News

(JTA) — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria will “eventually become a nightmare for Israel.” Graham, one of the president’s staunchest supporters in the Senate, called the move “shortsighted and irresponsible” in a series of tweets. “The… Read more »

(JTA) — A 12-year-old girl with a degenerative brain malformation celebrated her bat mitzvah at the Los Angeles hospital where she has spent most of her life. Numa Beron was born with lissencephaly, which has left her unable to stand or speak. She was given three years to live,… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the first nine months of this year, part of a citywide rise in such offenses. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes through September, as opposed… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Here’s the sad paradox of the shooting nearly one year ago at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue: The killing of 11 worshippers, the worst attack on Jews in U.S. history, hit a community that was one of the best prepared to handle such an assault. In… Read more »

PITTSBURGH (JTA) — As this city’s Jewish community celebrated Rosh Hashanah this week, the Tree of Life synagogue stood closed, its doors blocked by a chain-link fence. A brown, wilted wreath hung on a tree near the synagogue, where a gunman killed 11 worshippers last year in the worst… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the first nine months of this year, part of a citywide rise in such offenses. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes through September, as opposed… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has launched a Hebrew-language website and syndication service aimed at the Israeli public. The service features original Hebrew articles and videos with Hebrew translations of items published in English by JTA and adapted for Israeli audiences. JTA’s new Hebrew news site… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Police said a Jewish woman reported being harassed in Brooklyn on Rosh Hashanah. The 22-year-old said that she was approached on Sunday evening by a female teenager who “pulled her scarf and wig from her head,” a New York Police detective, Annette Shelton, told the… Read more »

(JTA) — Eric Pleskow, who escaped the Nazis to become a film executive whose movies won the Academy Award for best picture seven times, has died. He was 95. Pleskow was the president of the United Artists studio when it took home the best picture Oscars for “One Flew… Read more »

(JTA) — Emily Austen, a reporter who was fired by Fox Sports in Florida for derogatory comments about Jews and minorities, has been hired by the evangelical Christian Liberty University. Fox dismissed Austen in 2016 as a sideline reporter for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team and the Orlando… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish death row inmate in Texas who says his judge was anti-Semitic has appealed to the Supreme Court. Randy Halprin is set to be executed on Oct. 10. He was part of the “Texas 7” group of prisoners who escaped from a prison in the state… Read more »

(JTA) — Hannah Senesh may seem an unlikely motivation for Japanese-born artist Julie Robertson. But the 35-year-old Christian artist, who just spent four days painting a 30-by-40-foot mural of the late Jewish poet, learned about Senesh earlier this year and was struck by her bravery. A national hero in… Read more »

LAS VEGAS (JTA) — Congregation Ner Tamid is located a half an hour drive away from the Las Vegas Strip, where each luxury hotel seems more extravagant than the next and even on a Sunday morning people can be found crowding around blackjack tables and sitting in front of… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Ceen Gabbai argued with her first-grade teacher about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, she didn’t realize how big of a risk she was taking. The year was 2000 and students across the world held strong opinions about the Second Intifada, an outbreak of violence that claimed… Read more »

BRUSSELS (JTA) — At a parade here in March, revelers danced to a song about Jewish greed while standing on a float shaped like an Orthodox Jewish man with a rat on his shoulder holding money. In August, an op-ed in a major Belgian newspaper called Jews in Israel… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump accused Rep. Adam Schiff, the Jewish Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, of treason and called for his arrest. “Shifty Schiff” is a “lowlife,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “He should resign from office in disgrace and frankly they should look at… Read more »

Children will be able to release their sins the really old-fashioned way by sending them away with a goat at Temple Emanu-El’s Yom Kippur morning family service, Wednesday, Oct. 9 at 8:30 a.m. During Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, repentance is achieved by prayer, repentance, and fasting, but… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Liberman, who prevented Netanyahu from forming a coalition government following elections in April, will meet to discuss a unity government. The meeting, confirmed by Liberman in a social media post, is scheduled for Thursday morning in Jerusalem. Liberman said even… Read more »

(JTA) — The pre-indictment hearings in one of three separate corruption cases involving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commenced on Wednesday. Lawyers for Netanyahu appeared at the hearings in Jerusalem without their client, who was scheduled to participate in talks in an effort to to build a governing coalition.… Read more »

The Jewish New Year is a time for reflection and commitment toward a more just world. The six Holocaust survivors we feature in this issue are a few among the approximately 75 survivors currently living in Southern Arizona, most of whom were children or teens when the war broke… Read more »