News

(JTA) — This time, don’t be fooled by the rocks that she’s got — Jennifer Lopez is set to perform in Israel for the first time. Concert promoters confirmed the rumor Wednesday. Lopez, 49, will play at Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park on Aug. 1. The pop star and actress… Read more »

(JTA) — Pete Buttigieg will no longer use the word “Pharisee” to refer to those he deems religious hypocrites, a campaign official said. Buttigieg, a Democratic presidential candidate and mayor of South Bend, Indiana, had called Vice President Mike Pence a Pharisee on multiple occasions because he claimed Pence… Read more »

(JTA) — A coalition of more than a dozen conservative groups, most of them Jewish, sent a letter to President Donald Trump tacitly asking him to respect a potential Israeli annexation of West Bank settlements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is almost certainly headed to a fifth term after… Read more »

(JTA) — SooJi Min-Maranda rarely sees other Jewish people who look like her. “I often feel very isolated as a Jew of color living in the Midwest,” she said. Min-Maranda, who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with her husband and two children, was born in Korea but moved with… Read more »

(JTA) — One week after winning election to a fifth term as Israel’s head of state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was named to Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people. Other Jewish people on the list include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg; Jennifer Hyman, whose $1 billion company… Read more »

(JTA) — Arizona has eased its rules to a state ban on doing business with companies that boycott Israel in an attempt to avoid potential lawsuits. The amendment would exempt individuals and businesses valued at less than $100,000 or employing fewer than 10 full-time employees from the ban. In… Read more »

(JTA) — “This is my anti-Semitic song,” Tamer Nafar, a Palestinian-Israeli rapper, said at the opening of a conference on Gaza last month at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “I know it might sound R&B stuff, but don’t think of Rihanna when you sing it,… Read more »

(JTA) — The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news reporting for its coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre last October. Eleven people were shot and killed by a gunman during the rampage, which came as congregants at the synagogue complex in Pittsburgh… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The new Palestinian Authority prime minister said the still-to-be unveiled Trump administration peace plan will be “born dead.” Mohammad Shtayyeh told The Associated Press in a wide-ranging hourlong interview that the international community would join the Palestinians in rejecting the peace plan, whose release date has… Read more »

(JTA) — Some 500 doctors who serve Jewish communities across North America have signed on to a letter calling on all children and healthy adults to be vaccinated. “We the undersigned doctors who faithfully serve the Orthodox Jewish communities of North America, strongly urge all members of our community… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The leaders of three of the four major Jewish religious streams were not invited to a White House briefing on issues “impacting the community,” nor was the Jewish community’s leading civil rights advocacy group. Officials of three Orthodox umbrella groups — Orthodox Union, Agudath Israel, and… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — With elections in the rearview mirror, Israelis are now focusing on the moon. The Israeli spacecraft Beresheet, or Genesis, is scheduled to touch down on the moon’s surface on Thursday night in Israel. And the country has Beresheet mania. Watch parties and celebrations are planned throughout… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The leaders of the Blue and White party conceded defeat to Likud and said they would keep their coalition together in preparation for the next election. Party co-leader Yair Lapid, who brought his Yesh Atid into Blue and White, said in a speech Wednesday night that his… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel’s election on Tuesday was contentious, historic, crazy — and somewhat predictable. With most of the vote counted — some 300,000 votes from soldiers, diplomats and other Israeli officials working abroad have yet to be tallied — Benjamin Netanyahu seems poised to become the longest-serving prime… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Even by Israeli standards, the country’s latest general elections have been exceptionally dirty, rife with personal attacks between candidates and fake news. But in an arid country where the blossoms and mild temperatures of spring are gone within a few weeks, the vote’s timing was… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party finished one seat behind main challenger Blue and White in the first exit poll results released at the close of voting Tuesday. Blue and White, whose head is former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Benny Gantz, took 37 seats… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Anywhere else in Europe, a muscular cartoon character named Max the Matzah would have amounted to little more than an inside Jewish joke. But in the Netherlands, where matzah for many non-Jews is a household item year-round, Max became an unlikely hit with the general population.… Read more »

(JTA) — Just days before Israel was to hold national elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to annex parts of the West Bank as Israeli territory. “I’m going to extend sovereignty,” he said in an interview with Israeli Channel 12 on Saturday night, adding that “I don’t differentiate between the… Read more »

(JTA) — The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on hate crimes and the rise of white nationalist groups in America. The hearing scheduled for Tuesday also will look at how social media can rein in white nationalist propaganda and hate speech online. “Social media platforms have served… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The final polls before Israel’s national election on Tuesday show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party running either neck and neck or up to five seats behind upstart challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party. The last polls allowed by law were published Friday. Exit polling… Read more »