Posts By Jigsaw Digital

Jewish leaders in Britain have outlined the process they will follow in seeking to identify a successor to the current chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks. (Office of the Chief Rabbi)

LONDON (JTA) — Increased transparency and the inclusion of women’s voices will be cornerstones of the process that Orthodox leaders in Britain have devised to find a replacement for the country’s longtime chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, who will step down in September 2013. Stephen Pack, the president of… Read more »

Carolina Duer, known as "The Turk," defended her boxing title Nov. 12 in Buenos Aires. (Facebook)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — In many ways, Carolina Raquel Duer is a typical middle-class Jewish kid from Buenos Aires. She attended a Jewish day school, spent time working and traveling in Israel and celebrated her Bat Mitzvah at a Conservative synagogue. But when she stepped into the ring… Read more »

Leo Bretholz, a Holocaust survivor, testifying at a House Foreign Relations Committee hearing on allowing lawsuits to go ahead against SNCF, the French national railroad, for its role in deporting Jews to death camps, Nov. 16, 2011. Bretholz fled from such a transport. (Foreign Affairs Committee Republicans)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The U.S. House of Representatives again is considering Holocaust compensation legislation that has pit survivors against some leading Jewish organizations. The House Foreign Affairs Committee heard testimony Wednesday on a bill that would make it easier for claimants to make their case against Holocaust-era insurers in… Read more »

Tel Aviv – Pictures of unarmed demonstrators clashing with police and security forces have become the defining images of the Arab Spring. The wave of mass protests and demonstrations has led to the collapse of despotic regimes including those led by Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Tunisia’s… Read more »

Philadelphia (Jewish Exponent) — Rabbi David Ostrich, who leads the lone congregation in State College, Pa., couldn’t bring himself to sermonize last Shabbat on the scandal that’s on everyone’s mind. For one thing, it’s all too raw and too much remains unknown, said the religious leader of Congregation Brit… Read more »

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, shown campaigning in Iowas on Nov. 14, 2011, has raised concerns among pro-Israel officials for proposing a policy on foreign aid that would have recipients make their case every year. (IowaPolitics via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — “Starting from zero,” the foreign assistance plan touted by leading Republican candidates at a debate, is getting low marks, and not just from Democrats and the foreign policy community. Pro-Israel activists and fellow Republicans also have concerns. Texas Gov. Rick Perry introduced the plan during the… Read more »

Neal Pollack (Laura Sartois/Anthology Photography)

(Tablet) — In the 1930s, Hank Greenberg chased Babe Ruth’s records and won the 1934 World Series with the Detroit Tigers. The national pastime wasn’t friendly territory for a Jewish athlete then, but by proudly staking out a claim, Greenberg proved that Jews could play the game as well… Read more »

A derogatory exchange about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu between French President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, and President Obama, shown during the U.N. General Assembly in New York, has sparked debate, Sept. 21, 2011. (Official White House photo by Samantha Appleton, via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Does Nicolas Sarkozy really hate Benjamin Netanyahu? Does President Obama really sympathize? And does it really matter? The fleeting, private exchange between the French and U.S. presidents at a summit in Cannes, France, made international headlines, and its meaning is still being parsed by political pundits… Read more »

Dennis Ross, shown speaking at a Washington Institute for Near East Policy conference, and the White House cited his desire to spend more time with his family as the reason for stepping down as President Obama's top Middle East strategist. (Stan Barouh, courtesy of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Dennis Ross got back in the driver’s seat, yet three years later the peace is still missing. Ross, a veteran of four failed presidential pushes for Middle East peace, announced Nov. 10 that he would be leaving his post as President Obama’s top Middle East strategist… Read more »

BALTIMORE (JTA) — Stare at the boy’s picture and be utterly charmed by that winning smirk. What a handsome child he is, so nattily dressed in a pinstriped suit, striking a perfect Bar Mitzvah portrait pose. Such dark eyes, such perfectly combed straight-back locks. His thumb tilts against his… Read more »

A new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency found that there is "credible" information suggesting that Iran's nuclear program has military dimensions. Pictured here is a heavy water nuclear reactor near Arak, Iran. (Wikipedia Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The international nuclear watchdog has spoken on Iran, and although its report does not have the smoking gun some had anticipated, it makes a cumulative case damning enough for the Obama administration to ask for increased sanctions. JTA canvassed Washington Iran-watchers on Tuesday afternoon in the… Read more »

The Maccabeats, Yeshiva University's a capella group, with their 2010 YouTube sensation "Candlelight" freshens up the Chanukah story. (Courtesy Jewish Community Center of Paramus, N.J.)

NEW YORK (JTA) -- My 3-year-old son is obsessed with showing people his room, sidling sheepishly over to guests and asking, “Can I show you my room?” My son reminds me how important our "place" is -- "A Room of One's Own," in Virginia Wolff’s words. Our rooms make us… Read more »

A woman on King George Street in Jerusalem appears perplexed picking from the array of sufganiyot choices for Chanukah. (Nati Shohat/Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — They’re making sufganiyot on the streets of Israel; Chanukah must be near. Actually it started feeling like Chanukah here about two days after Sukkot, when the first vendors started frying the delicious and caloric doughnuts in vats of oil in front of bakeries and on the… Read more »

Palestinian Authority President Mahmou Abbas welcomes hundreds of Palestinians released as part of the prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Oct. 18. (Yossi Zamir/Flash 90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ statehood push at the United Nations may be fizzling, but his supporters insist that he can find a way out of the impasse. “Abu Mazen is a powerful leader and is very persuasive,” said Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of Israel’s Knesset,… Read more »

Chanukah mini-doughnuts are called ponchiki in Russian and ponchik in Yiddish. (Barry Kaplan/Jerusalem)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Latkes and sufganiyot, the jelly-filled doughnuts especially popular in Israel, are well-known Chanukah fare made with oil to signify the holiday tale. Lesser known is the tradition of cheese and the story of Judith. Like the Chanukah story, which is part of the Apocrypha — books not… Read more »

BOSTON (JTA) — Judah Maccabee, meet the Golem of Prague. And Rebecca Rubin, Engineer Ari, and Nathan and Jacob, two brothers who are part of a modern American Jewish family. They are among the characters who take center stage in this year’s crop of new children’s books for Chanukah,… Read more »

Jason Alexander, meets with Israeli President Shimon Peres at Peres' residence in Jerusalem, Oct. 25, 2011. (Yossi Zamir/Flash90/JTA)

(JTA) — To those who know him as the lovably neurotic and lazy George Costanza from TV’s “Seinfeld,” there was something comic — if not downright ridiculous — in seeing actor Jason Alexander being asked by an elder statesman of Middle East diplomacy about making peace between Israelis and… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — America’s relations with the Arab world have been strained for decades, but the Arab world is not all of a piece. The pre-eminent enemies of Israel and the West, Syria and Iran, are totalitarian. Egypt, since the 1970 death of the nationalist hero-tyrant Gamal Abdel… Read more »

Ava Sarah Keyrallah was born in Paris on Oct. 31, 2011, the day the United Nations celebrated the 7 billionth child being born. (Courtesy Celine Abisror)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Could the 7 billionth person on the planet be Jewish? According to the United Nations Population Fund, the Earth welcomed its 7 billionth resident on Oct. 31. Statistically, the newborn was most likely a boy in India or China. The symbolic title was given to Danica… Read more »

Many parents savor memories of cozy nights reading to their young children, looking at beautiful illustrations, and appreciating the cadence of a story told well. Those moments connect children not only to their parents, but also to a love of reading so vital to literate, inquisitive young minds. The… Read more »