Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

(JTA) — When Israel announced that it would deny entry to Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, the decision struck many as an unprecedented step. But Israel has blocked multiple lawmakers from coming in recent years. The difference this time is that it’s lawmakers from the United States who are… Read more »

(JTA) — A pickup truck drove into a row of Jewish protesters demonstrating at the street entrance to an ICE detention center in Rhode Island on Wednesday night. It appears no one was seriously injured. Protesters were then pepper-sprayed, according to people present at the protest. Hundreds of Jewish… Read more »

This is a developing story. (JTA) — Israel’s decision on Thursday to ban Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from entering the country has quickly prompted a wave of impassioned responses from across the Jewish community. Pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, and prominent Democratic lawmakers are already objecting to the… Read more »

(JTA) — Israel’s deputy foreign minister confirmed that Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar will not be allowed to enter the country. “We won’t allow those who deny our right to exist in this world to enter Israel. In principle this is a very justified decision,” Tzipi Hotovely told… Read more »

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and Pima County of Environmental Quality are issuing a Health Watch for ozone effective Aug. 7 and 8 in the Tucson area. ADEQ recommends that people limit outdoor activity while the HW is in effect, especially children and adults with respiratory problems. Ground… Read more »

LANSING, Michigan (JTA) — Tom Dalton could be the poster boy for Elissa Slotkin’s path to a second term and, she would argue, to Democrats keeping the U.S. House of Representatives. The 67-year-old Vietnam navy vet routinely votes Republican — but says he would not hesitate to vote for… Read more »

(JTA) — Not long after news that a shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, left at least 22 people dead, reports started swirling that the suspect had posted a manifesto on 8chan, an online forum. Law enforcement officials are investigating a document posted there that is believed… Read more »

(JTA) — Before he killed at least 22 people at a Walmart on the southern border, the gunman in El Paso posted a white supremacist manifesto on the fringe social network 8chan denouncing a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The U.S. Justice Department announced that it would treat the shooting… Read more »

(JTA) — President Donald Trump said “hate has no place in America” in an address to the nation following the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Trump pledged additional resources to the FBI to investigate domestic terrorism. He called for strengthening detection of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A bipartisan slate of senators introduced a bill that would fund Holocaust education in schools. The Never Again Education Act would establish the Holocaust Education Assistance Program Fund in the U.S. Treasury. The bill would combine appropriated funds and private donations. A release July 11 from… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian gunman who crossed the border from southern Gaza into Israel shot and injured three Israeli soldiers. The gunman was killed by other soldiers in the area in the early Thursday morning incident, according to the Israel Defense Forces. The IDF said it also fired… Read more »

(JTA) — After three and a half years as editor in chief of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Andrew Silow-Carroll will be the next editor of the New York Jewish Week. The veteran journalist will succeed Gary Rosenblatt, who stepped down last month after 26 years as editor and publisher… Read more »

(JTA) — When Rabbi Mark Rosenberg’s family played back the footage on their home’s security cameras in North Miami Beach, they could hear the rat-tat-tat of bullets being fired at the synagogue a few blocks away. On Sunday, a man had been shot repeatedly in front of the Young… Read more »

The Beth Shalom Temple Center in Green Valley will kick off a monthly film series on Sunday, Aug. 4, with a free screening of two short films at 11 a.m. “A Reuben by Any Other Name” takes a hilarious look at the differences between Orthodox and Reform Judaism in… Read more »

(JTA) — Canada is not changing the date of its national elections, even though they fall on a Jewish holiday. Chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault announced Monday that he would not recommend changing the date, which coincides with the last days of Sukkot. Last week the country’s federal court ordered him to… Read more »

(JTA) — Monday’s Google doodle is of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania during World War II who defied the Nazis by issuing life-saving visas to thousands of Jews. The Simon Wiesenthal Center estimates that as many as 40,000 people are alive today because of Sugihara’s efforts,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has launched a new ad campaign featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, coinciding with one of the Kremlin’s largest crackdowns on political dissent in years. Large multi-story banners featuring Netanyahu with Putin, as well as others featuring President Donald Trump and… Read more »

(JTA) — In the capital of Lithuania, an institution formerly known as the Museum of Genocide Victims barely mentions the murder of nearly all the country’s Jews by Nazis and locals, focusing instead on the years of abusive Soviet rule. In Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, another so-called museum hosts… Read more »

(JTA) — Jewish leaders in Baltimore have come to the defense of Rep. Elijah Cummings, the African-American Democrat who has come under withering attack from President Donald Trump. After spending a week berating the group of four Democratic freshman known as “The Squad” — all women of color —… Read more »

(JTA) — Barbra Streisand has been “writing a lot” about modern anti-Semitism in her memoir, which she has been working on for years. “It’s an extremely complex topic, and there’s not enough room in this interview to adequately cover it,” the show business icon said in an interview with the Chicago… Read more »