News

The Beth Shalom Temple Center in Green Valley will kick off a monthly film series on Sunday, Aug. 4, with a free screening of two short films at 11 a.m. “A Reuben by Any Other Name” takes a hilarious look at the differences between Orthodox and Reform Judaism in… Read more »

(JTA) — Canada is not changing the date of its national elections, even though they fall on a Jewish holiday. Chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault announced Monday that he would not recommend changing the date, which coincides with the last days of Sukkot. Last week the country’s federal court… Read more »

(JTA) — Monday’s Google doodle is of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania during World War II who defied the Nazis by issuing life-saving visas to thousands of Jews. The Simon Wiesenthal Center estimates that as many as 40,000 people are alive today because of Sugihara’s efforts,… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has launched a new ad campaign featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, coinciding with one of the Kremlin’s largest crackdowns on political dissent in years. Large multi-story banners featuring Netanyahu with Putin, as well as others featuring President Donald Trump and… Read more »

(JTA) — In the capital of Lithuania, an institution formerly known as the Museum of Genocide Victims barely mentions the murder of nearly all the country’s Jews by Nazis and locals, focusing instead on the years of abusive Soviet rule. In Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, another so-called museum hosts… Read more »

(JTA) — Jewish leaders in Baltimore have come to the defense of Rep. Elijah Cummings, the African-American Democrat who has come under withering attack from President Donald Trump. After spending a week berating the group of four Democratic freshman known as “The Squad” — all women of color —… Read more »

(JTA) — Barbra Streisand has been “writing a lot” about modern anti-Semitism in her memoir, which she has been working on for years. “It’s an extremely complex topic, and there’s not enough room in this interview to adequately cover it,” the show business icon said in an interview with… Read more »

(JTA) — Days after Israeli ground troops invaded Gaza in 2014, a group of leftist millennial Jews gathered to plan a public protest of the military operation. The new group, which called itself IfNotNow, discussed a public demonstration in front of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish… Read more »

(JTA) — More than 1,400 Jewish clergy from across the United States have signed a letter that calls on government officials to protect the legal right to seek asylum in the United States. HIAS, an immigrant advocacy and aid group formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, organized… Read more »

(JTA) — MGM Resorts International said it will change the logo on its security uniforms, yellow shirts with a symbol that looks like a Jewish star. The announcement came after a Jewish woman who attended a show at MGM Northfield Park in suburban Cleveland noticed the logo and was… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A new left-wing alliance including former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has formed to take on Benjamin Netanyahu and the right wing that backs him in Israel’s September elections. The united slate announced Thursday has the far-left Meretz party running with Barak’s new Israel Democratic Party and… Read more »

(JTA) — A former Nazi SS soldier was charged with denying the Holocaust in Germany. Karl Munter, 96, was indicted in the German state of Lower Saxony on Wednesday for questioning the extent of the Holocaust and offensive comments he made about the victims of a massacre of civilians… Read more »

(JTA) — Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, reiterated statements about terminating his government’s dealings with Israel. Abbas’ announcement Thursday followed an emergency meeting after Israel razed Palestinian buildings built without permit on the edge of Jerusalem, near the security barrier that Israel built in the West… Read more »

(JTA) — Following protests, authorities in eastern France rescinded a ban they had issued forbidding soccer fans from Israel from flying their country’s flag in the streets of Strasbourg. The prohibitions, which are unusual and provoked vociferous criticism, came in a four-page order Thursday from the head of the… Read more »

(JTA) — Yuval Noah Harari, an internationally celebrated historian from Israel, omitted criticism of Russia from a translation of a book to avoid censorship there, he said. The criticism was “liable to be censored by the Russian government,” Harari told Haaretz in an interview published Thursday about the Russian-language… Read more »

(JTA) — A CNN photo editor resigned after some anti-Semitic tweets he made in 2011 were discovered. Mohammed Elshamy, a 25-year-old former photojournalist with the Anadolu news agency, quit Thursday night after an employee of Israel’s Government Press Office flagged on Twitter some of the anti-Semitic statements by Elshamy,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., explained why he backed a resolution upholding the right to boycott “at home and abroad” — even though he also voted to condemn the boycott, divestment and sanction movement aimed at Israel Lewis was a cosponsor of a House… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — There are few remnants of the once flourishing Jewish community of the town of Colmar, in France. Jews were blamed for the outbreak of the Black Death plague there in 1348-49, and many were burned to death. A Roman emperor who then controlled the area… Read more »

(JTA) — Norway and six EU countries voted at the United Nations in favor of two resolutions that singled out Israel for criticism as a violator of women’s and human rights. Israel was the only country named Tuesday as a violator or trouble spot by the 54-nation UN Economic… Read more »

(JTA) — A campaign on a Jewish crowdfunding website raised more than $2 million in five days to provide a “miracle drug” to help a 2-year-old Florida girl. Eliana Cohen, daughter of Ariel and Shani Cohen of Aventura, was diagnosed with an extremely rare disease called spinal muscular atrophy… Read more »