The Torah ark at the newly built Tiferet Israel Este synagogue in Caracus, Venezuela, March 17, 2013. (Association Israelita de Venezuela) (JTA) — For more than a decade, Venezuelan Jews have been holding their breath, subject to the whims of a mercurial president who used his bully pulpit to intimidate, rail against Israel and embrace Iran There was the police raid of a Caracas school in 2004, allegedly to search… Read more »
Pope Francis, then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, speaking at a B'nai B'rith Argentina event commemorating Kristallnacht, Nov. 12, 2012. (Courtesy B'nai B'rith Argentina) ROME (JTA) — When the white smoke rose last week at the Vatican, signaling to the world that the College of Cardinals had chosen a new pope, Catholics weren’t the only ones waiting with bated breath. Jews, too, were eager to see whether the new pontiff would be someone… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — On page 15 of the most recent edition of the Kansas Independent Oil and Gas Association’s newsletter, beneath griping about perceived threats to the industry posed by President Obama’s tax and energy policies, was a nugget of positive news: A new coalition had formed between the… Read more »
Shoppers checking out the dried fruit stand at the Tel Aviv Carmel Market, 2009. (Liron Almog/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Puffing on a cigarette, Amnon Tubi says he always knew what scientists only recently have proven about staying healthy. “I knew that Mediterranean food is the best,” he said, surrounded by tables overflowing with tomatoes, cucumbers and oranges. “The legumes are healthy. There’s a lot… Read more »
Wine is an integral part of the Passover Seder as matzah, but for alcoholics this can pose a serious problem. (Shutterstock) NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s rare that an Orthodox rabbi chooses to omit an important Jewish ritual in his holiday celebrations. But in the spring of 2000, Rabbi Yosef Lipsker cleared his living room of furniture, set up three large dining tables and invited dozens of people to a… Read more »
PARIS (JTA) – Cigarette in one hand and cup of tea in the other, Matisyahu sat down with JTA in his closet-sized dressing room during his European tour to talk about his life, his music, how he’s raising his kids, and the recent changes in his religious outlook and… Read more »
A Palestinian policeman in the West Bank city of Ramallah standing next ot a poster with a slogan protesting the upcoming visit of President Obama, March 12, 2013. (Issam Rimawi/FLASH90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — When President Obama visits Israel next week, Gavriel Yaakov wants him to jump-start the peace process. “I’m excited,” said Yaakov, 67, sitting in a Tel Aviv mall. “I want negotiations to get to an agreement on a long-term peace with the Palestinians.” Yaakov said he… Read more »
Women of the Wall holding their monthly Rosh Chodesh service at the Western Wall, in contravention of rules barring women from wearing prayer shawls or reading from the Torah at the site, March 12, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA) JERUSALEM (JTA) — If ever there were a gathering of Women of the Wall that was going to spark a wider conflict, Tuesday’s would have been the one. For the past several months, police have detained members of the women’s prayer group during their monthly Rosh Chodesh services for… Read more »
The Lautenberg Amendment paved the way for these Iranian Jews shown arriving at Kennedy Airport in New York in 1995 to come to the United States. (Courtesy HIAS) WASHINGTON (JTA) – When the Lautenberg Amendment was introduced in 1990, it provided a mechanism for hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews to exit their crumbling country and immigrate to freedom in the United States. Since 2004, it has served as a lifeline for religious minorities fleeing the Islamic… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leading the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem, March 10, 2013. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — He’s had to bite a few bullets to get there, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lead Israel’s next government. Barring a last-minute surprise, Israel’s new governing coalition will be sworn in this week: a center-right grouping of Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud-Beiteinu faction, the centrist… Read more »
The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. BALTIMORE (JTA) – Recalling her childhood friendship with the girl across the street fills Rozanne Dittersdorf with immense sadness but also deep gratitude. More than six decades later, the pain her friend evinced still brings Dittersdorf to… Read more »
While the ancient Israelites were miraculously able to rid themselves of back-breaking bondage and enter the Promised Land with the riches taken from their Egyptian taskmasters, hundreds of thousands of less fortunate Jews in modern day Israel, have had to rely upon the every-day miracles performed by Meir Panim’s… Read more »
President Barack Obama, left, talking with Chief of Staff Jack Lew, center, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner as they walk on the colonnade of the White House, shortly before the president announced Lew as hs nominee to replace Geithner as treasury secretary, Jan. 10, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza) WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Obama believes prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace are “bleak,” but he still will urge both sides to avoid unilateral actions that might further damage a process he hopes will be back on track within a year. That was the message Obama delivered Thursday in a meeting… Read more »
BOSTON (JTA) — When he was 5 years old, Marian Marzynski’s parents hatched a plan to smuggle him out of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was 1942, and Marzynski and his family were among the 400,00 Jews rounded up two years earlier by the Nazis, confined to the 1.3-sq.-mile ghetto… Read more »
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, right, shaking hands with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Venezuelan capital of Caracus, Nov. 27, 2009. (Omar Rashidi/PPO via Getty Images) (JTA) — For more than a decade, Venezuelan Jews have been holding their breath, subject to the whims of a mercurial president who used his bully pulpit to intimidate, rail against Israel and embrace Iran. There was the police raid of a Caracas school in 2004, allegedly to search… Read more »
Manuel Trajtenberg, the chairman of the Council for Higher Education in Israel, will present a plan aimed at better integrating Israel's Arab minority into universities. (Council for Higher Education in Israel) NEW YORK (JTA) — Unlike most economists, Manuel Trajtenberg does not spend his days cloistered in university classrooms and think tanks far from the public eye. The Tel Aviv University professor gained attention in 2011, in the aftermath of massive social protests that gripped Israel, when he led a… Read more »
Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has been a prime figure in negotiations to avoid the sequester, which pro-Israel advocates worry could imperil the security of the Jewish state. (Courtesy AIPAC) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Imminent threats threading through the rhetoric at AIPAC conferences is hardly new, but this year’s alarm raising had a unique wrinkle: In addition to the prospect of a nuclear Iran, the other danger targeted by the pro-Israel lobby was domestic — sequestration. The message hammered home… Read more »
Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid hugging Jewish Home party chief Naftali Bennett following Lapid's first speech at the Knesset, Feb. 11, 2013. (Miriam Alster/Flash90.JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — When he emerged bruised but unbeaten following the Jan. 22 elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced some tough choices. Should he aim for a narrow, right-wing governing coalition comprised of haredi Orthodox, nationalist and religious Zionist parties that would give him a narrow majority… Read more »
Palestinian protesters throwing stones outside Israel's Ofer military prison in the West Bank, near Ramallah, Feb. 25, 2013. (Issam Rimawi/Flash90/JTA) JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinians were marching, rocks were flying, tires were burning and prisoners were hunger-striking. Prompted by accusations that Israel was responsible for the death of a Palestinian detainee while in an Israeli prison, West Bank Palestinians erupted last month in a wave of riots on a scale… Read more »
"Lotsa Matzah" offers some tempting ways to enjoy the unleavened bread, including "syrup on fried matzah brei, Matzah pizza, cheese piled high." (Courtesy Kar-Ben Publishing) BOSTON (JTA) — Years ago, Nancy Steiner set out to make her family Seder a bit more entertaining for her own young kids. She wrote a poem that became very popular among family and friends. “On This Night: The Steps of the Seder in Rhyme,” Steiner’s first published children’s… Read more »
