National

  (JTA) — On Monday, one day before Election Day, I received a call from a reader. She identified herself as a Reform Jew, 46, from Chicago. She had praise for JTA and our daily newsletter, but also a complaint: Our emphasis on the Trump campaign, including charges over… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – It started several months ago in anxious whispers among pro-Israel leaders. Now it has burst into the open in full-page ads in The New York Times and op-eds in The Wall Street Journal: Does Barack Obama have a lame-duck surprise in store for Israel? Or, as… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – Jacob Silberstein used one word to describe the first presidential campaign he’s experienced as a voter: “underwhelming.” Like many of his classmates at List College, a joint program here between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Silberstein voted for Hillary Clinton. He… Read more »

(JTA) – If you’re a Jewish-American liberal who believes that Donald Trump could never become president, British Jews have one word of warning: Brexit. Following the shocking referendum vote in June favoring a British exit from the European Union, many British Jews now believe that their liberal circles and cosmopolitan lifestyles… Read more »

  (JTA) — Some of us are voting for Trump. Most of us are voting for Clinton. But we Jews are all afraid. There are the scandals, yes. There are emails and sexual assault allegations and emails and fraud and racism and anti-Semitism and emails. There are issues like… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Pieties? Out. Passports? In. Paranoia? On its way. Jewish Americans have never been ones to sit out an election, whether it comes to voting, political fundraising or dinner table punditry. But even for a community grown used to the political fray, the 2016 campaign was different.… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump campaign has released a campaign ad promising to defeat an international global power structure featuring several prominent Jews in the financial world. The ad, the final Trump campaign ad before voters go to the polls Tuesday, has been criticized on liberal news websites and… Read more »

(JTA) — An Arizona teenager was sentenced to eight years in prison for plotting an attack on government buildings and the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Mahin Khan, 18, was sentenced on Friday in Maricopa County Superior Court a month after he pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism, conspiracy to… Read more »

Jason Dov Greenblatt, seen at Trump world headquarters in Manhattan, is one of Donald Trump's two key Israel advisers along with being his top real estate attorney. (Uriel Heilman)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Less than a week before the presidential election, Donald Trump’s two top Israel advisers released a detailed plan that pledges assistance to Israel beyond current levels but stops short of pledging to kill the Iran nuclear deal. The 16-point plan, which was posted Wednesday on the Medium publishing platform… Read more »

  (JTA) — For years, I’ve told anyone who would listen that the Cubs were the team of the Jews. I’ve written two blog posts about it during the past month alone. Long suffering. Faithful. Bound to tradition. Hoping for redemption, to no avail. It was all there. Until… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – California condors? I’ll show you rarities: Jewish congressmen from Memphis and Jewish Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives. And both demographics may be set to double in population – to two. Seven Jews either running for open seats or challenging incumbents in Congress have a shot at… Read more »

 KARNEI SHOMRON, West Bank (JTA) — The Chicago Cubs are facing the Cleveland Indians in a historic World Series, and most of Israel could not care less. This Jewish settlement is different. The Neve Aliza neighborhood of Karnei Shomron is overwhelmingly American. Among the some 200 families from the… Read more »

(JTA) — This presidential campaign has made Jewish history, for reasons good and bad. Bernie Sanders became the first Jewish candidate to win a U.S. presidential primary, and the families of both presidential nominees had strong Jewish ties. But the campaign also saw heated debate on Israel and Iran and a troubling rise… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Hillary vs. Donald is sucking all the air out of the room. Consider: The first woman major party nominee battling a reality TV star. The Republican nominee, Donald Trump, bragging in a 2005 video about sexual assault, then denying it when a dozen women corroborate his braggadacio. The… Read more »

WALTHAM, Mass. (JTA) — At a summit meeting held last week at the National Museum of American Jewish History, several hundred communal professionals, rabbis, scholars, philanthropists and young intermarried couples gathered to discuss engagement of interfaith families in Jewish life. There is widespread communal agreement that intermarriage has reshaped the… Read more »

(JTA) — Five years ago, on a whim, Cindy, a 27-year-old Jewish woman, decided to pursue genetic testing through an online laboratory. She wasn’t expecting any surprises because she had no family history of cancer or increased risk factors. She was young and living a healthy lifestyle. But Cindy’s… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Hillel International’s swift decision to cancel a campus tour featuring Israeli journalist Ari Shavit has prompted other organizations to consider similar policies on speakers and sexual assault. On Thursday, following allegations that Shavit sexually assaulted a reporter, Hillel nixed a speaking tour featuring Shavit scheduled for later… Read more »

  (JTA) — For much of her adult life, Rachel Freier has been a trailblazer in her Hasidic Brooklyn community of Borough Park: a lawyer, an advocate for higher education, the founder of an all-female ambulance service and of a nonprofit to aid underprivileged mothers during the Gulf War. Now… Read more »

CHICAGO (JTA) — The same week Tamar Manasseh’s African-American son was going to become a bar mitzvah, gang violence killed two 13-year-old black boys who were also from Chicago’s South Side. As she picked out the bar mitzvah suit for her son, Manasseh couldn’t shake the image of the slain boys’… Read more »

(JTA) — Joe Lieberman is in South Florida doing the shul and seniors circuit for a Clinton, and he’s relishing the gig. “How does it feel? It feels like I’m home again,” Lieberman said Thursday in a phone interview, his voice relaxing into a remarkable confession for the former… Read more »