Secretary of State John Kerry, right, delivering a Joint Statement with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al-Thani in Washington, April 29, 2013. (U.S. State Department) WASHINGTON (JTA) — When it comes to the latest Arab peace initiative, two questions are circulating in Washington: Why Qatar? And why now? The three answers: Because Qatar is rich; it is scared; and why not? Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister and… Read more »
Yosef Tiefenbrun, an apprentice tailor at Maurice Sedwell's and an ordained Orthodox rabbi, modeling an outfit he put together. (David Nyanzi) NEW YORK (JTA) — Yosel Tiefenbrun looked in the mirror and he liked what he saw. The 23-year-old Chabad rabbi and apprentice at Maurice Sedwell, a bespoke tailor’s shop on London’s Savile Row, was wearing a vintage double-breasted jacket with gold buttons, tasseled Barker shoes, a claret bow tie… Read more »
An Iron Dome anti-missile battery was moved near the Israeli border town of Haifa in the hours following a second airstrike on Syrian targets, May 5, 2013. (Avishag Yashuv/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) – Twice in three days, Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace and fired on suspected weapons caches bound for Hezbollah — and nothing has happened in response. Some experts are predicting that will continue to be the case following airstrikes near Damascus on Friday and Sunday that are… Read more »
The Arab League made some headlines this week, when its representative, Sheik Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister, conveyed in Washington something that looks like a softening of the traditional Arab hard line towards the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of returning to the pre-1967 borders, he… Read more »
For beginners seeking their place in the Torah scroll, a tikkun, or guidebook, provides an excellent navigational tool. (Edmon J. Rodman) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — On Shavuot, we celebrate being given the Five Books of Moses by opening the gift and reading from the scroll. But first we need to find the place. How do we find our place in the Torah? Newbies to the ways of a Torah scroll… Read more »
People laying flowers at Umschlagplatz at the Warsaw Ghetto, the monument at the site from which Jews were deported to Treblinka. (Ruth Ellen Gruber) WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — In Warsaw, sirens wailed and church bells rang to mark the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, a valiant but failed revolt by Jewish fighters against the Nazi occupiers who already had deported hundreds of thousands of Jews to the Treblinka extermination camp. An… Read more »
Lisa Schroeder, the owner and chef of Mother's Bistro & Bar in Portland, Ore., dishes out advice along with her comfort food. (Alicia J. Rose Photography) PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) — It’s brunch time at Mother’s Bistro & Bar and owner-chef Lisa Schroeder has a small crisis on her hands involving the accidental defenestration of a busboy. Moments earlier, a server had tripped and gone flying through one of the restaurant’s large picture windows. Shattered glass… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — To get married in Israel, Dima Motel had to bring his family photo album and two of his ancestors’ birth certificates to a rabbinical court. Then an investigator quizzed his mother in Yiddish. Israel’s Chief Rabbinate often asks Russian immigrants like Motel to prove that… Read more »
Portland Jews attending the opening night of Food for Thought, a festival organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland, April 18, 2013. (Lee Ann Gauthier) PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) — Jessica Bettelheim, a business ethics lecturer at Portland State University and a young Jewish mother, has little time to spare on weekends. Like other professionals her age, she’s busy bonding with her husband and 4-year-old daughter, meeting friends at one of Portland’s many fine restaurants… Read more »
Ricotta flan with raspberry sauce is a lighter alternative to the traditional Shavuot cheesecake. (From "Helen Nash's New Kosher Cuisine") NEW YORK (JTA) — With its tradition of dairy meals, Shavuot is one of my favorite holidays. Arriving later in the spring — an ideal time to find delicious fruits, herbs and vegetables — it’s perfect for using fresh and seasonal ingredients. The four dishes I have selected for… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — I have mixed emotions about Natan Sharansky’s proposed agreement to expand the public space at the Western Wall to include the currently secluded area known as Robinson’s Arch. As a lifelong Conservative Jew, I applaud any plan that seeks to treat egalitarian worshipers and women’s… Read more »
The Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv, a museum dedicated to the memory and lifework of the slain Israeli prime minister. (Courtesy Rabin Center) TEL AVIV (JTA) — The museum dedicated to the memory of Yitzhak Rabin raises nearly half its money from labor leaders. It’s just not the labor you think. Members of U.S. labor unions raised $1.4 million for the Yitzhak Rabin Center in Tel Aviv last year, 45 percent of… Read more »
Svoboda supporters attending a party rally in western Ukraine, 2012. (Svoboda.org.ua) KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) — Marching in formation, six young men in dark jackets approach an anti-government rally in Cherkasy, a city some 125 miles southeast of Kiev. At the appointed moment, they remove their windbreakers to reveal white T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Beat the kikes.” Their jackets carry… Read more »
Rabbi David Lazar, left, showing a Torah scroll to Swedish government minister Stefan Attefall at the Great Synagogue of Stockholm, November 2011. (Regeringskansliet, The government of Sweden) (JTA) — Having grown up in a devoutly Christian home, Irene Lopez would probably not be raising her daughter Jewish if not for David Lazar, the charismatic rabbi of the Great Synagogue of Stockholm. Lopez and her Jewish husband, Samuel Sjoblom, are among the Swedes who were drawn to… Read more »
Sarah Chandler FALLS VILLAGE, Conn. (JTA) — Judaism is designed to be a person’s operating system, the platform on which other areas of one’s life functions. But for many Jews, religious practice sits on a shelf alongside theater subscriptions, gym memberships and soccer practice, relegated to one of many offerings from which… Read more »
Gene Sperling, the chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, speaking at the Reform movement's Consultation on Conscience, April 23, 2013. (Courtesy Religious Action Center) WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the battle to end the across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration, it’s all hands on deck. Increasingly for the Obama administration, which is deadlocked over the budget with the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, that means reaching out to Jews. In conference calls and in appearances… Read more »
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the chairwoman of the Republican Conference in the U.S. House of Representatives, at the center of a Jewish leaders roundtable in Washington, April 12, 2013. (Courtesy House Republican Conference) WASHINGTON (JTA) — He had them until abortion. U.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) was addressing the Reform movement’s Consultation on Conscience conference about his passion, human rights and success in creating mechanisms to combat human trafficking and shine a light on global anti-Semitism. The crowd gathered in a large… Read more »
A display of home-brewed beers. Thinking of the bonfires of Lag b'Omer, a Jewish home brewer suggests a smoked porter. (Edmon J. Rodman) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Sit back by the bonfire and pop open a brewski, it’s Lag b’Omer. Since we have been counting the Omer — a biblical measure of barley that was brought as an offering to the Temple — each evening from the second night of Passover, what… Read more »
Avraham Rivkind, the chief of surgery at Hadassah Medical Center in jerusalem, has pioneered several medical techniques, including several that helped save victims of the Boston Marathon. attacks. (Hadassah Medical Center) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Minutes after a terrorist attack killed three at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, doctors and nurses at the city’s hospitals faced a harrowing scene — severed limbs, burned bodies, shrapnel buried in skin. For Boston doctors, the challenge presented by last week’s bombing… Read more »
Members of a police SWAT team make a door-to-door search in Watertwon, Mass., for the 19-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on April 19, 2013. (Spencer Platt/Getty) (Jewish Exponent) — Shelly Levy and Ken Lebowitz had planned to bake their own challah for Shabbat on Friday, but then came the lockdown. As residents of Watertown, Mass., ground zero for the citywide manhunt for the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, they weren’t able to get… Read more »
