Sinatra received the yarmulke at a fundraiser for a Jewish school in New Jersey in 1981. (Courtesy of Pauline Schwartz)
(JTA) — When a huge auction was held at Sotheby’s last month of items belonging to Frank Sinatra and his wife Barbara, the item that made the most headlines was one of the smallest: a hand-knit yarmulke, owned by Frank, which was purchased for nearly $10,000 by an unknown… Read more »
Amy Heckerling at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, April 18, 2016. (Mike Coppola/Gett)
(JTA) — Officially and for the record, despite her Jewish-sounding name, Cher Horowitz is not a member of the tribe. In fact, the Valley Girl heroine of the iconic 1995 film “Clueless” was never intended to be Jewish, says her creator, Amy Heckerling. “I wasn’t thinking in terms of… Read more »
The olive trees outside of Amsterdam's Portuguese synagogue get wrapped up every year. They are shown here in February 2018. (Hans Kaljee)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Each year at the height of winter, city workers descend on the square opposite Holland’s oldest synagogue and pull gigantic yellow tarps over the canopies of 25 olive trees. The trees, each 250-300 years old, are Amsterdam’s oldest. They were brought here in 2010 from central… Read more »
Rabbi Lynne Goldsmith, center, who retired as rabbi of Temple Emanu-El in Dothan, Ga., in 2017, speaks on a local interfaith panel in 2014. (Bob Howard/The Village Square/Flickr)
(JTA) — Seven years ago, Lisa and Kenny Priddle left New York to help build up the Jewish community of the small Alabama town of Dothan. They were attracted by the idea of shoring up the Jewish community in the South and also by the offer of a $50,000… Read more »
(JTA) — A medical resident at the Cleveland Clinic who wrote scores of anti-Semitic social media posts no longer works at the medical center. Dr. Lara Kollab worked at the Clinic from July 2018 – September 2018. The Clinic on Monday in a statement confirmed that Kollab no longer works… Read more »
(JTA) — The Pittsburgh Steelers’ Stronger Than Hate campaign inspired the city and the world to rally around the Jewish community in the wake of the shooting attack on a local synagogue building that left 11 dead. On Sunday, the Steelers donated $70,000 to help the Jewish community and… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s withdrawal from UNESCO has gone into effect a year after it officially notified the international body that it would leave. Israel announced at the end of 2017 that it would leave the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in solidarity with the United States,… Read more »
(JTA) — Jewish leaders from Dothan, Alabama, say their non-Jewish neighbors were unfairly smeared as intolerant in an article about a Jewish couple’s dilemma over staying in the town. A Washington Post article published last week profiled Lisa and Kenny Priddle, who took an offer of up to $50,000… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Veterans of Bernie Sanders insurgent 2016 campaign for the presidency want the Vermont senator to meet with them to discuss “sexual violence and harassment” on the campaign as he contemplates whether to run in 2020. “In recent weeks there has been an ongoing conversation on social… Read more »
Palestinian protesters during clashes with Israeli security forces on the Gaza-Israeli border, Sept. 14, 2018. (Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(JTA) — The New York Times devoted much of its front page and three inside pages Sunday to a reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding the June death of a Palestinian medic during riots at the Israeli fence with Gaza. The newspaper concludes that the shooting of 20-year-old Rouzan al-Najjar by an Israeli soldier “appears… Read more »
(Photo illustration by Lior Zaltzman)
(JTA) — The end of every year brings the grim task of rounding up the prominent Jews who passed away over the previous 12 months. But in doing so, we are able to pay tribute to their incredible lives and accomplishments, and revel once again in the talents and… Read more »
Amos Oz, shown here in 2015, often blurred the personal and the political in his writing. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Amos Oz would often speak in the kind of tossed-off epigrams that come only with a lot of practice. But just when you wanted to smack him for his breezy erudition, he would redeem himself with a flash of spot-on — and hilarious — self-awareness. In 2011,… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An unnamed Israeli official confirmed that Israel carried out airstrikes in Syria, hitting several Iranian targets. The airstrikes late on Tuesday night hit Iranian arms storage facilities and arms depots, used to ship weapons to the terrorist Hezbollah organization in neighboring Lebanon. The Israeli official also… Read more »
(JTA) — A University of Massachusetts student was asked to remove a sign from her dorm window saying “F*** Nazis, you are not welcome” because it did not foster a sense of inclusion. Nicole Parsons, a junior, said she put up the sign following an incident in which a… Read more »
(JTA) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released from the hospital after cancer surgery and will continue to recuperate at home. Ginsburg, 85, who was released on Tuesday, had surgery to remove a cancerous growth from her left lung. The growth was discovered during tests after she… Read more »
Ayelet Ganot, left, and Roni Ashkenazi, participants in the Carmel 6000 national service program, work on an app intended to help autistic children cope with change. (Sam Sokol)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Sitting side by side in an open office in the tech giant Cisco’s headquarters here, Roni Ashkenazi and Ayelet Ganot sat staring at lines of code on a flat screen monitor checking their work before launching a demo of their latest project — a tablet app they… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s attorney general likely will wait until after national elections to announce whether or not he will indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in three corruption investigations, but the allegations could be central to the early elections. Sources reported to be close to Avichai Mandelblit told Hebrew… Read more »
(JTA) — A U.S. court ordered North Korea to pay $501 million to the family of Otto Warmbier, a Jewish student who died in 2016 after being imprisoned there. A District Court judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday awarded the Warmbiers approximately half the $1.05 billion they requested in… Read more »
(JTA) — Jewish groups are offering assistance in the wake of a tsunami in Indonesia that has left more than 400 dead and thousands homeless. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is providing emergency relief and assessing emerging needs in the Kalianda and Rajabasa subdistricts of Lampung, a province… Read more »
In response to the deadly tsunami that struck Indonesia’s Sunda Strait region on Saturday evening killing hundreds, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) is providing emergency relief and assessing emerging needs through its local partner in the Kalianda and Rajabasa subdistricts in Lampung. The aid provision includes health services, clean water, and critical supplies… Read more »
