Israeli parliament members meet at the Knesset in Jerusalem, Dec. 30, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli politics looks like a big mess right now. In the past few weeks, three new parties have been launched and one party has kicked out a former partner. More changes are likely, too. It probably will get messier still if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is indicted… Read more »
Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Capitol Hill, Jan. 3, 2019. (Zach Gibson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the waning days of 2018, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., formally declared her interest in running for the presidency. Warren was not the first to do so — former Maryland Rep. John Delaney has for months been canvassing for Democratic votes in Iowa, the first caucus… Read more »
Rabbi Rachel Rubenstein is trying to engage young families in her role as executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County, New York. (Gail Conklin for the Jewish Federation of Greater Orange County)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Rachel Rubenstein knows that in the age of Kickstarter, getting young people to give to a Jewish federation can be a hard sell. “In today’s culture, we can go straight to the GoFundMe, and fund so hyper-specifically what you want to fund,” she told… Read more »
Scott Zorn The Tucson Jewish community was stunned by the news that Scott Zorn, 59, died Jan. 1, 2019, in Akron, Ohio, with hundreds of Facebook messages quickly going out to his wife, Julie; children, Haley and Dylan; and in-laws, Tucsonans Kathy and David Unger. Zorn was the director of children,… Read more »
George R.R. Martin, left, shown with "Finding Your Roots" host Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was shocked by his DNA test. (Courtesy of McGee Media/Ark Media)
(JTA) — PBS’ celebrity genealogy show “Finding Your Roots” has had plenty of Jewish guests — Bernie Sanders, Larry David, Paul Rudd and Scarlett Johansson — and the occasional guest, like Paul Ryan, who learn they have a Jewish ancestor on their family tree. But the season five premiere, which airs… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Days after launching a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren pledged her salary to HIAS, the Jewish immigration advocacy group, as long as the government is shut down. “Over 7,000 people in Massachusetts have been sent home or are working without pay… Read more »
(JTA) — The United States’ withdrawal of some 2,000 ground troops from Syria does not signal the end of the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. Pompeo made the statement Tuesday at the start of a meeting in Brazil with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin… Read more »
Many in Brazil have converted to Judaism under the supervision of Gilberto Venturas, an Orthodox rabbi, shown here with his wife, Jacqueline. (Courtesy of Sinagoga sem Froteiras)
RECIFE, Brazil (JTA) — Preparing to leave this city’s main Jewish community center, Sabrina Scherb peeks beyond its blast-proof gate into a quiet street strewn with branches and shredded mango fruits. The debris, left over from an overnight tropical storm, is not what’s worrying Scherb, a 22-year-old university student… Read more »
An Orthodox Colombian family shown in 2012. A new study revealed "widespread" Sephardic genetic ancestry across Latin American countries. (Paul Smith/For the Washington Post)
(JTA) — In a genetic study of 6,589 people from five Latin American countries, about a quarter displayed traces of what may be Sephardic Jewish ancestry. Geneticist Juan-Camilo Chacón-Duque and his colleagues published their findings last week in Nature Communications magazine, in an article titled “Latin Americans show wide-spread… Read more »
(JTA) — A New York rabbi says he has been asked by the Muslim country Qatar for advice on how to host Jewish soccer fans at the 2022 World Cup. Rabbi Marc Schneier told Bloomberg News that he was asked by Hassan Al-Thawadi, the secretary-general of the organizing committee… Read more »
(JTA) — Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg insists that the massive social network is a force for good, but the company keeps getting called out for being slow or unable to curb the worst tendencies of users and abusers. In the latest probe of its practices, The New York Times scrutinizes… Read more »
(JTA) — Louise Deser Siskel, a high school senior who presideD over the New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses Parade, says she is the first Jewish Rose queen in the parade’s 101-year history. Siskel, 18, also told the local media that she is the first LGBTQ queen and the first… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish Home party head Naftali Bennett and party leader Ayelet Shaked announced that they would leave the pro-settler party and form a new alliance ahead of national elections. Bennett, who serves as education minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, and Ayelet Shaked, the justice minister, at… Read more »
Nelly Ben-Or sits by one of her two pianos in her London home, Dec. 13, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
LONDON (JTA) — Like countless world-class pianists, Nelly Ben-Or began playing piano at the age of 5 and never stopped. That discipline helped Ben-Or, 86, became an international concert pianist and the person most widely recognized for adapting the Alexander technique for posture and movement improvement for musicians. But… Read more »
Sinatra received the yarmulke at a fundraiser for a Jewish school in New Jersey in 1981. (Courtesy of Pauline Schwartz)
(JTA) — When a huge auction was held at Sotheby’s last month of items belonging to Frank Sinatra and his wife Barbara, the item that made the most headlines was one of the smallest: a hand-knit yarmulke, owned by Frank, which was purchased for nearly $10,000 by an unknown… Read more »
Amy Heckerling at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, April 18, 2016. (Mike Coppola/Gett)
(JTA) — Officially and for the record, despite her Jewish-sounding name, Cher Horowitz is not a member of the tribe. In fact, the Valley Girl heroine of the iconic 1995 film “Clueless” was never intended to be Jewish, says her creator, Amy Heckerling. “I wasn’t thinking in terms of… Read more »
The olive trees outside of Amsterdam's Portuguese synagogue get wrapped up every year. They are shown here in February 2018. (Hans Kaljee)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Each year at the height of winter, city workers descend on the square opposite Holland’s oldest synagogue and pull gigantic yellow tarps over the canopies of 25 olive trees. The trees, each 250-300 years old, are Amsterdam’s oldest. They were brought here in 2010 from central… Read more »
Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith, center, who retired as rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Dothan, Ga., in 2017, speaks on a local interfaith panel in 2014. (Bob Howard/The Village Square/Flickr)
(JTA) — Seven years ago, Lisa and Kenny Priddle left New York to help build up the Jewish community of the small Alabama town of Dothan. They were attracted by the idea of shoring up the Jewish community in the South and also by the offer of a $50,000… Read more »
(JTA) — A medical resident at the Cleveland Clinic who wrote scores of anti-Semitic social media posts no longer works at the medical center. Dr. Lara Kollab worked at the Clinic from July 2018 – September 2018. The Clinic on Monday in a statement confirmed that Kollab no longer works… Read more »
(JTA) — The Pittsburgh Steelers’ Stronger Than Hate campaign inspired the city and the world to rally around the Jewish community in the wake of the shooting attack on a local synagogue building that left 11 dead. On Sunday, the Steelers donated $70,000 to help the Jewish community and… Read more »
