she could find about Light. First stop: ancestry.com, where she unearthed an item as valuable as any buried treasure. “Did you go to East High School in Denver?” Spivack asked… Read more »

SEEKING KIN 3 decades later, remembering some special Sabbaths

Hillel Kuttler, right, and Avraham Rechtshafer meeting at a Jerusalem pizza shop for the first time since the mid-1980s. (Hillel Kuttler)
May 11, 2016 / Hillel Kuttler, JTA

The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. JERUSALEM (JTA) – On a pleasant evening in this capital city, through the near darkness, I caught his wave from a half-block away. Soon we were standing together, smiling and clasping hands, two men who hadn’t seen… Read more »

At home in London, French Jews dread vote on leaving the EU

A menorah is lit in London's Trafalgar Square to mark the beginning of Hanukkah, Dec. 20, 2011. (Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images)
May 10, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

LONDON (JTA) — Less than two years after he moved his family from Paris to London, David Herz is already feeling at home in the United Kingdom. The co-founder of a communications agency, Herz is among thousands of French Jews who moved across the channel in recent years. He says… Read more »

Synagogue condos: If you lived here, you could be praying by now

The penthouse at 415 E. Sixth St., which will sit atop the historic Anshei Meseritz synagogue. (Courtesy of East River Partners)
May 8, 2016 / By Lucy Cohen Blatter, JTA

  NEW YORK (JTA) — If there’s one story that sums up the changes afoot on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a once heavily Jewish neighborhood, it’s the saga surrounding the Anshei Meseritz synagogue. The Orthodox shul at 415 E. Sixth St. is a relic of a time… Read more »

Smuggled out of ghetto, newly discovered photo trove turns out to be family of famous American scholars

After a documentary photographer stumbled upon Anushka Warshawski's photo album, it took some sleuthing to figure out who she was. (Courtesy of Richard Schofield)
May 6, 2016 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – When documentary photographer Richard Schofield stumbled upon a trove of unidentified prewar photographs in September 2013 in the storage room of the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, he knew he had found something special. The photos, dating from about 1910 through 1940, were from a… Read more »

For Dutch property owners, Holocaust commemoration begins at home

Yvonne van Gennep-Bouma, left, tells visitors about a Jewish family that once lived at what is now her home in The Hague, May 1, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
May 2, 2016 /

  THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — After Yvonne van Gennep-Bouma discovered that Holocaust victims used to live in what is now her home, she began to think about them constantly. At night, van Gennep-Bouma imagined the former occupants preparing to turn in. And in the morning, she wondered where they had… Read more »