Whatsapp CEO Jan Koum spoke at the Mobile World Congress on Feb. 24, 2014 in Barcelona, Spain. (David Ramos/Getty Images) Jan Koum’s birthday was Feb. 24, but he received his big gift early. The Ukraine-born CEO and founder of WhatsApp has catapulted from relative unknown to a poster boy for rags-to-riches immigrant triumph since his rapidly growing messaging company was sold last month to Facebook for a record-breaking $19… Read more »
A man shoots a slingshot at national guard troops following one of the largest anti-government demonstrations yet on March 2, 2014 in Caracus, Venezuela. (John Moore/Getty Images) (JTA) — They left after Venezuelan secret police raided a Jewish club in 2007, and after the local synagogue was ransacked by unidentified thugs two years later. They left after President Hugo Chavez expelled Israel’s ambassador to Caracas, and when he called on Venezuela’s Jews to condemn Israel for… Read more »
Vladimir Putin with Israeli President Shimon Peres during Peres' official visit to Moscow in 2012. (Mark Neyman/GPO/FLASH90) (JTA) — When even Russian policemen had to pass security checks to enter the Sochi Winter Olympics, Rabbi Berel Lazar was waved in without ever showing his ID. Lazar, a Chabad-affiliated chief rabbi of Russia, was invited to the opening ceremony of the games last month by President Vladimir Putin’s… Read more »
The first fuel is loaded at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power pant on Aug. 21, 2010. (Iran International Photo Agency via Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — The world powers holding a new round of nuclear talks with Iran starting next week are divided by another issue of geopolitical importance: the crisis in Ukraine. Tensions between Russia and the West are mounting over the Russian military takeover of the Crimean Peninsula, with the… Read more »
A wounded individual os transported to a waiting plane, where he will be flown to Israel to receive medical care. (Shimon Briman) TEL AVIV (JTA) — For 17-year-old Bolodimir Bedyuk, a Ukrainian who was severely wounded in clashes with Ukrainian police on Feb. 18, Israeli medical care may be his only hope. After a pitched battle with Ukrainian police forces on Institutskaya Street in Kiev, Bedyuk suffered chest wounds and extensive… Read more »
Anti-Israel protesters march in front of the White House in 2013. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) NEW YORK (JTA) — Leaders of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement say they are protesting Israel’s policies in the West Bank. They are doing far more than that. BDS advocates routinely oppose a two-state solution and seek to delegitimize the sovereign, Jewish State of Israel. In some cases,… Read more »
A woman lays tefillin at the entrance to Tel Aviv's Carmel Market. Women of the Wall offered women in Tel Aviv the chance to put on a tallit or tefillin on Friday. (Ben Sales/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — They were standing in a public square in a major Israeli city, laying tefillin on women amid shouts of protest and quizzical looks from nearby men in black hats. It has become an occasional morning routine for Women of the Wall. Except this time, they… Read more »
Stan Fischler is flanked by producer Glenn Petraitis, left, and co-host Peter Ruttgaizer at the Nassau Coliseum set of their pregame and postgame shows. (Hillel Kuttler) UNIONDALE, N.Y. (JTA) – As the Boston Bruins buzz the Islanders net throughout the opening period of a game at the Nassau Coliseum, Stan Fischler is standing 10 feet behind the Plexiglas to the left of New York goaltender Kevin Poulin. Fischler, a hockey broadcaster for four decades, can… Read more »
MADRID, Spain (JTA) — News that Spain is proposing to offer citizenship to the descendants of Jews expelled in the 15th and 16th centuries spread like wildfire in Israel. Within hours of the Spanish government’s announcement last month, the Israeli website Ynet published a list of family names supposedly… Read more »
Besides blotting out the name of Haman, would these groggers also wake one to the needs of the hungry? (Edmon J. Rodman) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — On Purim, can we really blot out the memory of an evil like Haman, who threatened our very existence, with a noisemaker? When in a popular Purim song we sing “Hava narishah-rash, rash, rash,” “Wind your noisemakers,” all that “rashing” does momentarily make the darkness… Read more »
Barbara Garson The Tucson Festival of Books, now the fourth largest book festival in the United States, returns to the University of Arizona campus March 15 and 16. One of the many Jewish writers presenting this year will be Barbara Garson, whose latest book is “Down the Up Escalator: How the… Read more »
Actress Scarlett Johansson and Romain Dauriac sit in the audience before the start of the 39th Cesar Film Awards 2014 at Theatre du Chatelet on Feb. 28, 2014 in Paris. (Dominique Charriau/Getty Images) Scarlett Johansson is pregnant HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA) — B’sha’ah tovah to Scarlett Johansson! The 29-year-old “Her” star, of recent SodaStream fame (or infamy, depending which side you’re on), is expecting her first child with French fiance Romain Dauriac, E! News reports. The couple, dating publicly since November 2012, announced… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Policy Conference March 4, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington determined to hold the line on Iran, but he also brought something new: an expansive vision of Middle East peace. The Israeli prime minister remained firm, after meeting with President Obama on Monday, in insisting that any nuclear deal must remove… Read more »
Simferopol Reform Synagogue Ner Tamid on Feb. 28, 2014. (Courtesy Simferopol Reform Synagogue Ner Tamid) Shortly after Russian soldiers occupied the Crimean city of Sevastopol last week, Leah Cyrlikova took her two children out for an afternoon stroll in a city park. When they passed a group of soldiers, they stopped to have a friendly chat and pose with them for photos. While many… Read more »
U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), at left, and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) deliver remarks during the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's Policy Conference in Washington. (Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — You’ve got your rousing church choir, your multi-denominational trio of rabbis quoting Torah, your montages of Israelis and Palestinians coming together and, above all, your pleas to please, please, please be nice to one another. Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, Jew, Christian, black, white, Hispanic — the… Read more »
Hundreds of thousands of haredi Orthodox Jews protesting a measure to draft them into the Israeli military, March 2, 2014. (Yaakov Naumi/FLASH90) JERUSALEM (JTA) — Beneath banners invoking historic calamities from the Egyptian enslavement to the Holocaust, hundreds of thousand of haredi Orthodox men gathered on the streets of Jerusalem to recite psalms and penitential prayers as they inveighed against an enemy they consider on par with Hitler and the ancient… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA)– On Mar. 8, we celebrate International Women’s Day, a day intended to celebrate the economic and social advances made by women, while at the same time drawing attention to areas that still need action. It is striking that this year the day falls so close to Purim.… Read more »
Mallory Danielle Hulsey, daughter of Renee and Howard Hulsey, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, March 1 at Congregation Anshei Israel. She is the granddaughter of Sandra and William Yalen of Tucson. Mallory attends Tucson Hebrew Academy. She enjoys baskeball, art and drama. For her mitzvah project,… Read more »
Rebecca Michelle Dubin, daughter of Pamela Heiman Dubin and Matthew Dubin, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, March 8 at Congregation Anshei Israel. She is the granddaughter of Sandy and Elliott Heiman of Tucson, Barbara Dubin of Jarettsville, Md., and Henry Dubin of Knoxville, Md. Rebecca attends… Read more »
Victoria Hannah Yatsenko, daughter of Tatyana Nemenman and Dmitriy Yatsenko, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, March 8 at Congregation Chaverim. She is the granddaughter of Rita Divinskaya and Lev Nemenman and Anna and Yan Yatsenko, all of Tucson. Victoria attends Esperero Canyon Middle School, where she… Read more »
