National

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announces 2020 White House bid

(JTA) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his candidacy for president in the 2020 election, calling President Donald Trump a “bully.” De Blasio, the mayor since 2014, made the announcement early Thursday morning in a 3-minute video posted on YouTube and becomes the 23rd candidate for the… Read more »

Teen turns himself in for attack on Jewish man in Brooklyn

(JTA) — A teenager has turned himself in for punching an identifiably Jewish man in the head in Brooklyn. It was one of two attacks on haredi Orthodox men in the largely haredi Williamsburg neighborhood in less than two weeks. Police are withholding the 16-year-old’s name because he is… Read more »

Trump grants full pardon to former Jerusalem Post owner Conrad Black

(JTA) — President Donald Trump granted a full pardon to Conrad Black, the former owner and publisher of The Jerusalem Post who had spent three years in prison for stealing $60 million from his own company, Hollinger International. Black was found guilty of fraud and obstruction of justice in… Read more »

NASA releases photo of Israeli moonshot’s crash site

JERUSALEM (JTA) — NASA released a photo of what it says is the crash site of Israel’s Beresheet lunar lander. The image taken some 56 miles from the surface of the moon by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 22, 11 days after the crash, shows a dark smudge… Read more »

Is Iran the new Iraq? Here are the similarities — and big differences

Two Navy men attach cargo to a Sea Hawk helicopter from the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in the Red Sea, May 10, 2019. The Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group has been deployed to the area as tensions with Iran have escalated. (Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Amber Smalley/U.S. Navy via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — An American administration is issuing dire warnings about a Persian Gulf nation, there’s talk of war and questions about the quality of intelligence. And those who back confronting Iran and those who don’t are citing Israel as a factor. If the Iran war talk sounds familiar,… Read more »

Documentary on Dr. Ruth delves into the sex therapist’s Holocaust past

"Ask Dr. Ruth" chronicles the life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, a Holocaust survivor who became America's most famous sex therapist. (Austin Hargrave)

(JTA) — Judging by all the media attention, the world loves short Jewish women named Ruth. One of them, Ruth Westheimer — better known as the renowned sex therapist Dr. Ruth — is on the phone to talk about her life and a new documentary about it. But first… Read more »

Poway, a California haven, learns it can happen here

Hundreds gather in Poway, Calif., for a vigil for the victims of the synagogue shooting there, April 28, 2019. (Gabrielle Birkner)

POWAY, Calif. (JTA)— With hundreds gathered to show support for the victims of a shooting inside his synagogue, Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein recounted the moment when he came face to face with the gunman and what happened next: He described watching a congregant’s husband, a doctor, faint as he attempted… Read more »

I used to avoid everything Holocaust related. This Auschwitz exhibit changed my attitude.

An original barrack from Monowitz, a labor and concentration camp that was part of the Auschwitz complex, is featured in the exhibit "Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away" at the Museum of Jewish Heritage-A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. (Josefin Dolsten)

NEW YORK (JTA) — As a teenager, whenever my mother would suggest watching a Holocaust film, I would groan. I always felt that the Shoah already was close enough. My father had shown me the letters my great-grandfather wrote from a concentration camp in Poland to his daughter, who… Read more »

First-ever official US delegation joins March of the Living at Auschwitz

Elan Carr, second from left, the U.S. special anti-Semitism envoy, stands with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, second from right, and Israeli soldiers at the March of the Living at Auschwitz, May 2, 2019. (Cnaan Liphshiz)

OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — President Donald Trump’s appointee as special envoy for monitoring and combating anti-Semitism toured Auschwitz for the first time on Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day. Elan Carr, who was named earlier this year, was part of the first official U.S. delegation to the March of the Living,… Read more »

In the wake of another deadly synagogue shooting, we need Holocaust education more than ever

A gate with the inscription "Work Sets You Free" at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp memorial in Oranienburg, Germany, Jan. 25, 2019. (Omer Messinger/Getty Images)

(JTA) — On the Shabbat morning of April 27, Hadassah member Lori Gilbert-Kaye was murdered while celebrating Passover at the Chabad of Poway. The synagogue’s rabbi, a male congregant and an 8-year-old girl were wounded as well by the self-avowed white supremacist shooter. We know that anti-Semitism is on the… Read more »