National

ORLANDO, Fla. (JTA) — Last week was a big one for Daryl Messinger. A resident of Palo Alto, California, and an active board member of several organizations, Messinger was installed as chair of the Union for Reform Judaism, becoming the first woman to hold that post. And she chanted Torah… Read more »

  (JTA) — Ever wonder what the perfect pop-culture storm looks like? Hurricane Ruth — as in Bader Ginsburg — was brewing among millennials, feminists and across social media platforms before it made landfall in Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik’s new biography about the Meme Supreme: “Notorious RBG: The… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Do you experience feelings of peace and well-being at least once a week? Did God write the Torah? Do you eat bacon? If these questions seem a little personal, don’t fret. They’re all part of a new Pew Research Center survey on American religion released… Read more »

BOSTON (JTA) — Ruti Regan has been told she’s a pioneer, the first autistic rabbinic student at the Jewish Theological Seminary. But she doesn’t believe that for a second. She may be the first to admit it, said Regan, 30, “but I’m not the only one.” “What do you… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – When America’s main modern Orthodox rabbinical association voted last week to ban the hiring of clergywomen by its members, the question wasn’t whether to endorse women rabbis. It was whether to widen the group’s well-established repudiation of female clergy or keep quiet and focus on finding common ground with modern… Read more »

(JTA) – For Justine Siegal, attending Opening Day games of the Cleveland Indians with her grandfather led to a lifelong passion for baseball – and dreams of one day playing for the Tribe. “Heaven,” she called the outings, where she sat in the best seats in the house —… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — By now it should be obvious how absurd it is to call President Barack Obama Israel’s “best friend” ever, as Thomas Friedman of The New York Times has claimed. A Blame Israel Firster, Obama won’t use his moral authority to try stopping the instigators of this… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s a Sunday in 2010, and in one hand I’m texting with a colleague about work. In the other I hold a pee stick, waiting for the results of my home pregnancy test to appear. As I press send, I realize that parenthood isn’t the… Read more »

  (JTA) — Jewish leaders have long warned of the bleak Jewish futures in store for children of intermarriage. But these prognostications were based largely on information from more than a decade ago, when intermarriage was far less common and far less accepted by American Jews than it is today.… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (Tazpit) – Bandura Games, a computer gaming company based in San Francisco, California, is set to launch a new mobile game app that would bridge gaps, build connections and create empathy between people from different sides of conflict zones. Initially interested in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Justin Hefter,… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — In many respects, the Manhattan headquarters of Kind Snacks — the purveyors of the omnipresent fruit and nut bars found everywhere from health-food stores to office-supply emporiums — are pretty much what you’d expect: Scads of casually dressed millennials mill about sleek, brightly colored rooms adorned… Read more »

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont spoke Oct. 9 to an estimated crowd of 11,000 at the Demeester Outdoor Performance Center at Reid Park. The rally marked the first large-scale event in Tucson by a national Jewish candidate and brought Sanders his first congressional endorsement. Former Connecticut… Read more »

(JTA) — Ivanka is to Donald Trump as Lisa is to Homer Simpson: brainy, composed and unflinchingly loyal to her outrageous and unpredictable father. At least that’s the portrait painted in a Politico article published Thursday. The article explores the relationship between the Republican presidential front-runner and the daughter who… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – I first met Leon Klinghoffer’s daughters in 2004, shortly after my father and stepmother were murdered in a robbery. Back then I was a TMI machine, telling my story not only to friends but also to anyone in my line of vision. One Shabbat, after going to the… Read more »

MANCHESTER CENTER, Vt. (JTA) – Bernie Sanders reads from the Passover Haggadah in Hebrew and jokes with his seder hosts about finding hametz, traces of leavening, after they have thoroughly cleaned the house in preparation for the holiday. The presidential candidate, a socialist competing for the Democratic nomination, also follows… Read more »

Rabbi Bob Alper

The Pope has a new comedic advisor… and he’s a rabbi. Rabbi Robert Alper, who prefers to go by Bob, is 70 years old and lives with his wife in the rural town East Dorset, Vermont. “It used to be Alpert, but we dropped the T at a party… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – “Do I know this person?” has been a common refrain in the Washington offices of national Jewish organizations since Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, resigned as House speaker last month and his chosen successor, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., the majority leader, flamed out last week. Every day sees a new… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – For the past 10 years, Rabbi Steve Gutow has been trying to get American Jews to be more civil to each other, especially in debates about political issues. But a decade on, as he prepares to step down from the helm of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the community seems… Read more »

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders speaking at an event at the University of Chicago, Sept. 28, 2015. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

  (JTA) — I interviewed Bernie Sanders a couple years ago when word first circulated that the Vermont senator might seek the presidency. Though he knew about JTA going in — and must have known questions about his Jewish background were coming — he didn’t want to get into it. I wrote at… Read more »

WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) — From murderers to sex offenders, some of the least desirable citizens of Maryland’s Montgomery County have walked through the doors of attorney Barry Helfand’s office. But it took a quiet teenager to make Helfand question his responsibility as a lawyer. Sitting in Helfand’s… Read more »