Posts By PHYLLIS BRAUN - AJP Executive Editor

I spoke to the creators of Belgium’s anti-Semitic carnival float. They’re not sorry.

A parade float at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium features caricatures of Orthodox Jews atop money bags, March 3, 2019. (Courtesy of FJO)
March 6, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — I initially had some sympathy for the creators of an anti-Semitic carnival float in Belgium. Studying their CVs and past creations for the annual carnival of Aalst, I saw that they were a group of some 20 upstanding citizens — a fireman, a technician, an Education Ministry… Read more »

Here’s how young European Jews in far-flung cities are connecting to Jewish studies

The video-based learning program for European Jewish students is supplemented by in-person encounters like this Shabbaton in Berlin in March 2018. (Lauder Foundation)
March 6, 2019 / Ben Harris, JTA

When Jewish physicist Vladimir Osipov emigrated from his native Moscow 13 years ago, he first moved to Holon, a city in central Israel. But it wasn’t until Osipov relocated with his family three years later to a mid-size city in Germany that they felt part of a vibrant Jewish… Read more »

Jeremy Corbyn was hit by an egg at a mosque. This rabbi comforted him.

Rabbi Herschel Gluck shakes hands with a member of the Finsbury Park Mosque the day after a man drove a white van into a group of people on their way home from prayers, June 19, 2017. One person died and 10 were injured. (Claire Doherty/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
March 6, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Jeremy Corbyn was hit with an egg while visiting a London mosque, an incident that brought little sympathy from critics of the embattled British Labour Party leader — but an unlikely assist from an Orthodox Jewish first responder. A 31-year-old man named John Murphy was charged with… Read more »

Rabbi Meir Kahane and Israel’s far right, explained
March 6, 2019 / Emily Burack, JTA
Meir Kahane in 1985 (Bettmann/Getty Images)

(JTA) — When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brokered a partnership between the extreme right-wing party Jewish Power, or Otzma Yehudit, and the more moderate right-wing Jewish Home, the late American-born Rabbi Meir Kahane was suddenly all over the news. Kahane, whose extremist Kach party was outlawed in Israel several… Read more »

Mahmoud Abbas set to assume chairmanship of major UN bloc
March 6, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

(JTA) — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas arrived in New York City to assume the chairmanship of a major bloc of developing countries at the United Nations. Abbas on Tuesday will succeed Egypt as the leader of the Group of 77. He is scheduled to address the General Assembly,… Read more »

Vatican will open secret archive on Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII
March 6, 2019 / Ruth Ellen Gruber, JTA

(JTA) — The Vatican secret archive relating to controversial Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII will be opened next year. Pope Francis made the announcement at an audience with managers and staff of the Vatican Archives. In a decision made public Monday, he said the archives would be opened on March… Read more »

Democrats advancing resolution that condemns anti-Semitism without naming Omar

Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi at a weekly news conference at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 14, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
March 6, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A resolution advanced by the Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives condemns anti-Semitism in the wake of controversial remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who has said that domestic support for Israel amounts to “allegiance to a foreign country.” It does not name her,… Read more »

5 Jewish things to know about John Hickenlooper

John Hickenlooper participates in a discussion as part of the Brookings Institution's Middle Class Initiative in Washington, D.C., Oct. 10, 2018. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
March 5, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — John Hickenlooper is the latest Democrat who thinks he can win back the White House in 2020. The former Colorado governor and self-described “extreme moderate” announced his candidacy on Monday and is holding his first campaign rally this week. “Ultimately I’m running for president because I believe… Read more »

Belgian mayor defends carnival float featuring Jews with money and a rat

A parade float at the Aalst Carnaval in Belgium features caricatures of Orthodox Jews atop money bags, March 3, 2019. (Courtesy of FJO)
March 5, 2019 /

(JTA) — The mayor of the Belgian city whose annual parade featured puppets of Jews and a rat atop money bags defended the display, telling the local media that “In Aalst it should be allowed.” Mayor Christoph D’Haese defended Sunday’s float at the Aalst Carnaval from passionate condemnations by… Read more »

It’s not just anti-Semitism: Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit problem is also a disaster for Jews

Jeremy Corbyn leads the British Labour Party. (Thierry Monasse/Getty Images)
March 5, 2019 / Dan Friedman, JTA

(JTA) — Jews are rarely central to peacetime domestic British politics. But on Feb. 18, Jewishness appeared front and center at Westminster when seven members of Parliament left the Labour Party, citing its inability to effectively oppose an unworkable Brexit and its apparent unwillingness to confront anti-Semitism. Some of… Read more »

What a Bergen-Belsen prenup teaches us about Jewish resilience

A post-Holocaust marriage contract features a Jewish star between the words Bergen-Belsen, a notorious concentration camp. (Archives of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research)
March 5, 2019 / Henry Abramson, JTA

(JTA) — It is jarring to see a Star of David placed between the Hebrew transliteration of the words Bergen-Belsen, the notorious Nazi concentration camp where 37,000 Jews, including Anne Frank, were murdered – and on a marriage contract, no less. But there it was, a small bureaucratic form, typed in Rabbinic… Read more »