Yearly Archives 2015

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a phone call with supporters on Thursday, President Barack Obama characterized opponents of the Iran deal as being backed by “billionaires” and urged those listening in to win over “squishy” lawmakers considering opposing the deal. Opponents “would be opposed to any deal with Iran,” Obama told… Read more »

  Updated 8.5.15 WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ahead of what may be the toughest diplomatic battle of his career, a final bid to kill the Iran nuclear deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suddenly found himself facing down a terrorist threat – apparently from Jews. The flow of Iran… Read more »

(JTA) – For years it has been written about, and on the night of July 23 it was sealed: Jon Stewart is proud to be Jewish. With just two weeks left before he leaves “The Daily Show” following a 16-year run as host – and well ahead of the… Read more »

Having just returned from several weeks in Israel, I am struck by the fact that a very significant aspect of the Iran debate is receiving very little attention in the American news media: the fact that the mainstream Israeli left is just as strongly opposed to the agreement as… Read more »

Rep. Martha McSally (R.-Ariz.) will be one of more than 40 U.S. lawmakers traveling to Israel next month to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prior to a Congressional vote on the nuclear deal with Iran. Congress has until Sept. 17 to vote on the agreement the United States and five other countries (known… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — There have been three major polls of American Jews since the announcement of the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran — by the L.A. Jewish Journal, The Israel Project and J Street— all with significantly different results. Two show U.S. Jewish support for the Iran nuclear… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will speak to the American Jewish community and friends of Israel in a live webcast on Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2015 at 1 pm EDT. Register here to receive the web link for access to the address. Participation is free and open to all. The… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Six marchers were stabbed at Jerusalem’s annual gay pride parade — allegedly by the man who stabbed three people at the parade in 2005. One victim in Thursday’s stabbings was in critical condition and two were in serious condition. The alleged assailant — Yishai Schlissel, a… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) – Seventy-nine summers after Marty Glickman’s Olympics uniform was rendered as useless as a jilted bride’s wedding dress, his daughter Nancy wore the same uniform to light the cauldron that officially opened the European Maccabi Games here. Her late father’s removal from the U.S. track team hours… Read more »

Egg banks report that they cannot meet the demand for Jewish donations. (Ian Waldie/Getty Images)

ROCKVILLE, Md. (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) – Laura has donated her eggs four times to women who needed help having children. “It gave me a real sense of purpose,” she said. “It really is a great personal pleasure to know that I have something that changes someone’s life.”… Read more »

(Jewniverse via JTA) — On these hottest days of summer – especially when parts of the United States are rationing water – we should thank the late Israeli engineer Simcha Blass for helping farmers figure out how to best harness the water they do have. Blass revolutionized drip irrigation in the early 1930s,… Read more »

In September 2013, I gathered with a group of friends to share feelings and reflections on the suicide death of one our friends, Deb Tambor, who had been struggling with a variety of issues related to leaving the insular Hasidic Jewish world. Next to me sat Faigy Mayer, a… Read more »

(JTA) – For many years Rami Waisman, the director of a major jewelry chain, was earning enough to give back handsomely to the Jewish communal institutions in his eastern Ukraine hometown,  Dnepropetrovsk. But these days Waisman is struggling and can no longer financially support such institutions as the local synagogue,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama will not alter the terms of Jonathan Pollard’s parole once he is released, a signal that Israel’s struggle to bring him to the country whose citizenship he has assumed will outlast his November release date. “Mr. Pollard will serve his sentence as mandated… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Fewer than 800 miles from our shores, a deeply disturbing crisis is unfolding as tens of thousands of citizens of the Dominican Republic face deportation from their country simply because of their heritage. Tragically, people of Haitian descent who were born in the Dominican Republic… Read more »

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — When the United States frees convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in November, many in Israel will celebrate the moment for which they have fought and hoped. What Pollard’s release won’t do, officials and analysts say, is make most Israelis feel any better about the nuclear deal with Iran. Pollard, who was convicted… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) – Call it a double miracle for the pastor who would be president: Mike Huckabee managed to unite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama while grabbing the spotlight from Donald Trump. Netanyahu’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, slammed Huckabee, a Republican… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Turn off the ads, turn down the noise and read, listen and consult. That’s what five key Jewish lawmakers say they are planning for the five to seven weeks they have to contemplate their vote on the Iran nuclear deal. There are 28 Jews in Congress,… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – When the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles came out with a strongly worded statement last week opposing the Iran nuclear deal, it became one of a handful of federations across the country to stake out a clear position on the agreement. “This Iran deal… Read more »

I recently wrote an article outlining how and why the new well-funded Adelson/Netanyahu/Republican/Evangelical coalition has emerged as the new pro-Israel voice in the U.S. — supplanting the traditional majority of American Jews who are increasingly demonized for expressing honest and heartfelt concerns about the policies and statements of the… Read more »