Neshama Carlebach As the August premiere of the Broadway musical “Soul Doctor” drew to a close, the daughter of the show’s subject, the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, took to the stage. Neshama Carlebach invited the cast and audience to join her in singing her father’s legendary hit, “Am Yisrael Chai,” which… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — In late July, the Palestinian Authority’s official television channel featured a girl reciting a poem with the words “our enemy is Satan, Zion with a tail.” Two days earlier, the Palestinian Authority minister of religious affairs had compared the recently restarted Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations to… Read more »
Conservative synagogues are looking for ways to revitalize the movement and make it more appealing to young Jews. (United Synagogue) NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s being billed as the “Conversation of the Century.” When the main synagogue organization of Conservative Jewry gathers this weekend in Baltimore to celebrate its centennial, there will be a lot to talk about. The number of synagogues affiliated with the group, the United Synagogue… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Last week, the Pew Research Center released the first national demographic study of Jewish Americans in more than a decade. Like all such studies, there are disagreements at the edges about the accuracy of some of the results, but the study’s most significant findings have… Read more »
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, founder of Shas and Sephardic sage, dies at 93. TEL AVIV (JTA) — Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the Israeli sage who founded the Sephardic Orthodox Shas political party and exercised major influence on Jewish law, has died. Yosef died Monday at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. He was 93. He served as Israel’s Sephardic chief rabbi from 1973… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — Since the release of the Pew report on American Jews, the question I’ve been asked most often is what surprises me about it. What surprises me most is that anybody is surprised. The Pew report points to a series of phenomena that are well known… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — What would happen if some of the biggest players in American Jewish life sat down and debated the implications of the new Pew Research Center’s survey of U.S. Jewry? After last week’s landmark study, I talked to nine Jewish philanthropists and organizational leaders about the… Read more »
Hundreds of thousands of mourners attended the funeral procession of Shas spiritual leader Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who was buried at the Sanhedriya cemetery on Oct. 7, 2013. (Yaakov Naumi/Flash90) JERUSALEM (JTA) — I didn’t need to ask directions. Stepping out of the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, I saw them, men in hats and coats walking together slowly, a steady stream moving east along one of Jerusalem’s central thoroughfares to the funeral of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. At 5 p.m.,… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In 2008, Daniel Sobajian listened to President Obama’s inaugural speech and liked what he heard. “He said go out and help your community and make a difference,” recalled Sobajian, then an eighth-grader at the Sinai Akiba Academy in Los Angeles. “I realized just how privileged I… Read more »
DETROIT (JTA) — Take heart, America. Together we can save Detroit while earning some fabulous prizes. For a mere $500, you can have an abandoned home. Pony up $25,000 and get your name name engraved on City Hall. A cool $50 million will earn you the deed to the… Read more »
Models portraying Adam and Eve at the Genesis-themed opening of London's JW3 Jewish community center, Sept. 29, 2013. (Blake Ezra Photography) (JTA) — At his office in London’s newly opened, $80 million Jewish community center, Raymond Simonson fumbles with a state-of-the-art telephone switchboard. “Sorry, I’m embarrassed, but we’ve only just moved into our offices,” says Simonson, the 40-year-old boss of London’s first American-style JCC, which opened Sunday. “Now the article… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Meals on Wheels may disappear, Iran sanctions are at risk and yoga is filling in the gaps. This is what the federal government shutdown looks like in Jewish Washington. While national Jewish organizations are sorting through the essential services that the impasse may cut, regional Jewish… Read more »
A 2009 event in the Washington area was part of an effort by groups focused on engaging young American Jews. NEW YORK (JTA) — If you’re pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Jewish identity building, what do you do when a survey comes along showing that the number of U.S. Jews engaging with Jewish life and religion is plummeting? That’s the question facing major funders of American Jewish… Read more »
The remains of cars and other debris at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, following an attack by Islamic militants, Sept. 26, 2013. (Kenyan Presidential Press Service/via Getty Images) (JTA) — When Rina Attias phoned to say that she was trapped with terrorists inside Nairobi’s Westgate mall, her husband Albert replied with a short instruction: Hang up right now. Albert Attias, the head of the Jewish community in the Kenyan capital and an Israeli military veteran, wanted to… Read more »
Imagine this scenario: President Obama delivers an address to the nation, in which he says he would use force if Syria doesn’t strip itself from its chemical arsenal. Later, on the same day, National Security Advisor Susan Rice appears in a public event and dismisses the president’s words, quoting… Read more »
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is prepared to confront Iran on its own in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — The “credible military threat” against Iran that Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to hear while he was in the United States this week eventually emerged — from his own lips. The Israeli prime minister, in a blunt speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, warned that Israel… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — There are a lot more Jews in America than you may have thought — an estimated 6.8 million, according to a new study. But a growing proportion of them are unlikely to raise their children Jewish or connect with Jewish institutions. The proportion of Jews… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, arrive in New York, Sept. 29, 2013. (Kobi Gideon/GPO/Flash 90) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Worried that he may be losing the biggest stick in his arsenal when it comes to Iran — the threat of a U.S. strike — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in Washington for a meeting Monday with President Obama prepared to speak out. But friends,… Read more »
The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Teenagers Mark Matsuki and Leon Feldman came to study in the Boston area this summer as strangers and left as friends, unintentionally regrafting family-like branches of a tree that first took root four generations… Read more »
BALTIMORE (JTA) – Needing a gift for retiring New York Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera, the Baltimore Orioles pitched their idea for a sculpture to the Israel-born artist Omri Amrany. No surprise there, even though Amrany knows nothing about baseball. The 59-year-old Amrany, now living in the Chicago area, has… Read more »
