National

Recycling toilet water and 4 other Israeli answers to California’s drought

A faucet and toilets are seen in a classroom in the ecological village in Nitzana, Israel. Students there learn about desalination and how to save water. (Chen Leopold/Flash 90)
April 21, 2015 / Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For help facing its worst drought in centuries, California should look to a country that beat its own chronic water shortage: Israel. Until a few years ago, Israel’s wells seemed like they were always running dry. TV commercials urged Israelis to conserve water. Newspapers tracked… Read more »

Who are the Republican candidates’ Jewish donors?
April 20, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Election Day is 19 months away, but the campaign already has begun. Aside from Democrat Hillary Clinton, three Republican candidates with reasonable chances at the nomination have declared and several others are on the cusp. The Republican Party says it’s been making inroads with Jewish voters, who… Read more »

Stanford student accuses group of anti-Semitic question
April 15, 2015 / Drew Himmelstein, J. Weekly via JTA

(J. weekly via JTA) — A junior at Stanford University who is running for the student senate says she faced anti-Semitic questioning from a student group whose endorsement she was seeking. During a March 13 interview in front of eight members of the university’s Students of Color Coalition, Molly… Read more »

Clinton weighs loyalty to Obama with distinctions on Israel issues
April 14, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Hillary Clinton does not appear until 90 seconds into the two-minute video rolling out her campaign. No one among the bright and diverse array of everyday Americans in that video mentions foreign policy. Or Barack Obama. Jewish Democrats say the video released this weekend is emblematic… Read more »

Competing views of Iran deal highlight challenges ahead

President Barack Obama has said that Iran should be granted sanctions relief only once it begins to implement a nuclear accord. (Chip Semodevilla/Getty Images)
April 13, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Now that the outline for an Iran nuclear agreement has been released — or, more precisely, two outlines, one by Iran, the other by the Obama administration — major gaps have emerged that will need to be resolved ahead of a June 30 deadline for a… Read more »

Obama and Netanyahu dig in for fight over Iran deal
April 3, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

(JTA) — For President Obama, the framework agreement reached Thursday with Iran is a “historic understanding” that does more to roll back Tehran’s nuclear program than any possible alternative and avoids the risk of a destructive war in the Middle East. But to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it’s… Read more »

Pew study: Muslims to overtake American Jews by 2050

American Muslims are expected to be more numerous than American Jews by the year 2035, according to a new study. (Adam Berry/Getty Images)
April 2, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – In 20 years, there will be more Muslims in North America than Jews, according to a new Pew Research Center report. The report, which was released Thursday, also found that more American Jews are leaving Judaism than non-Jews are joining the Jewish people. According to… Read more »

Riskin’s Haman remark reflects broad Israeli distrust of Obama
April 1, 2015 / Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For years, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has compared Iran to the biblical Persia, the ancient kingdom where the Jewish people were nearly annihilated through the evil designs of the arch-villain Haman. But when an American-born rabbi, widely seen as a religious moderate who… Read more »

Some of Lincoln’s best friends were Jews

The cover of "Lincoln and the Jews: A History," by Jonathan Sarna and Benjamin Shapell. (Courtesy of Thomas Dunne Books)
March 27, 2015 / Beth Kissileff, JTA

(JTA) – A whopping 16,000 books have been written about President Abraham Lincoln. But a new book and an exhibit at the New York Historical Society tell a previously untold story about Lincoln: his relationships with Jews. Benjamin Shapell has been collecting documents relating to Lincoln and the Jews… Read more »

Meet Ruth Porat, Google’s new CFO

Ruth Porat, who will join Google as its chief financial officer, with the former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, left, and former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank at a panel discussion at the Brookings Institution in Washington, March 2, 2015. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
March 25, 2015 / Anthony Weiss, JTA

(JTA) — To the business press, the symbolism of Ruth Porat’s move from her position as chief financial officer of Morgan Stanley to her newly announced perch as Google’s CFO of the future couldn’t be more obvious — it represents a shift in power from Wall Street to Silicon… Read more »

J Street U students describe emotional, polarized Israel climate on campus

J Street U studentsparticipating in a protestagainst Hillel International on the sidelines of the J Street conference in Washington, March 23, 2015. (Moshe Zusman)
March 24, 2015 / Sarah Wildman, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — At noon Monday, several hundred students marched through the bright March sunshine from the J Street conference at the Washington Convention Center for a protest. “This is not a march!” organizers pleaded as the orderly group moved south from the Carnegie Library to the headquarters of… Read more »

After Brooklyn blaze kills 7 kids, grief spans an ocean

A mourner near the fresh graves of the seven children from the Sassoon family during their funeral in Jerusalem, March 23, 2015. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
March 24, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – Even in a city accustomed to deadly fires, this one stood out for the sheer scale of the tragedy: seven children, ranging in age from 5 to 16, killed in the middle of the night after awakening from their Sabbath slumber to smoke and flames.… Read more »

Netanyahu facing challenges, criticism from Jewish liberals

J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami addressing the group's conference in Washington, D.C.,March 21, 2015. (Courtesy of J Street)
March 23, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing escalating criticism and pressure from the White House, he could use some help from Israel’s erstwhile allies in the American Jewish community — especially those with sway in liberal and Democratic circles. But several leading Jewish liberal critics of Netanyahu… Read more »

Black lawmakers vow to stand by Israel despite sitting out Netanyahu

Rabbi Jonah Pesner, left, the new head of the Reform movement's Religious Action Center, and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) in Selma, Ala. (Courtesy photo)
March 10, 2015 /

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It was not the first time John Lewis had invoked the Jewish-black alliance that fought for equality during the civil rights era. But it was the first time that the Georgia congressman, a civil rights hero, invoked it to explain why he was skipping a speech… Read more »

Under cloud of Iran talk, AIPAC quietly courts progressives
March 9, 2015 /

WASHINGTON (JTA) — At the AIPAC conference, a sea of 16,000 Israel supporters spent their time talking Iran policy amid the swirling controversy over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. To the sidelines fell discussion of the Israeli elections, the peace process and Israeli innovation — as well… Read more »

Did Netanyahu’s speech make new allies or alienate old friends?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks about Iran during a joint meeting of Congress, March 3, 2015. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
March 5, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech, in the end, was about reminding Americans that the enemy of your enemy may still be your enemy. He may have lost some friends in the process. Netanyahu spoke before the U.S. Congress on Tuesday following a six-week buildup that spurred questions about… Read more »

Netanyahu to Congress: Deal with Iran paves way to bomb
March 3, 2015 /

(JTA) – In his address to Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the proposed nuclear deal being negotiated with Iran will lead inexorably to a nuclear-armed Iran and war in the Middle East. “This deal has two major concessions: One, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear program,… Read more »

AIPAC wants to talk Iran, but it can’t get away from speechgate

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the AIPAC policy conference a day before his scheduled speech to Congress, March 2, 2015. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
March 2, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – For all its focus on Iran, AIPAC can’t seem to get away from the controversy surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s impending speech to Congress. Speaking to attendees Sunday at the launch of the largest-ever annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, CEO Howard… Read more »