Posts By Jigsaw Digital

Tens of thousands of haredi Orthodox Israelis take to the streets in Jerusalem to protest a court order requiring haredi parents to send their daughters to an Emanuel school , June 17, 2010. (Abir Sultan / Flash90 / JTA)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The showdown between the Supreme Court and the parents of students at a haredi Orthodox school found guilty of discriminatory practices against Sephardic girls has brought already strained secular-religious relations in Israel to a fever pitch. A remark by Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy that the… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A recent report by Physicians for Human Rights has found that in the period after Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government engaged military and civilian health professionals in “human research and experimentation on prisoners in U.S. custody.” Appalled by these findings, a number of religious leaders… Read more »

Rabbi Elia Richetti, the president of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly, mingles with tourists outside the Jewish Museum in Venice (Ruth Ellen Gruber/JTA Photo Service)

ROME (JTA) — The years-long battle that ended recently with the dismissal of the chief rabbi of Turin, Italy, highlights a 21st-century identity crisis afflicting the oldest Jewish community in the Diaspora. Rabbi Alberto Somekh, who like all recognized rabbis in Italy is Orthodox, had served as chief rabbi… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The last time American Jews took to the streets in significant numbers to make the case for Israel’s right to defend itself, during Israel’s war with Hamas in early 2009, rockets were raining down on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. This time it’s a… Read more »

The factory in which Oskar Schindler used Jewish slave labor during World War II has been turned into a Holocaust museum. (Patti McCracken/JTA Photo Service)

KRAKOW, Poland (JTA) — In January 1994, an American tourist stepped out of a taxi into a cold, drizzling rain and entered the Jarden Jewish Bookshop at the far end of the square in the Jewish quarter of Krakow. On the counter he splayed a weeks-old copy of The… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Despite the international outcry following last week’s lethal confrontation between Israeli commandos and militant pro-Palestinian activists aboard a Turkish vessel carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza, Israel insists its naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled territory is justified and will continue. But even Israel’s closest allies backing the… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Spurred by a major grant from one of the largest Jewish foundations, the rabbinical seminaries of three major synagogue movements are forging a groundbreaking partnership to train Jewish educators. The Jim Joseph Foundation announced May 24 that it was giving a combined $33 million to the… Read more »

WASHINGTON (Forward) — It was a feather in the cap of pro-boycott activists, but for Israelis a major setback. With battle lines drawn across concert halls and stadiums hosting rock bands, the decision by mega-star Elvis Costello to cancel his planned concerts in Israel is being viewed as a… Read more »

Veit Harlan, left, directs actor Werner Krauss as Rabbi Loew in "Jew Suess," a Nazi-era propaganda film. (Zeiteist Films)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — German director Veit Harlan may have made 29 other films between 1935 and 1962, but his 1940 anti-Semitic classic “Jew Suess” guaranteed his position as the favorite director of propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels. Even to this day the film casts its baleful shadow over his… Read more »

SONOMA, Calif. (JTA) — When I was a kid, the prospect of catching polio was terrifying. We could not dive into a public swimming pool for fear we would spend the rest of our lives in an iron lung. Two Jewish doctors vanquished that disease and removed such fears… Read more »

MOSCOW (JTA) — It took them five days and nights in four hotels through three countries to deliver two vans from London to the Jews of Latvia and Lithuania. Eight British volunteers went on a “Mission Impossible,” a program of the British charity World Jewish Relief, to aid Jewish… Read more »

Republican Jews are trying to figure out what to make of Rand Paul, a self-described Tea Party backer and son of former presidential candidate Ron Paul. (Gage skidmore/flickr)

WASHINGTON (N.Y. Jewish Week) — Rand Paul, the Tea Party insurgent who was the upset victor in last month’s Kentucky Republican Senate primary, could be the biggest headache yet for a Republican Party that hopes to capitalize on the populist surge without being tainted by the movement’s extremists. While… Read more »

MOSCOW (JTA) – After decades of community-building from the top down, often with the aid of donors from overseas, can Russia’s Jewish communities build themselves from the bottom up? That’s the question that a group of, well, donors from overseas are trying to determine with a new educational program… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (j. the Jewish news weekly of Northern California) — You have 73 new e-mails. Someone just posted on your wall. You have been tagged in a photo. You turn on your cell phone: “4 missed calls” … “2 new voice mails” … and a long string of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Peter Beinart attends an Orthodox synagogue, once edited The New Republic (the closest thing to a smicha for Jewish policy wonks) and backed Sen. Joe Lieberman’s quixotic 2004 bid to become the first Jewish president. Which is why he’s always been counted among the Washington pundits… Read more »

WADI FUKIN, West Bank (JTA) — Mohammed Mansara, a 70-year-old farmer who goes by the name Abu Mazen, indicates with a sweep of his arm the fruit trees and vegetables he grows on his small plot of land in this Palestinian village in the West Bank, population 1,200. Then… Read more »

GABRIELLE DIAMOND LEVY, daughter of Helaine Levy and Yoram Levy, will celebrate becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Saturday, May 29 at Congregation Or Chadash. She is the granddaughter of Joan and Donald Diamond of Tucson, and Myriam Levy of Israel. Gabrielle attends St. Gregory College Preparatory School. She enjoys… Read more »

Michele Grace Goldstein and David Robert Clementi announce their engagement. Michele is the daughter of Dana Goldstein and Gene Goldstein, both of Tucson. She attended the University of Arizona and is now a professional makeup artist, licensed esthetician, and laser technician in Tucson. David is the son of Rosanne… Read more »

THE TUCSON JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER announced its board of directors at its annual meeting April 28. The officers are Fran Katz,chair; Barney Holtzman, vice chair; Jeff Silvyn, vice chair; Mary Cochran Wolk, vice chair; Stuart Shatken, secretary; Ed Rogoff, treasurer; Tom Warne, chair-elect; and Mark Rubin, immediate past chair.… Read more »

The philosophy of Casa Maria, as described by one volunteer, is to treat everyone kindly and with respect, and as you would like to be treated. The goal of this nonprofit organization that aids impoverished and homeless Tucsonans is most certainly a concept B’nai Tzedek teens learn through their… Read more »