News

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israeli Softball Association wants to take its women’s team to the 2020 Olympics, and it is counting on some Jewish American talent to get it there. Thirteen U.S. Jewish college students and recent graduates arrived in Israel at the beginning of the month to train… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., was alone among the 10 Democratic presidential candidates at the first debate not to commit to rejoining the Iran nuclear deal. Moderators at the debate Wednesday evening in Miami asked the candidates whether they would rejoin the deal President Donald Trump abandoned… Read more »

(JTA) — Israel’s Meretz party became the first to elect as its leader an openly gay person. The left-wing party picked Nitzan Horowitz as its new head on Thursday in Tel Aviv. Horowitz, a former journalist who served in the Knesset in 2009-2015, defeated incumbent Tamar Zandberg. “Meretz doesn’t… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Two months after the Beresheet spacecraft crashed on the surface of the moon, the SpaceIL organization said it will not make a second attempt. Instead, the Israeli non-profit organization announced late on Tuesday in a statement and on social media, “we will seek out another, significant… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak announced Wednesday that he is forming a new political party. At an evening news conference, Barak said he rushed to make the announcement to thwart Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to cancel the Sept. 17 election. “Netanyahu has reached the… Read more »

(JTA) — The manager of a popular restaurant in Pittsburgh was fired after he shared an anti-Semitic post on Facebook. Yokoso Japanese Steakhouse owner Jeff Kim apologized in a Facebook post for the action of his employee, calling it “inexcusable.” He also wrote: “Please know that his comments and… Read more »

(JTA) — The British Society for Middle Eastern Studies passed a resolution calling for an academic boycott of Israeli institutions. The boycott passed on Monday at the society’s annual general meeting in Leeds with almost 80 percent support, according to the Middle East Monitor.   The society, known as… Read more »

(JTA) — Nineteen percent of Americans think small business owners should be allowed to refuse service to Jews if doing so would violate their religious beliefs, a new poll shows. That is an increase from 2014, when 12 percent of respondents agreed with the statement, according to survey results published… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An earthquake measuring 3.8 on the Richter Scale was felt in the area of the Dead Sea. The epicenter of the temblor that took place early on Wednesday afternoon was Ein Bokek in southern Israel, according to Israel’s Geophysical Institute. There were no injuries or damage… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Netherlands’ national rail company said it will compensate hundreds of Holocaust victims for its role in the genocide. Dutch Railways announced its plan Wednesday in a statement, specifying one-time payments of about $17,000 to each living Holocaust survivor it helped ship to death camps when… Read more »

(JTA) — A group of Germans found a new way to protest neo-Nazism: buying beer. A German court had already banned alcohol at the Shield and Sword Festival, a white nationalist rock music event held this past weekend in Ostritz, a German town near the border with Poland. The… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Dutch rapper who went by Anne Frank said Wednesday that she will change the name following an outcry and the revelation of past anti-Semitic statements. The 25-year-old performer, whose real name may be Anne van der Does, according to the GeenStijl website, said she was shortening… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jason Greenblatt, President Trump’s top Middle East negotiator, led Jewish prayer services at a synagogue in Bahrain this week, during the conference there that rolled out the economic portion of the Trump administration’s peace plan. Greenblatt mustered an Orthodox minyan — a quorum of 10 adult… Read more »

Sponsored content from JTA: HAIFA — At the Ruach Tova Health Center in this northern Israeli city, three medical students are hard at work trying to keep up with the steady flow of patients. Nicole Kasher, a third-year student from Los Angeles, reviews patient charts. Galilee native Neta Sagi… Read more »

Mozaika draws hundreds of visitors to its weekly events on Jewish culture. (Toldot/Instagram)

BARCELONA, Spain (JTA) — Tucked away in one of the narrow streets of this city’s El Call neighborhood, a former Jewish ghetto that these days house upscale shops and restaurants, sits the oldest residential house in Barcelona — a nondescript white stone building full of history. The house was… Read more »

(JTA) — Gary Rosenblatt, the editor and publisher of The New York Jewish Week for 26 years, is stepping down. Under his stewardship, the newspaper started Write On For Israel, an educational/advocacy program to prepare high school students for the Mideast debate on campus, in 2002; and The Conversation,… Read more »

‏(JTA) — A key ally of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn who was suspended from the British party for sayings it is “too apologetic” over anti-Semitism has been readmitted. A party ethics panel warned lawmaker Chris Williamson on Wednesday for saying earlier this year that when it comes to Labour’s… Read more »

(JTA) — The United Nations said it will hold a global conference of terror victims while commemorating the 25th anniversary of the attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The U.N. said the aim of the conference will be to come up with concrete recommendations on… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jared Kushner, the key architect of the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan, launched a conference in Bahrain to advance the economic portion of his plan. “The Peace to Prosperity vision is a modern framework for a brighter and more prosperous future,” Kushner said Tuesday in the capital city… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been getting plenty of criticism since referring to migrant detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border as “concentration camps.” “The U.S. is running concentration camps on our southern border, and that is exactly what they are,” the freshman New York Democrat said June… Read more »