Posts By Jigsaw Digital

CHICAGO (JTA) — What a long, strange trip it’s been for Shu Eliovson. The American-born resident of Kfar Maimon, a religious moshav in southern Israel, Eliovson is CEO and co-founder of the tech start-up Likeminder, an anonymous social networking site for “authentic conversation” with “likeminded” people. He is also an ordained rabbi,… Read more »

CHARLESTON, S.C. (JTA) — My father died a few weeks ago. The hardest part of the shiva was when it ended. Friends and family were, by and large, no longer visiting. I was alone in pain and agony. I thought of this reality during my visit to the Emanuel… Read more »

(JTA) — Whether it’s first love or night swimming, many American Jews have nostalgic memories from Jewish summer camp. For the first class of campers to attend the Union for Reform Judaism’s flagship camp in Warwick, New York, those memories just turned 50 years old. The URJ’s Kutz Camp, known… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – After facing criticism for its handling of inappropriate behavior by a convert-supervising rabbi who turned out to be a mikvah-peeping voyeur, the country’s main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group has released key guidelines aimed at preventing abuses during the conversion process. The Rabbinical Council of America is recommending that would-be… Read more »

PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — On July 4, 1965, 40 people gathered outside this city’s Independence Hall for the first Annual Reminder demonstration on behalf of civil rights for gays. For this weekend’s 50-year commemoration, thousands attended a ceremony that included a reenactment of the initial protest. The milestone, which comes… Read more »

(JTA) — Michael Oren is my friend. During his nearly five years as Israel’s ambassador to the United States, we’d speak on an almost daily basis. Often those phone calls would come at 3 or 4 a.m., Washington time, and Michael, enduring another sleepless night, would share his fears… Read more »

(JTA) — To anyone who has read a rock-and-roll biography or caught an episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music,” it is a sadly familiar tale: An artist achieves great success only to self destruct. There’s something called the “27 Club,” made up of a surprisingly number of influential musicians… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — My father passed away nearly 13 years ago, and while I think about him daily, every so often there are moments when I especially miss him. Last week’s Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage was one of those moments. You see, my father, Rabbi Steven… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — You may have seen them scanning the terminal, eyes wide with disbelief, on their first visit to Israel.  In my family we call their condition, which afflicts mostly young Jews from small Jewish communities, the Ben Gurion Syndrome — a sense of shock induced by encountering… Read more »

BOSTON (JTA) — Four years ago, I stood under a chuppah with the woman I was about to marry overlooking a valley in Massachusetts. I have an emotional memory of sweetness and joy from my wedding day, but I can’t recall many specific moments. What I do remember vividly… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In nuclear talks between Iran and the major powers, it’s deadline time, and skeptics on both sides are laying out red lines in a bid to shape a final deal. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader who had been wary of the talks, last week outlined his… Read more »

It’s summer, that time of year when everyone drops everything they’re doing, finds a quiet stretch of sandy shore and spends all day delving into their new favorite books. Or maybe not. But whatever your plans, there’s no denying that the season brings a bumper crop of literary offerings,… Read more »

LONDON (JTA) — Like many European Jews, Stephen Lever has mostly stopped wearing his yarmulke on the street in recent years. A Londoner, Lever said he fears joining the hundreds of Jews accosted annually in his native United Kingdom, often by Muslim or Arab extremists seeking to exact retribution… Read more »

(Kveller via JTA) — I was home, caring for my 4-pound preemie daughter, sick wife and two sons when I got the crushing message from work. Time Warner, parent company of CNN, was refusing me the 10 paid weeks of caregiving leave that others got. I knew immediately how… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – From the man who married her grandmother to the man who married her daughter, from working a room full of bar mitzvah guests on behalf of her husband’s political career to headlining major pro-Israel events during her own, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s journey has never wandered far from Jews. Clinton’s Jewish encounters have… Read more »

(JTA) – This time, Israel and its supporters came prepared. Anticipating what they believed would be an unfair U.N. report on last summer’s Gaza War, the Israeli government and friendly groups in the United States were ready with at least three reports they say better reflects the reality of… Read more »

LOS ANGELES (JTA) – Conflict between Arabs and Jews in the Middle East now appears a permanent condition, but it didn’t have to be that way, according to a one-hour PBS special premiering on June 30. “1913: The Seeds of Conflict” traces the relationship between the two Semitic tribes… Read more »

(JTA) — Good deeds can be contagious. Just ask Laura Marks, a British Jew who is widely credited with creating one of her community’s most widely celebrated new traditions: an annual Mitzvah Day, now in its 11th consecutive year, in which thousands of British Jews perform charity work in retirement homes,… Read more »

UMM EL-KHEIR, West Bank (JTA) — They dig their fingers into the dirt, their knees bearing into the ground as they embed sprigs of thyme in identical rows. The sun beats down on the small plot, and the work can be tedious, but these volunteers — most of them… Read more »

As Wednesday’s massacre in Charleston demonstrated,  houses of worship face a particularly difficult security challenge. Unlike schools, churches such as the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal, where nine people were gunned down by a lone shooter on Wednesday, need to stay open and accessible to carry out their mission of… Read more »