News

(JTA) — Only days after being sworn into the Illinois House of Representatives on Sunday, Rabbi Yehiel Kalish paid a visit to Israel. The father of six said he needed guidance from rabbis in the Jewish state to serve in his new role. “The immediate reaction of the Chicago political… Read more »

(JTA) — A German Jewish leader has been receiving verbal threats since she criticized Germany’s strongest right-populist party in a Holocaust Remembrance Day address. “Since then, almost every minute, I have received wild insults, threats and insults by email and telephone,” Charlotte Knobloch, 86, head of the Jewish community… Read more »

(JTA) – The daughter of a Nazi who was given a 20-year sentence in Nuremberg is one of several recipients of the 19th annual Obermayer German Jewish History Awards. Hilde Schramm, 82, the youngest daughter of Hitler’s war production minister, the architect Albert Speer, received the honor for her… Read more »

Tedd Goldfinger, D.O., founder of Desert Cardiology of Tucson, has received the title of Fellow of the European Society of Cardiology. He is one of only two Tucson-area physicians to receive this distinction. In addition to his practice at Desert Cardiology of Tucson and Northwest Medical Center for more… Read more »

Jewish federal employees who are struggling with expenses due to the government shutdown can now find some relief. The Hebrew Free Loan Association of Greater Washington approved an emergency program in early January to provide loans of up to $2,000 per household to affected Jews living in the Washington,… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) — For Sigmount Koenigsberg, the most searing scene in the U.S.-made “Holocaust” miniseries broadcast here 40 years ago was when a German child throws photos of a Jewish family into a fireplace. The pictures curl up and melt in the flames. The moment “somehow burned into me,” recalls… Read more »

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — The main Jewish umbrella group in Poland has elected its first woman leader. Monika Krawczyk was chosen as the board chairman of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, which deals with restitution matters, among other issues. “I think it is a great honor… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Pete Buttigieg, the gay veteran who has earned national attention for leading the revitalization of South Bend, Indiana, where he is mayor, joined a crowded pack of Democrats seeking the party’s presidential nomination. Buttigieg, 37, emphasized in his announcement Wednesday the three attributes that make him… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Reports of rollbacks in Palestinian aid projects are emerging as massive cuts in U.S. aid to the Palestinians kick in. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that up to 90,000 Palestinians will not get food aid in programs that are administered by nongovernmental organizations funded by U.S.… Read more »

(JTA) — The longtime editor in chief of Belgium’s largest Jewish newspaper has announced he is resigning and running for parliament, partly in a bid to reverse recent bans in the country on the slaughter of conscious animals for meat. Michael Freilich, 38, who has edited the Antwerp-based Joods… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Kirsten Gillibrand who just joined a soon-to-be crowded field for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 would seem familiar as well as alien to the Kirsten Gillibrand who won an upset campaign for Congress in 2006. Like Kirsten Gillibrand 1.0, the latest model was earthy… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — My dad, who grew up in a time and place where his Judaism only marked him as an outsider, never really got my professional fascination with all things Jewish. That all changed when nearly 20 years ago I got a job with the Forward, the… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — To the degree that you know anything about Yiddish anarchism, it probably boils down to one name: Emma Goldman. And even then you are probably more familiar with Goldman as an immigrant firebrand and ur-“nasty woman” than for the truly radical content of her political… Read more »

(JTA) — A rabbi was appointed to serve in the Illinois legislature, a first for the state. Rabbi Yehiel Kalish, 43 and a father of six, was sworn in to the state’s House of Representatives on Sunday night. The Orthodox spiritual leader will be representing a district that is… Read more »

(JTA) — The number of terrorist attacks against Israelis dropped by 75 percent last month over November, but it was also the deadliest month since March with three people killed. The downturn in attacks was mostly due to Hamas inactivity along the border with Gaza, the Israel Security Agency… Read more »

(JTA) — For many Jewish organizations, Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a time to talk about the current state of black-Jewish relations. There’s a lot to talk about this year, from the controversy over ties between Women’s March organizer Tamika Mallory and Louis Farrakhan, to common cause over… Read more »

(JTA) — In May 1943, after years of killings and deportations, the Nazis declared Berlin “judenfrei,” or free of Jews. What they didn’t know was that approximately 7,000 Jews remained in hiding in the city, and not only in attics and basements — often in plain sight. “The Invisibles,”… Read more »

(JTA) – Israeli President Reuven Rivlin honored an American-Jewish academic for her efforts to help Syrian refugees. Rivlin praised the actions of Georgette Bennett at an awards ceremony Thursday in Tel Aviv for eight groups or individuals deemed to have made a positive impact in the developing world. Bennett, 72,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Kamala Harris, the junior senator from California, is reportedly set to announce her bid for the Democratic presidential nod. Harris, 54, is a progressive on most issues who draws some ire from the left for her tough-on-crime posture when she was California’s attorney general. She pleased… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — April Baskin, one of three Jewish women newly appointed to the Women’s March Inc. steering committee, says it is unrealistic to expect co-founder Tamika Mallory to explicitly condemn Louis Farrakhan for his anti-Semitism. There is “a long history of asking black leaders to condemn each… Read more »