Hasia Diner (Screenshot from YouTube)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Hasia Diner is one of the most acclaimed American Jewish historians in the country. A product of the Habonim Dror Zionist youth movement, she is a former Fulbright Professor at the University of Haifa in Israel. Now, she’s calling Zionism a “naive delusion” and says… Read more »
Aly Raisman competes in the floor exercise at the 2016 U.S. Women's Gymnastics Olympic Trials in San Jose, Calif., July 10, 2016. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
(JTA) — There are athletes, and then there are Olympic athletes. And then there are Jewish Olympic athletes. When the 2016 Summer Olympics open Friday, we’ll of course be cheering the American athletes — all 555 of them — and we’ll be rooting for Israel, too, which this year is… Read more »
Hillary Clinton arrives on stage during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 27, 2016. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — After Tim Kaine, Biden, Bloomberg, Bernie, Bill and both Obamas, it’s finally Hillary’s turn. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, will close out a Democratic National Convention centered on highlighting America’s diversity, touting her qualifications and bashing her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Clinton’s address will be… Read more »
Shabbos Kestenbaum, 17, attending a breakfast for the Virginia delegation to the Democratic National Convention, July 26, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Amanda Renteria, the national political director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was running through the campaign’s messages for minorities and women: immigration for Hispanics, land use for Native Americans, various policies for defending children and women. She didn’t mention Jews in her briefing Tuesday morning for specialty media, and there’s… Read more »
Florida State Sen. Dwight Bullard, wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh, or headscarf, said Palestinians should have the right to citizenship in Israel. He visited the West Bank and Israel in May as part of a delegation from the Black Lives Matter movement. (Ben Sales)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — The Democratic Party has spent the first couple days of its convention projecting unity on issues from fighting racism to fair trade. But fissures are showing here on one issue that Democrats have long been united on: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their party, which has long commanded… Read more »
Bernie Sanders supporters gathering at City Hall in downtown Philadelphia on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, July 25, 2016. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Bernie Sanders’ delegates are going to raise hell on the floor of the Democratic National Convention, his own wishes be damned. “Change that’s worth a damn always comes from the bottom up, not from the top,” said Norman Solomon, coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network, an… Read more »
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, speaking to a reporter before the Democratic Party debate in Manchester, N.H., Dec. 19, 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Just last week, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was playing the anti-Semitism card against Donald Trump. But in a startling turnaround, on the eve of her own party’s convention, it’s the South Florida congresswoman who is out as chair of the Democratic National Committee — over a… Read more »
Donald Trump Jr. gesturing to the crowd after delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 19, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND (JTA) — An issue of historical concern to American Jews drew waves of applause when Donald Trump Jr. preached about it Tuesday night from the stage of the Republican National Convention. It wasn’t Israel, Iran or the fight against anti-Semitism. It was a call for the government to… Read more »
Marc Zell, vice president of Republicans Overseas, opposed Trump as recently as May. But Trump's pro-Israel stance has changed his mind. (Ben Sales)
CLEVELAND (JTA) — On the day Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican primaries, Marc Zell was ready to resign his position as vice president of Republicans Overseas, the party’s expatriate group. Zell, who lives in Israel, was put off by Trump’s inconsistent statements regarding the country. In particular, he… Read more »
Jason Dov Greenblatt, Donald Trump's top real estate lawyer and an Orthodox Jew, is one of three members on the Republican nominee's Israel Advisory Committee. (Uriel Heilman)
CLEVELAND (JTA) – Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency rolled out its Israel Advisory Committee last week — no one noticed. Blame the unrelenting news cycle, if you will: July 14 was the day of the hideous mass killing in Nice, France. But also, his Israel Advisory Committee consists of… Read more »
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at The Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., Dec. 6, 2015. (Chris Kleponis/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — What was RBG thinking? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg launched a broadside against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the the last week, calling him unfit for office. She subsequently apologized, but not before voices on the right and left criticized her for seeming to compromise the… Read more »
Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland is decorated to welcome the Republican National Convention, July 11, 2016. (Angelo Merendino/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – They’re elusive, but show up in the right place at the right time — and you might find one! No, we’re not talking about the latest iteration of Pokemon Go. This is about tracking prominent Jewish GOPers and Jewish organizational representatives attending the Republican National Convention next… Read more »
Elie Wiesel arriving for a roundtable discussion on the Iran nuclear deal on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., March 2, 2015. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Being an American Jew, more than anything else, means remembering the Holocaust. That’s what nearly three quarters of Jewish Americans said, according to the Pew Research Center’s landmark 2013 study on American Jewry. Asked to pick attributes “essential” to being Jewish, more Jews said Holocaust remembrance than leading an ethical… Read more »
At 76, longtime activists Shoshana Dembitz, seated, center left, and Abigail Grafton, seated, center right, married in El Cerrito, Calif., on June 27, 2016. The ceremony was officiated by Rabbi Diane Elliot, seated left, and her husband, Rabbi Burt Jacobson. (Lea Delson)
BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) – When Shoshana Dembitz and Abigail Grafton first met, they spent several long moments gazing into each others’ eyes. But this wasn’t a love-at-first-sight occurrence. Rather, the two were attending a Shabbat service in which participants were split into pairs to look into each others’… Read more »
Elie Wiesel, the author of over 50 books, in the study of his New York City home, Oct. 14, 1986. (Allan Tannenbaum/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Most people know Elie Wiesel as the author of “Night,” one of the first published autobiographical accounts of what life was like inside Nazi concentration camps. The book, which helped shape the American understanding of the effects of the Holocaust, has since become a staple on high… Read more »
Elie Wiesel poses with students in Tucson on March 1, 1993, when he gave the concluding lecture in the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s “Discovery IV” series. Over the years Wiesel visited Tucson several times, including in 2005, when he gave the inaugural University of Arizona Presidential Lecture, speaking on “Confronting Fanaticism: Building Moral Unity in a Diverse Society.”
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate who became a leading icon of Holocaust remembrance and a global symbol of conscience, died on Saturday at 87. His death was the result of natural causes, the World Jewish Congress said in a statement. A philosopher, professor… Read more »
Sen.Al Franken attending the 68th Annual Writers Guild Awards in New York City, Feb. 13, 2016. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images For The Writers Guild Of America)
(JTA) — Last week Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said that if Hillary Clinton asked him to be her running mate, he’d take the job. “If Hillary Clinton came to me and said, ‘Al, I really need you to be my vice president, to run with me,’ I would… Read more »
Camp JRF has embraced inclusivity since its founding, with activities that rarely divide up the boys and the girls. (Courtesy of Camp JRF)
WHIPPANY, N.J. (New Jersey Jewish News via JTA) — Bathrooms accessible for transgender children and staff are old news at Camp JRF, the Reconstructionist movement’s summer camp in South Sterling, Pa. Five years ago the camp posted signs on bathroom doors stating “This bathroom may be used by any… Read more »
Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders greet each other at the CNN presidential debate in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 14, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Acknowledging for the first time that he will not be the Democratic presidential nominee, Bernie Sanders said he was not yet ready to endorse Hillary Clinton. In an expansive interview aired June 22 on C-Span, Sanders said he hoped to speak at the Democratic convention in Philadelphia… Read more »
Writer Calvin Trillin, center, interviewing John Lewis in Birmingham, Ala., as the Freedom Riders were boarding the bus for Montgomery in 1961. (LIFE Images Collection)
(JTA) — Writer Calvin Trillin may be most famous today for his humorous musings on food, family, travel and love. But before he won the Thurber Prize for Humor in 2013; before “Uncivil Liberties,” his humor column for The Nation — he has lovingly called it “a pinko magazine published… Read more »
