News

NEW YORK (JTA) — New York City will launch three initiatives aimed at combating anti-Semitic hate crimes. Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement at a dramatic news conference Sunday afternoon at the central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library following weeks of anti-Semitic assaults and vandalism that have… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Prosecutors filed federal hate crimes charges Monday against the man who allegedly attacked several individuals with a machete during a Hanukkah celebration at a Hasidic rabbi’s home in Monsey. “Officials said they had recovered handwritten journals expressing anti-Semitic views, including references to Adolf Hitler and… Read more »

(JTA) — The Guardian Angels said it would start patrolling in Brooklyn after an increase in anti-Semitic attacks in the area. The group’s founder, Curtis Sliwa, told NBC News that the patrols would start on Sunday, first at noon in Crown Heights and later in the day also in… Read more »

(JTA) — Graffiti featuring a Star of David and “9 11” was painted on buildings on several streets in North London. The graffiti, discovered on a synagogue and store windows in Hampstead and Belsize Park on Sunday morning, seems to refer to a conspiracy theory that Jewish people were… Read more »

MONSEY, N.Y. (JTA) — When a man wielding a machete burst into a Hanukkah party at a rabbi’s house in this New York City suburb, Joseph Gluck sprang into action. Seeing the attacker, Gluck, the administrator of the Orthodox synagogue next door, helped evacuate party guests from the house.… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The leader of the second-largest party in the Netherlands called for expelling from the country an International Criminal Court prosecutor for attempting to try Israelis for war crimes. Geert Wilders called Thursday for the expulsion of Fatou Bensouda over her Dec. 20 report alleging that both… Read more »

(JTA) — The 2010s were nothing if not turbulent. The decade brought us unprecedented political polarization, war and increasing conflict in Israel, dozens of horrific mass shootings, and a new age of election hacking and private data collection enabled by the proliferation of social media. It was capped by… Read more »

(JTA) — For many Jews around the world, there’s probably no love lost for 2019. As the year draws to a close, the Jewish community continues to grapple with the continued rise of global anti-Semitism — one major community in Europe is facing the possible election as prime minister… Read more »

This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA) — A man wearing a hoodie entered the Chabad Lubavitch World Headquarters located at 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn on Friday morning and threatened to shoot up the place, according to ABC 7. After approaching a congregant, the man reportedly left… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The list includes names like Peter Beinart, the liberal writer; Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal Middle East policy group J Street; and Sheila Katz, the CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women. No, it’s not an ad for a symposium on the Upper East… Read more »

(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won his party’s leadership primary with 71.5 percent of the vote, according to an exit poll. A tweet by Direct Polls, an Israeli firm, showed challenger Gideon Saar with 28.5 percent.The poll had a margin of error of 3.2 percent, and… Read more »

(JTA) — Four graves were destroyed and others covered by rubble as a flood swept through Beirut’s only Jewish cemetery. The flood in the Lebanese capital on Thursday destroyed a retaining wall in the city’s only Jewish cemetery, whose graves date back to the 1820s, according to Agence France-Presse.… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish man wearing a yarmulke was physically and verbally assaulted in Manhattan in one of three assaults against Jews in New York just over a 24-hour period. A Miami man was arrested and charged with assault as a hate crime for the attack late Monday morning… Read more »

(JTA) — A federal complaint has been filed against Columbia University accusing the school of anti-Semitic discrimination. It is the first case filed since President Donald Trump’s executive order on combating anti-Semitism, which grants Jewish students the same protections as other minority groups. The complaint requests a formal investigation… Read more »

(JTA) — Rosalee Glass, a Holocaust survivor recognized by President Donald Trump during the White House Hanukkah party, has died following injuries sustained during travel to Washington, D.C. Glass died in Los Angeles on Dec. 14 of a blood clot to her heart. She was three weeks shy of… Read more »

(JTA) — Jewelers in New York City have created the world’s most valuable dreidel, according to Guinness World Records. The custom-designed piece created by Estate Diamond Jewelry is valued at $70,000. It includes the diamond-encrusted Hebrew letters nun, gimmel, hay and shin, and a 4.2-carat diamond on its tip.… Read more »

(JTA) — Richard Alpert, the spiritual seeker better known as Baba Ram Dass who first came to prominence as a confederate of the controversial LSD proponent Timothy Leary, has died. Albert, who was raised in a Jewish family in suburban Boston, died at his home in Maui on Sunday.… Read more »

MANAUS, Brazil (JTA) — A large menorah at a McDonald’s branch has become the only Hanukkah symbol in the streets of Brazil’s largest city in the Amazon region. In a first, the 7-foot-tall, nine-branched candelabrum made of iron in the front yard of the Jewish-owned fast-food restaurant has become… Read more »

(JTA) — A member of an Ann Arbor synagogue has filed a federal lawsuit against anti-Israel protesters and the Michigan city over weekly demonstrations that have been held since 2003. Marvin Gerber, a member of the Beth Israel Congregation, filed an 85-page complaint last week in U.S. District Court,… Read more »

(JTA) — All day Monday, volunteers trickled in and out of the Mary McLeod Bethune Life Center in Jersey City’s Greenville neighborhood, lining up boxes upon boxes of pretzel challah, soup mix, hummus, turkey and chocolate. Trucks backed up to the community center to unload pallets of food and… Read more »