Posts By Jigsaw Digital

BOSTON (JTA) — Growing up in Bosnia, Merima Kljuco was familiar with the Sarajevo Haggadah. The medieval, illuminated manuscript was considered a treasure of the Bosnian National Museum for more than a century. Its 600-year journey from Spain through Italy and then Sarajevo, and its survival through persecution and… Read more »

Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, seen in the courtroom of the District Court in Tel Aviv on March 31, 2014 where he was convicted of taking bribes when he was Jerusalem's mayor. (Ido Erez/Pool/Flash 90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Now we know one thing for sure: Ehud Olmert will never again be prime minister of Israel. Olmert, who led Israel’s government from 2006 to 2009, was convicted Monday morning of taking bribes in the Holyland affair, a scandal involving the illegal construction of high-rise… Read more »

Israelis calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard during President Obama's visit to Jerusalem, March 19, 2013. (Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

 WASHINGTON (JTA) — Possibilities raised during efforts to resolve the current crisis over Israeli-Palestinian peace talks include freeing Jonathan Pollard, a partial settlement freeze, guarantees that Palestinians won’t push for international recognition and a mass prisoner release.  Officials close to the talks confirmed to JTA that U.S. Secretary of… Read more »

Demonstrators rally ouside of the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby March 25, 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — For 20 or so minutes last week, the issue of religious freedom was cast as a struggle between working women and Muslim and Jewish butchers. The pointed questions posed March 25 to the Obama administration’s chief lawyer by three U.S. Supreme Court justices got to the… Read more »

BOSTON (JTA) — Frolicking frogs and magical matzah balls are featured in this season’s crop of new Passover books for children that are sure to engage, inform, entertain and inspire. David A. Adler, author of the hugely popular early reader “Cam Jansen” series, offers “The Story of Passover.” Adler… Read more »

(JTA) — When the leaders of Winnipeg’s Jewish federation sat down 13 years ago to try to figure out a way to reverse the community’s decline, they came up with a novel idea: recruit Jews from overseas. The idea was pretty straightforward. Capitalizing on the pro-immigration policies of their… Read more »

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas, March 29, 2014. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

LAS VEGAS (JTA) — The GOP Jewish faithful descended in force on Sin City, turning out in record numbers and striking a feisty, combative tone at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual conference. According to organizers, some 400 people attended the gathering, where they were feted with poker and golf… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Artem Zaptotski, from Lutsk, in western Ukraine, sits in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, sharing his room with a French Hasid. Seeing that I speak Hebrew and wear a kippah, the Hasid asks if he should encourage Zaptotski to put on tefillin. No, I tell him. Zaptotski… Read more »

(JTA) — The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has pitted Jewish leaders from both countries against each other, touching off a discordant exchange between prominent rabbis on opposite sides of the border. The discord had been brewing since the onset of the protests in Ukraine in November, but it… Read more »

BALTIMORE (JTA) – In the biblical tradition of lingering in the desert en route to the Promised Land, Major League Baseball teams are packing up and embarking on their exodus from Arizona (and Florida) spring training sites to begin the new season. Rosters won’t be finalized until this weekend,… Read more »

Scarcely a week goes by, it seems, without Israel’s Minister of Defense Moshe Ya’alon getting his name into the headlines for provocative statements about the United States and its leaders. First, he called US Secretary of State John Kerry “obsessive and messianic” for his efforts to mediate a peace… Read more »

Sid Schwarz

ROCKVILLE, Md. (JTA) — Increasing numbers of Jewish institutions are starting to pay attention to the disabled in our midst. The needs of this part of our community were in the communal spotlight in February, thanks to it being Jewish Disability Awareness Month. As with so many categories of… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — A key component that unifies a people or nation is a common language. The Jewish people are no exception; the Hebrew language is an essential element of what constitutes the Jewish nation. Hebrew often is the only common language in the room – the lingua… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The last time Ambassador Samuel Lewis was at an Anti-Defamation League podium was in April 2008 as part of a roundtable celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary. The speakers were each asked to share their most vivid and representative recollections of Israel. Sam, a distinguished State Department… Read more »

A Karaite house of worship in Yevpatoria in Crimea. (Leonid Dzhepko/Via Wikimedia Commons)

(JTA) — Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the strategically critical peninsula that dangles from Ukraine into the Black Sea, has drawn international condemnation. But for the leader of the All-Ukrainian Organization of Crimean Karaites — a group with an unusual heritage that draws from Jewish traditions — joining Russia is… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – Be afraid. Be very afraid. Even if you converted to Judaism under Orthodox auspices, your conversion may be called into question by the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and the Rabbinical Council of America, the main centrist Orthodox rabbinical group in the United States. If you live… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Obama administration is scrambling to salvage Israeli-Palestinian talks threatened by disputes over core identity issues for each side: recognition of the state’s Jewish character for Israel, the release of prisoners for the Palestinians. Martin Indyk, the peace process envoy for U.S. Secretary of State John… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) – In the lead-up to last year’s Knesset elections, the pro-settlement Jewish Home party released a controversial ad showing party chairman Naftali Bennett smiling alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The message was clear: Netanyahu will be prime minister, but a vote for Jewish Home would… Read more »

Protesters lighting memorial candles at a rally in Budapest against a government plan to erect a statue presenting Hungary as an innocent victim of Nazi occupation, March 23, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — A lone heckler tried to disrupt him, but Hungarian lawmaker Janos Hargitai was undeterred as he spoke earlier this month at a memorial day gathering in Hungary commemorating the 1848 revolution there. The holiday marks Hungary’s attempt to break free from the Austrian Empire, and… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Ritz has a new bacon-flavored cracker hitting shelves — with kosher certification The signature O.U.-Dairy symbol appears on the box of the Nabisco nosh. “There was much discussion over the decision about this product,” acknowledged Rabbi Moshe Elefant, COO of the Orthodox Union Kashrut Department.… Read more »