National

Iran will again enrich uranium at Fordow plan, another nuclear deal violation
November 5, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

(JTA) — Iran will inject uranium gas into 1,044 centrifuges at its underground Fordow nuclear enrichment plant. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani made the announcement during a speech Tuesday broadcast live on national television, the state-owned PressTV reported. The centrifuges had been spinning without the gas to produce stable isotopes… Read more »

White supremacist arrested in plot to blow up Colorado synagogue

Temple Emanuel in Pueblo, Colo., was the target of a possible bombing plot, according to court documents. (Screenshot from Google Maps Street View)
November 5, 2019 / Ben Sales, JTA

(JTA) — A white supremacist has been arrested for plotting to blow up a synagogue in Colorado. Richard Holzer, 27, was charged for planning to attack Temple Emanuel, a congregation in Pueblo of 35 families whose building dates to 1900. According to an affidavit describing the charges, Holzer is… Read more »

Joe Biden: ‘Absolutely outrageous’ to use Israel aid as leverage
November 3, 2019 / JTA Staff

(JTA) — Presidential candidate Joe Biden says it would be a “gigantic mistake” to condition aid to Israel on stopping settlement expansion. The former vice president told a Wall Street Journal reporter it would be “absolutely outrageous” for the United States to take that approach — a position that… Read more »

University of Oregon accused of not reporting anti-Semitic incidents
November 3, 2019 / JTA Staff

(JTA) — An employee and a student of the University of Oregon have filed a federal complaint alleging that the school failed to report anti-Semitic hate crimes. According to the complaint filed in September, which was shared with the Register-Guard daily, the university listed only one hate crime in… Read more »

A Chabad couple in New Jersey built an immersive village for kids with autism

LifeTown Shoppes features 15 storefronts where visitors can practice doing everyday errands. (Josefin Dolsten)
November 3, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

LIVINGSTON, N.J. (JTA) — A new 11,000-square-foot shopping center here is home to 15 storefronts, including a bank, pet shop and clothing store. There’s a health center with a dentist and doctor’s office and a ShopRite supermarket. A traffic guard monitors the crosswalk, which is bisected by a plant… Read more »

What exactly is Elizabeth Warren’s Israel policy?

Sen. Elizabeth Warren campaigns in Florence, S.C., Oct. 26, 2019. (Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
November 3, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When it comes to pressuring Israel, Elizabeth Warren doesn’t have a specific plan. The senator from Massachusetts, who has caught up in polling with front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination, now faces intensified scrutiny as a newly viable contender. And what has emerged is that Warren… Read more »

Presidential hopeful Michael Bennet: I think about my family’s experience during the Holocaust every day

Michael Bennet speaks at the annual J Street National Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., Oct. 28, 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
October 29, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — Since announcing his presidential run in May, Michael Bennet has been polling between zero and 1 percent. He didn’t qualify for the latest Democratic debate and he’s a long shot to make the next one. The Colorado senator raised only $2.1 million in the third quarter of… Read more »

Tucson migrants benefit from generous donations by Wisconsin congregations

(L-R) Shelter coordinators Diego Piña Lopez and Francis Wheeler, Jim Rich, Jill Rich, and volunteer driver Seth Ruskin unload coats and goods donated by Milwaukee’s Congregation Shalom at the Casa Alitas migrant shelter in Tucson. (Photo: Debe Campbell/AJP)
October 25, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

A sermon at Congregation Shalom in Milwaukee translated into generosity from that community to Tucson. It all began when Rabbi Ronald Shapiro joined a group of rabbis visiting a migrant detention center in San Diego in the spring. Returning to Milwaukee to share what he witnessed, he relayed how… Read more »

This medical school is putting a uniquely Jewish spin on doctor training

Founded in 1860, New York Medical College was an affiliate of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese from 1971 until Touro, a Jewish-run university, took over in 2011. (Courtesy of NYMC/JTA Photo Service)
October 25, 2019 / Ben Harris

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 »

AMA taskforce issues roadmap to combat opioid abuse, addiction, death
October 25, 2019 / StatePoint

As America’s opioid epidemic continues to impact communities large and small, new trends are raising new challenges for doctors and policymakers. While opioid-related overdose remains a top concern, the epidemic now is driven by illicitly manufactured fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine. In 2017, more than 70,000 people died from… Read more »

A year after disaster, Pittsburgh is so much more than a site of tragedy

A group of volunteers takes to the streets to beautify Pittsburgh. (Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh)
October 24, 2019 / Jeffrey Finkelstein, JTA

PITTSBURGH (JTA) —As we approach the one year since the worst anti-Semitic attack in American history, I am grateful for the outpouring of support for the Pittsburgh Jewish community. Over the last year, people across the world have stood shoulder to shoulder with all of us in the 412.… Read more »

How Bernie Sanders became a favorite among Muslim Americans

Muslim women attend a Bernie Sanders campaign rally at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium in Riverside, Calif., May 24, 2016. (David McNew/AFP/Getty Images)
October 24, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — Bernie Sanders was one of only two Democratic presidential candidates to address the Islamic Society of North America Convention in August, the largest annual gathering of Muslim Americans in the country. Organizers invited the 10 highest-polling contenders at the time to the Houston event, but the Vermont… Read more »

A Rosh Hashanah ritual — in space

Daniel Shorr, far right, and other members of Stanford’s Student Space Initiative escort a rocket he built. (Courtesy of Shorr)
October 24, 2019 / David A.M. Wilensky, JTA

SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Typically, Jews gather after Rosh Hashanah services to recite a brief prayer and then symbolically cast away their sins by tossing breadcrumbs into a body of water. The ritual, called tashlich, isn’t mandated by Jewish law — it’s just… Read more »

Nearly 9 in 10 American Jews say anti-Semitism is a problem in U.S.

Members of the Jewish community and their allies protest anti-Semitism and a National Students for Justice in Palestine conference at the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, Nov. 6, 2018. (Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
October 24, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — More than eight in 10 American Jews say that anti-Semitism has spiked in recent years and even more believe it is a problem in the United States, according to an American Jewish Committee survey. More than three-quarters of respondents see the extreme political right as more… Read more »

JFSA invites all to “Pause with Pittsburgh” on Oct. 27
October 23, 2019 /

On Oct. 27, 2018, in was the most brutal anti-Semitic attack in the history of the United States, a gunman opened fire in the Tree of Life building in Pittsburgh, taking the lives of 11 innocent people from three congregations: Dor Hadash, New Light and Tree of Life *… Read more »