The brainchild of a 39-year-old Brooklyn businessman, Wrapp enables users to get tefillin for prayers for free. (Tefillinwrapp.com)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — You can call a taxi, order a hamburger, rent a film and buy a book with a few clicks of a smartphone. So why shouldn’t it be as easy to score a set of tefillin? That, at least, was the question that led to the launch last… Read more »
President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at a joint news conference following their summit in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. (Chris McGrath/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The media, Congress, the international community — just about everybody is reeling after the joint news conference on Monday in Helsinki bringing together President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among other remarkable declarations, Trump seemed to agree with Putin by doubting the U.S. intelligence… Read more »
arinne Sjoberg peels off a sticker that neo-Nazis left on the door of what used to be the Jewish community center of Umea, Sweden. (Photo courtesy Carinne Sjoberg)
When Carinne Sjoberg dissolved the Jewish Community of Umea in northern Sweden, she knew it would send shockwaves far beyond the small congregation that she had spent decades building. The move in May owed to intimidation by neo-Nazis, making it the first time in decades that a Jewish organization… Read more »
Germany has agreed to increase its funding for social welfare services for Holocaust survivors by $88 million. The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany in its announcement Tuesday said the increase brings global allocations by Germany for 2019 to $564 million. The Claims Conference and representatives of the… Read more »
Ronaldo and Bernadette Lopez, who arrived in Israel in 2003, now run a Filipino restaurant and converted to Judaism in April. (Ben Sales)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — One of the biggest days of the year for Ronaldo and Bernadette Lopez is Christmas. They open up their Filipino restaurant in South Tel Aviv, and their friends bring their families, crowd the place and eat embutido, a rolled pork dish from their shared home… Read more »
A view of a classroom at Liessin, Brazil's largest Jewish day school. (Courtesy of Liessin)
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) – One of the hottest topics among Rio Jewish families today sits right across the street from both the city’s largest synagogue and the site of a future Holocaust memorial. It’s a non-Jewish day school, directed by a Cohen with the support of a Levy, that… Read more »
Shoshanna Nambi wants to teach her rabbinical school colleagues about Ugandan Jewish traditions. (Courtesy of Nambi)
(JTA) — Growing up in Uganda, Shoshanna Nambi was active in her small Jewish community. She taught songs and the Torah portion to younger children and was a member of her community’s youth group. Learning Hebrew also seemed to come easily. So it seemed obvious to her that she… Read more »
During World War II, Miriam Dubi-Gazan registered falsely as the daughter of a Nazi collaborator without his knowledge. (Courtesy of Dubi-Gazan)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — As a seasoned ghost writer who specializes in biographies, Miriam Dubi-Gazan says there is no such thing as a boring life story. Her attention to detail, creativity and editing skills yield satisfying results even for clients whose resumes are not exactly the stuff of spy novels… Read more »
From left to right: Jen Binford, Rachel Brown and Gabby Nordell cooking for Passover at a Mevashlim B’Ivrit class in Boise, Idaho. (Courtesy of Efi Asaf)
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) – In the compact, open kitchen of the apartment here that Dalit Gvirtsman shares with her husband, about a dozen women are jostling for space. One is chopping tomatoes, another is sauteing onions and another is squeezing a few dollops of honey into cooked egg noodles.… Read more »
JERUSALEM (JTA) — When Adam Ferziger wants to describe the “deteriorating” relationship between American and Israeli Jews, he reaches back to a 2,000-year-old divide. “To use a metaphor, we have a contemporary Jerusalem and Babylon kind of dynamic,” said Ferziger, a history and contemporary Jewry professor at Bar-Ilan University in Tel… Read more »
Alma Hernandez, a Mexican-American Jew and daughter of immigrants, is running for the Arizona House of Representatives and founded a progressive Jewish group in Tucson. (Courtesy of Hernandez) (JTA) — When Mary McCabe explains America’s immigration courts to children who have been separated from their parents, she tries to make it interactive. She draws a sketch of a courtroom and asks kids to identify the figures in the room — like the judge or the lawyers —… Read more »
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump at their historic summit in Singapore, June 12, 2018. (Kevin Lim/The Strait Times/Handout/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Amos Yadlin likes talking about the Begin doctrine, which calls for removing existential threats to Israel before they are manifest — maybe because he lived it twice. As an Israeli Air Force pilot, Yadlin flew one of the planes that took out Iraq’s nuclear reactor… Read more »
Lionel Messi, left, and Gonzalo Higuain of Argentina play against the United States during the 2016 Copa America Centenario in Houston, June 21, 2016. (Bob Levey/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Israelis want nothing more than for their country to be considered normal. That may have to wait. A much-anticipated soccer game between the Argentine and Israeli national teams was cancelled Wednesday because, Israeli and Argentine officials say, of physical threats made to the Argentine players — including… Read more »
Paul van der Bas reads a Dutch newspaper featuring an article about him and Anne Fleur Dekker, May 7, 2018. (Courtesy of Anne Fleur Dekker)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Like many young intellectual couples their age, Anne Fleur Dekker and Paul van der Bas enjoy going on walks together, dining out, discussing art and attending cultural events. A Dutch couple in their 20s, they have different dress styles — he has a clean-cut look and… Read more »
Rabbi Gershom Sizomu leads Uganda's Jewish community. (Courtesy of Be'chol Lashon)
(JTA) — A Ugandan rabbi called on Israel to recognize his community after the government ruled against allowing members to move to the Jewish state. Rabbi Gershom Sizomu confirmed a report in Haaretz last week that the Israeli Interior Ministry had denied a community member’s immigration application. The Interior… Read more »
Lea Hirsch, left, in eastern Poland meets a man who knew her uncle before he was murdered in 1944, June 2017. (Courtesy of Lea Hirsch)
(JTA) — Josef Kopf survived Sobibor by killing a guard and staging the first successful escape from that death camp in Poland, where the Nazis murdered 250,000 Jews. But Kopf, whose unlikely escape in 1943 preceded by several months a full-scale uprising at Sobibor, did not live to see Nazi… Read more »
Andrew Intrater, on right, with USC Shoah Foundation board member Mickey Shapiro, left, Steven Spielberg and William Clay Ford, Jr. in Dearborn, Mich., Sept. 10, 2015. (Duane Prokop/Getty Images for the USC Shoah Foundation)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The special prosecutor’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election offers an unsettling journey for anyone steeped in Russian Jewry, and the transition from the repression of the former Soviet Union to the relative freedoms of the Russian Federation. Of 10 billionaires with Kremlin ties… Read more »
A woman walks across Israel square in Guatemala City, Dec. 27, 2017. (Orlando Estrada/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — President Donald Trump’s decision in December to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital drew wide international criticism, with 128 countries including the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada voting in favor of a United Nations resolution condemning it. But several countries saw Trump’s decision in a different light: as an example to follow.… Read more »
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addresses the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, Sept. 22, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — An inflection point in American policy towards Iran came this afternoon, when President Trump announced he will re-impose nuclear sanctions on Iran and effectively withdraw the U.S. from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal. Having done so, the administration should anticipate the range… Read more »
Dr. Morris Hartstein, center, frequently travels to Gondar, Ethiopia, to run clinics where he sees up to 500 patients at a time and performs some surgeries. (Courtesy of Hartstein)
RAANANA, Israel — In August 2014, Dr. Morris Hartstein went on a trip to Gondar, Ethiopia, where thousands of Ethiopians seeking to immigrate to Israel live and wait while Israel considers their eligibility to make aliyah. On his second day there, Hartstein showed up for the afternoon mincha service and… Read more »
