National

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — The transition between the Barack Obama and Donald Trump presidencies is creating a vacuum that is increasing the threat of genocide in trouble spots, according to a top official at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Cameron Hudson, the director of the museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) -– Nearly six years ago, when President Barack Obama was set to elevate one of his top emissaries to the Jewish community to the Israel ambassadorship, Dan Shapiro asked for – and got – the endorsement of one of Obama’s fiercest pro-Israel critics. “Dan has always spoken… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – A year ago, when several dozen Washington-area Jewish and Muslim religious and lay leaders jostled for spots in a group picture, the mood was convivial. The most novel item on the agenda for that November 2015 confab was bringing in non-Middle Eastern Muslims into the Jewish-Muslim… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — “This Jew says no to white nationalism,” one sign read. “Silence is akin to consent,” another said, quoting the Talmud. A third displayed a lyric from a Yiddish song: “We will outlive them.” The signs, along with chants like “Donald Trump, it’s your fault; Stephen… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, is the chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil, an energy company large enough to have its own foreign policy. It is a policy, however, that doesn’t always align with the priorities of Jewish and pro-Israel groups. Oil… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — When  Northwestern University’s student Senate passed a resolution in February 2015 asking the university to divest from six corporations they said contributed to the violation of Palestinians’ human rights, freshman Ross Krasner was hurt and surprised. The rhetoric of the measure, portraying Israel as an oppressor,… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — Eight liberal members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations will not attend its Hanukkah party because it is being held at a hotel owned by President-elect Donald Trump. The Union of Reform Judaism, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the National Council… Read more »

  LAWRENCE, Kan. (JTA) – Joanna Slusky places a test tube into an incubating shaker, flips the switch, and it begins to quiver. So does she. “I’m excited,” she said, showing off another gadget in her lab, a contraption that stirs solutions using a magnetic coil and a metal… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Add sweeping school reforms – and with them, funding for private schools that Orthodox groups embrace and secular Jewish groups fear — to the campaign promises that Donald Trump plans to fulfill. Last week, just before Thanksgiving, the president-elect named Betsy DeVos, a billionaire education reform activist… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Outgoing Secretary of State John Kerry signaled in a speech that the Obama administration was still considering action on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in its final days, although it might fall short of a direct intervention on the issue. There’s no way to “force-feed” peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Kerry said… Read more »

The U.S. Postal Service has released a new Hanukkah Forever stamp. The first-day-of-issue stamp dedication ceremony took place Nov. 1 at Temple Beth El of Boca Raton in Florida. The holiday begins this year at sundown on Dec. 24. “The Hanukkah stamp we’re dedicating today honors a religious observance… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – The most shocking thing about talk of Keith Ellison’s Israel record as he rises within the Democratic Party is how few think it’s shocking. Rep. Ellison, D-Minn., is a leading contender for the chairmanship of the Democratic National Committee, despite a record of tough criticism of Israel… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — In recent months, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have each emphasized what in recent years hardly needed emphasizing: mainstream Jewish support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The reiterations of support signify a concern… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Stephen Bannon, in his first interviews since Donald Trump named him a top White House aide, denied being anti-Semitic or a white nationalist. At the same time, he continued to advance a theory of “globalist” conspiracy that echoes centuries-old anti-Semitic libels, but without any mention of Jews.… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — After Brett Parker’s great-grandfather fled the pogroms in Europe and came to the United States, he opened a drug store where he sold comic books. Each week he would give his grandson, Parker’s father, five comic books to take home. Growing up during the early… Read more »

(JTA) — Speakers at an event of the white supremacist think tank the National Policy Institute quoted Nazi propaganda and said the media protects Jewish interests. The day-long event of speeches and panel discussions attended by about 200 people was held Saturday in Washington, D.C. The New York Times… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Controversial pasts with incendiary statements and a fierce loyalty to the president-elect. Judging from the announcements Donald Trump is expected to make Friday, his White House and Cabinet is likelier to look a lot more like Stephen Bannon than Reince Priebus. Those are, respectively, Trump’s top… Read more »

  (JTA) — For years, whenever Jews and Muslims engaged in dialogue and activism, it usually concerned one issue: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With Donald Trump’s ascent to the presidency, that appears to be changing. Regardless of what’s happening across the ocean, Jews and Muslims in the United States are… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) – Offer an open hand or a closed fist — or maybe both. Name names. Don’t name names, hint. Quietly adjust wording. Welcome to the second week of the World of Trump, Jewish organizational edition. Week 1 was fraught enough, with Jewish statements marking Donald Trump’s… Read more »

(JTA) — Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont Independent, has joined the Senate Democratic leadership. Sanders was named chair of outreach for the party on Wednesday, according to reports on the closed-door Senate Democratic caucus meeting. As an Independent, Sanders was an outsider to the Democratic Party until he ran… Read more »