Posts By Jigsaw Digital

The University of Arizona Poetry Center will present a Jan. 8 memorial reading from 7 to 8 p.m., to witness, remember, and commemorate the 4th anniversary of Jan. 8, 2011, when a gunman killed six people and wounded 13 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, outside a Tucson Safeway store. In… Read more »

Celebrated French Jewish cartoonist Georges Wolinski was killed in the attack on the Paris headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, 2015. (Wikipedia Commons)

(JTA) — An attack on the Paris headquarters of a French satirical magazine has left at least 12 people dead, including the Jewish caricaturist Georges Wolinski. Two of the reported fatalities in Wednesday’s attack were police officers, according to the French daily newspaper Le Monde. Later reports said that… Read more »

U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) joins House Speaker John Boehner(R-OH) and other members of the newly elected House Republican leadership team for a news conference at the U.S. Capitol, Nov. 13, 2014 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – A recent revelation that a top Republican addressed a white supremacist group is reviving an age-old Washington debate: How important are false steps from the past in evaluating a party today? Not very, say Republicans, in the case of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the majority whip… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, May 14, 2014. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

TOKYO (JTA) — Reading his Japanese-language newspaper over breakfast, Rabbi Mendy Sudakevich spotted an ad for a self-help DVD titled “Get rich like the Jews.” “Almost anywhere else in the world, such an ad” — published in several widely read Japanese dailies — “would have been deemed anti-Semitic incitement,”… Read more »

Did Argentina's president really adopt a Jewish man to prevent him from beconing a werewolf?

(JTA) — Last week, JTA published an unusual item about a werewolf legend that generated headlines worldwide. The item was about Yair Tawil, the first Jewish man adopted as a godson by Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. The adoption took place under a longstanding custom that presidents adopt… Read more »

Beb Ammi Ben-Israel, the leader of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem, who died on Dec. 27, celebrating the festival of Shavuot in 2011. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

DIMONA, Israel (JTA) — Yitzchok Elefant ascended the stage in his black hat and coat and turned to face an auditorium full of people in flowing white shirts and pants with matching scarves and caps. Standing beneath a banner reading “A tribute to his majesty, our spiritual leader, the… Read more »

Mario Cuomo, seated, was New York's governor when he waa a featured speaker at the 57th General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations held in New Orleans, November 1988. Showing their appreciation of the governor's comments are CJF President Mandell Berman, right, and Daniel Shapiro of New York. (Robert A. Cumins)

(JTA) — Mario Cuomo, a three-term New York governor, was the rare politician who appealed to the Jewish tent’s opposite poles. A strident liberal with a nuanced understanding of the sense of vulnerability among the deeply religious in a secular society, Cuomo died of heart failure on Thursday just… Read more »

Some 30 years ago an American friend who is a political scientist, came to Israel for a professional visit. Before he headed back home, I asked him for his verdict on the Israeli political system. He didn’t hesitate: “Too much democracy.” I asked him to explain, and he said:… Read more »

(JTA) — When Carolyn Starman Hessel joined the New York-based Jewish Book Council in 1994 — at the request of friend Marsha Posner — she knew nothing about the publishing world. Since then, she’s been called the “Jewish Oprah” for her ability to help authors find audiences, and has… Read more »

Ari Engel on the European Poker Tour in Prague in 2013. (Thomas Stacha)

NEW YORK (JTA) – Ari Engel is homeless. It’s been a decade since he last held a regular job and two years since he gave up his apartment. But don’t shed any tears for him. Over the last 10 years or so, Engel has grossed about $5 million playing… Read more »

Boris Smolkin, left, and his co-stars on the Moscow set of the hit television series "My Fair Nanny" in 2006. (STS Television)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (JTA) — In the basement of one of Europe’s largest synagogues, 100 Jews are waiting to meet local film star Boris Smolkin. The crowd applauds enthusiastically as the 66-year-old funnyman, who gave his voice to Master Yoda in the Russian-language version of the “Star Wars” trilogy,… Read more »

Two officers in an elite intelligence unit, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of their activities, are among several groups of Israelis who have announced their refusal to participate in certain Israeli military activities. (Ben Sales)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Israel Defense Forces oppresses people, the letter said. The army creates inequality, perpetuates injustice and corrupts social values. The letter didn’t come from a foreign protest group, but from teachers and graduates of one of Jerusalem’s elite high schools, the Israeli Arts and Sciences… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Stephen Hawking is much in the news these days. His personal story, the subject of the recently released film “The Theory of Everything,” is already spoken of as an Oscar contender. Diagnosed in 1963 with the dreaded Lou Gehrig’s disease and given two years to… Read more »

Rachaeli Ibenboim is urging women to boycott Israeli haredi parties in March's Knesset elections unless they include female candidates. (Hadas Parush/Flash 90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Racheli Ibenboim acts as if she’s in a rush, repeatedly checking her phone before hurrying off to her next appointment exactly 30 minutes after the current one begins. The way Ibenboim tells it, she’s not just trying to keep up with a tight schedule but… Read more »

Sarabel Eisenfeld, the founder of Gan shalom, and her Portland Jewish preschoolers grating potatoes outside for Chanukah latkes. (Anthony Weiss)

PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) — Even on a cold, gray and rainy morning, the children from the Gan Shalom Collaborative School are outside, seated under a wood-framed shelter topped by corrugated plastic. With their teacher, Sarabel Eisenfeld, they grate potatoes for latkes, then cup their hands beside their heads to… Read more »

Children playing a baseball game in the streets of Havana. "For the baseball purists, those who love to go to Cuba, it's a unique culture," Kit Krieger says. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

(JTA) – To the dismay of baseball fan Kit Krieger, future travels to Cuba will no longer include get-togethers with ex-Washington Senators pitcher Connie Marrero. Marrero, who played for Washington from 1950 to 1954, died in Havana last April at age 102, a few months after Krieger’s last visit… Read more »

For years, whenever my non-Israeli friends would ask me to explain to them the meaning of the phrase “Israel being a Jewish and democratic state,” I would answer that I needed a week-long seminar to explain that. Indeed, how can a country be a full democracy when it is… Read more »

Dylan Siegel (left) and Jonah Pournazarian (Courtesy of David Siegel)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) — A fundraising campaign started quietly by two first graders two years ago to help find a cure for a rare genetic disease just passed the $1 million mark, with donations streaming in from all 50 states and 60 countries across the globe. The million-dollar achievement… Read more »

Leonard Cohen during a concert in Ramat Gan, Israel, Sept. 24, 2009. (Marko/Flash90)

BALTIMORE (JTA) — The YouTube entry is headlined, “A Christmas Version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ That Will Give You Chills!” To some, the video is giving conniptions. “Hallelujah,” one of the Canadian-Jewish songwriter/singer’s most popular compositions, was penned in 1984 and quickly zoomed past fan-favorite territory to iconic. Plenty… Read more »

At United Synagogue Youth's 2014 convention being held in Atlanta, the board voted to relax the youth organization's ban on interfaith dating. (Courtesy of United synagogue Youth)

NEW YORK (JTA) – United Synagogue Youth voted to relax its rules barring its teenage board members from dating non-Jews. The amendment was adopted Monday in Atlanta at the annual international convention of the Conservative movement’s youth group. The change affects the 100 or so teen officers who serve… Read more »