National

WARSAW, Poland (JTA)  — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the Jewish community center in Krakow along with a congressional delegation and received honorary membership. The bipartisan delegation led by Pelosi visited JCC Krakow on Tuesday after visiting the site of the former Auschwitz Nazi camp and touring the Auschwitz… Read more »

(JTA) — Half of American adults are unaware of basic facts regarding Nazism and the Holocaust, including the number of Jews who were killed and how Nazis came to power. Those are some of the findings of a new study by the Pew Research Center released on Tuesday, about… Read more »

RICHMOND, Va. (JTA) — Hedy Lapkin’s boyfriend wanted to attend the pro-gun rally in this capital city, but she had reservations. “My boyfriend has a lot of guns,” Lapkin, 79, said of her 83-year-old boyfriend. “He said, ‘You want to go to the rally?’ I said, ‘Are you out… Read more »

CHICAGO (JTA) — A group of longtime employees is taking ownership of Milt’s Barbecue for the Perplexed, the popular kosher restaurant here that has been donating its profits to support local charities for seven years. Within months of opening in 2013, Milt’s menu of home-smoked meats and barbecue dishes… Read more »

(JTA) — The progressive NowThis news website removed a segment of a video in which a George Washington University student asserted that teenage Holocaust diarist Anne Frank did not die in a concentration camp. The six-minute video about President Donald Trump’s executive order signed last month that directs “robust”… Read more »

(JTA) — Gov. Brad Little of Idaho recognized the 125th anniversary of the founding of his state’s Jewish community. “We recognize the resilience of the Jewish community in the face of great adversity, and we stand in solidarity with our Jewish neighbors in opposition to all forms of hate… Read more »

(JTA) — Hank Azaria said he will no longer voice the character of Indian convenience store manager Apu on “The Simpsons.” Azaria has been the thickly accented caricatured voice of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, manager of the show’s Kwik-E-Mart convenience store, for 30 years. “All we know there is I won’t… Read more »

(JTA) — A Wisconsin man with Jordanian roots was arrested for vandalizing a synagogue as part of his involvement in a white supremacist and neo-Nazi hate group known as The Base. Yousef Barasneh, 22, was arrested Friday as part of a nationwide investigation into the extremist group. Six other… Read more »

(JTA) — Donald Trump Jr., son of the president, said he has met Lev Parnas and said he thought the Ukrainian-American businessman was Israeli. Trump Jr. told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he and his father took photos with Parnas at political fundraising events, but that is… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Joe Biden mocked President Donald Trump’s claims to speak out against anti-Semitism, saying the president is dividing the country and turning a blind eye to white supremacists. “President’s talking about how he’s worried about anti-Semitism,” Biden told The New York Time’s editorial board in an interview… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The post-debate analysis this week focused largely on the ongoing spat between Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. While we hope they can sort that out soon, the debate featured something else more relevant to JTA readers: Everyone on stage thought that President Donald Trump made a… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the constitutional scholar, will join President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team. “Professor Dershowitz will present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman quoted Trump’s legal team as saying on Friday.… Read more »

(JTA) — Gladys Bourdain, who convinced an editor to publish the first article written by her chef son Anthony, has died. Bourdain died in hospice on Friday in the Bronx, New York. She was 85. She worked for nearly 25 years as a copy editor at the New York… Read more »

(JTA) — A New Jersey pizzeria has fired the manager accused of sending anti-Semitic text messages to a teenage employee after he asked to take off for a Jewish holiday. The family that owns Maurizio’s Pizzeria & Italian Ristorante in Eatontown, New Jersey, also has apologized to the teen… Read more »

(JTA) — A Florida man who has presented himself as a child Holocaust survivor has withdrawn as a plaintiff in a trial against a former Nazi concentration camp guard. Moshe Peter Loth made headlines in November when he hugged defendant Bruno Dey during his trial in Hamburg, Germany. Loth has… Read more »

(JTA) — A man sprayed a swastika and racial epithets on the stairs and front door of a synagogue in Lincoln, Nebraska, then took a picture of his vandalism. The graffiti discovered on Wednesday morning on the South Street Temple was drawn in orange spray-paint, KOLN’s 1011 NOW news… Read more »

(JTA) — The Jewish mayor of a Los Angeles suburb has ordered a local condo owner to remove material posted on his balcony that includes swastikas and threats against the president. “This type of material and language has no place in our community and we are working tirelessly to… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Vice President Mike Pence will attend a conference on the Holocaust in Israel. The White House announced Wednesday that Pence and his wife, Karen, would attend the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, in Jerusalem on Jan. 23. This year’s conference coincides… Read more »

(JTA) — A trailblazing children’s book by a Jewish author is the most checked-out book of all time at the New York Public Library. “The Snowy Day” by writer and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats has been checked out of the library 485,583 times, according to a list of the… Read more »

(JTA) — Five hundred rabbis and other Jewish leaders from around the world are calling for climate change action. The letter released earlier this month was signed by rabbis and leaders spanning the denominational spectrum — from Orthodox to Reform and secular — and from countries including the United… Read more »