When I write about books, they tend to be travel-related because — well — I’m a travel editor. But the richly depicted Chasidic world of Shulem Deen’s new “All Who Go Do Not Reurn” can seem so foreign — even to the granddaughter of shtetl-raised Yidden — the memoir… Read more »
Georges Biard/Wikimedia Commons (JTA) — Last summer our family went to southern Europe on holiday. During our stay at a hotel, our son Dylan went to the swimming pool. A short time later he came running back to the room, upset. A man at the pool had started hurling insults at him.… Read more »
Henry Winkler will speak at Jewish Family & Children's Services Celebration of Caring dinner on Tuesday, April 14, 2015.
Known to the world as “The Fonz,” the character he played for a decade on TV’s “Happy Days,” Henry Winkler fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming an actor. He won two Golden Globe Awards, received three Emmy nominations and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Fonzie’s… Read more »
Masha Shumatskaya fled Donetsk, Ukraine, in June 2014. (Uriel Heilman)
(JTA) — Masha Shumatskaya never imagined she would be a war refugee, even after that first night last spring when she dragged the mattress off her bed and into her windowless hallway to protect herself from flying glass in the event a bomb shattered her windows. But after weeks… Read more »
Craig Taubman has opened the Pico Union Project in a historic synagogue building in downtown Los Angeles as a home for culutral, religious and community events. (Anthony Weiss)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — On the first floor of the Pico Union Project, members of the Women’s Mosque of America are preparing the historic sanctuary for prayers, spreading long bolts of cloth on the floor, hanging a banner from the organ loft and placing an open copy of the… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — For years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has compared Iran to the biblical Persia, the ancient kingdom where the Jewish people were nearly annihilated through the evil designs of the arch-villain Haman. But when an American-born rabbi, widely seen as a religious moderate who… Read more »
Mark Halter, second from right, and Hassen Chalghoumi, in white cap, at a mass rally in Paris following the shootings at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and the Hyper Cacher supermarket, Jan. 11, 2015. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
PARIS (JTA) — A burst of applause greeted Holocaust survivor Marek Halter and his close friend, Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, as they entered the Synagogue de la Victoire together in January. Halter, a celebrated author and friend of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, is known for his outreach to moderate… Read more »
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, thir from left, in Lausanne, Switzerland, with his counterparts from the other world powers negotiating with Iran before the nuclear talks resumed, March 30, 2015. (U.S. State Department/Flickr)
(JTA) – Diplomats in Lausanne, Switzerland, have extended their deadline on a framework accord on Iran’s nuclear program. But even if an agreement is reached this week, it’s merely a way station toward a comprehensive deal that is due by June 30. If a deal is reached, who needs to approve… Read more »
Amy Klein: A strong support system is vital for those going through infertility, IVF, miscarriage, egg freezing, surrogacy and adoption. (Michal Solomon)
(JTA) — I recently attended the bris of my friend’s son and it was the first such occasion at which I was not crying tears of sadness for myself. Two years ago I was at her older son’s bris, and I remember pretending my copious tears were of joy. In reality, all I could think was:… Read more »
A Ukrainian couple at pre-flight briefing for immigrants to Israel in Kiev, March 23, 2015. (Ben Sales)
KIEV (JTA) — Tatyana Orul would have moved to Israel years ago if not for her job as a television journalist in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, which interested her too much to give up. But when bombs started falling next to her house last year, she reconsidered.… Read more »
(JTA) — Ayelet Tsabari acted as a child and teen, appearing in Habima’s youth performances in Israel, a commercial and some student films. Although Tsabari no longer acts, the author of the award-winning “The Best Place on Earth” feels that the experience of fiction writing is not entirely unlike… Read more »
Participants at one of Michael Hebb's "test" seders use the resources from Seder2015.org. (Scott Macklin)
An appreciation for classics and architecture does not necessarily foster interest in the Passover seder. However, those interests are what have led Michael Hebb, a former restaurateur and the founder of meal-related projects such as Death Over Dinner and Drugs Over Dinner, to adapt Passover to the digital age.… Read more »
Ilya and Luba Tolkachov and their 22-month-old son in the tiny one-room apartment they share with Ilya's mother. (Ben Sales/JTA)
KIEV (JTA) — In a crowded room of the Tolkachov family’s tiny apartment here, a couch and twin bed sit kitty-corner from each other, sandwiching a small crib. In another corner, a wooden table is cluttered with a computer and some toys. Since October, three generations of the Tolkachov… Read more »
A homeless man in Jerusalem. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel has emerged as one of the developed world's most economically unequal countries. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel got his wish in last week’s elections: a larger and more stable right-wing government marching in lockstep on security and diplomacy. But while the coming coalition may be more unified when it comes to the conflict with the Palestinians, it… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama’s refusal to accept Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ostensible recommitment to a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has watchers of the U.S.-Israel relationship wondering if the recent crisis is a mere speed bump or a sign of a deeper shift in ties… Read more »
Rabbi Tsipi Gabai blesses newly named Tom Sosnik at Tehiyah Day School in El Cerrito, Calif., March 13, 2015. (Misha Bruk)
(j. weekly) — In the middle of the school day on March 13, the community at Tehiyah Day School in El Cerrito, Calif., gathered to give a boy his name. The boy in question was a bit older than is typical in a naming ceremony. Wearing a white button-down… Read more »
The cover of "Lincoln and the Jews: A History," by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell. (Courtesy of Thomas Dunne Books)
(JTA) – A whopping 16,000 books have been written about President Abraham Lincoln. But a new book and an exhibit at the New York Historical Society tell a previously untold story about Lincoln: his relationships with Jews. Benjamin Shapell has been collecting documents relating to Lincoln and the Jews… Read more »
(Jewish Exponent) — On seder night, many of us will return home. Maybe not home to the house in which we grew up, but home to our extended family or to our family of choice. We will come back once again to the same scene — the familiar aroma… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized to Arab Israelis for his fear-mongering statement on Election Day last week. That should be the end of it, right? Not so fast! Let’s recall: as voting was proceeding, Netanyahu posted a video saying. “The rule of the right is in danger, Arab voters… Read more »
Ruth Porat, who will join Google as its chief financial officer, with the former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, left, and former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank at a panel discussion at the Brookings Institution in Washington, March 2, 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(JTA) — To the business press, the symbolism of Ruth Porat’s move from her position as chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley to her newly announced perch as Google’s CFO of the future couldn’t be more obvious — it represents a shift in power from Wall Street to Silicon… Read more »
