News

(JTA) — The Organization of American States will adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of anti-Semitism, the group’s head said. OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro’s announcement June 4 in Washington makes him the first Latin American leader to do so. He also called Hezbollah “a terrorist organization”… Read more »

(JTA) — Ultranationalists in Ukraine protested outside a Jewish community building with smoke grenades. Men from the National Corps group, a namesake of a unit of the Azov Battalion militia set up in 2014 by the Ukrainian government, set off the grenades Monday in front of the building in… Read more »

(JTA) — YouTube is going to remove more hate speech and supremacist content from its video sharing service. “Today, we’re taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities… Read more »

(JTA) — The American Jewish Committee has elected its first female president. Harriet Schleifer, a longtime lay leader, was elected president of the New York-based advocacy group on Monday during its annual Global Forum conference in Washington. She succeeds John Shapiro. AJC was founded in 1906. Schleifer, who lives… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) — German historian Marie Sophie Hingst has been stripped of a “Golden Blogger” award following revelations that she faked a family history of suffering in the Holocaust. According to Der Spiegel magazine, which broke the story this week, Hingst — who lives in Dublin and is in… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — So just who is Avigdor Liberman, the man who single-handedly forced Israelis to go to the polls for an unprecedented second time in a year? And is he really the champion of secular right-wing Zionism that he would have voters believe? Last month, less than two… Read more »

(JTA) — There aren’t any Jewish players that we know of at this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup, which runs from June 7 to July 7 in France. The top-ranked U.S. team is looking to win its second Cup in a row and fourth all time. But there are… Read more »

For her final project in a course on the history of medicine, first-year medical student Raeesa Hossain joined with four fellow students from New York Medical College to interview a Holocaust survivor deported to Auschwitz as a child. The survivor told the students how his experience during the war… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Designing a new emoji is not simple. Sefaria, the online free Jewish library, has found this out in recent months. The organization wanted to reach more and younger people, to get them to use the resources on its website. They thought that a Torah emoji would… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Herbert Diess believes he has a special obligation to combat the rise of the far right in Europe because the company he leads was once quite literally its engine. “Volkswagen has because of its history, and our history in the Second World War, we have an… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The weirdest part of an Orthodox anti-vaccine conference here was probably when the emcee, a rabbi wearing a black hat and white beard, quoted the Gospel of Luke. “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” he cried, reciting the Gospels nearly verbatim.… Read more »

Updated 6.13.19  Dozens of faith leaders from across Southwestern borderlands, including two local rabbis, rallied June 5 in front of the U.S. District Courthouse in downtown Tucson in solidarity with Arizona State University geography instructor and activist Scott Warren, Ph.D. A volunteer with the Tucson-based aid group No More… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo walked back comments he shared with Jewish leaders saying that it was an “inaccurate” perception that the Trump administration’s peace proposal could be seen as one-sided toward Israel. The Washington Post reported Sunday on a recording obtained from an off-the-record meeting last… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunni Arab states are moving faster than the Palestinians toward recognition of Israel, another sign that the Trump administration’s yet to be released peace plan may be dead on arrival. “They don’t see Israel any longer as their enemy, but… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., among the leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, said a Politico story on his wealth that called him “cheap” was anti-Semitic. “Call that what it is, an anti-Semitic article,” Sanders said Saturday in an interview with the progressive political online show,… Read more »

Tucson, AZ (June 4, 2019) Every summer thousands of Tucsonans visit the gardens at Tohono Chul to catch a glimpse of the majesty and beauty of the Queen of the Night, the night-blooming cereus Peniocereus greggii. The gardens have the world’s largest collection of this plant. When the summer… Read more »

(JTA) — A slight majority of Jewish Israelis want it to be easier for people to convert to Judaism, according to a new survey. Respondents were asked about whether they want conversions to be performed as leniently as possible according to Jewish law. Fifty-two percent of Jewish Israelis want… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Nechama Rivlin, the wife of President Reuven Rivlin, has died at the age of 73. She died on Tuesday, a day before her 74th birthday, at Beillinson Hospital in Petah Tikvah, where she underwent a lung transplant three months ago. Rivlin, who had in recent years… Read more »

(JTA) – Alabama and Georgia have passed laws recently that limit or forbid abortions in unprecedented ways, joining a growing number of states that are attempting to dramatically restrict abortion access. During these charged times, it is appropriate for the Jewish community to remind ourselves that halacha (Jewish law) has a… Read more »

Melissa Landau was honored with Tucson Hebrew Academy’s 2019 Teacher Excellence Award at the THA annual meeting on May 15. Two THA parents, Robyn Kessler and Martha Sampson, established the award at the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona. First presented in 2005, the award includes $1,500 for the… Read more »