National

Protests against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, like this one held in June 2011 by the Iran180 group, are expected to be part of the street theater that will accompany this week's happenings at the United Nations. (Iran 180)

NEW YORK (JTA) — With the Palestinians set to submit their bid for statehood as the U.N. General Assembly convenes this week and leaders from around the world descending on New York, there’s going to be a lot going on. Here’s a rundown of what to expect in the… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Weintraub Israel Center are encouraging area residents to sign a “Petition Against a Unilaterally Declared Palestinian State” created by the Israel Action Network, a joint project of the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The… Read more »

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (P.K.Weis/southwest photobank.com)

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona has nominated Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and Rabbi Stephanie Aaron for the Third Annual Jewish Community Hero Awards. Created by The Jewish Federations of North America, the awards project uses social media such as Facebook and Twitter to bring national attention to local leaders,… Read more »

Marc Stanley, standing, the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, with Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, and NJDC President David Harris at a Wahington fly-in for top NJDC activists, Sept. 8, 2011. (Courtesy National Jewish Democratic Council)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Democratic Party’s outreach to Jewish voters is beginning at home, with pep talks in recent and coming weeks scheduled for top donors and Jewish lawmakers. Insiders acknowledged to JTA that they have to explain Obama’s record on Israel to the very foot soldiers expected to… Read more »

Jack, a retired middle school principal and 30-year Queens resident who delcined to provide his last name, leaves a polling site after voting for Democrat Dave Weprin, who lost the race for New York's 9th congressional district, Sept. 13, 2011. (Uri Fintzy)

NEW YORK (JTA) – Was it Israel, same-sex marriage or the Obama administration’s handling of the economy? That’s the question political partisans and observers are debating after Republican Bob Turner won an upset victory in the heavily Democratic and Jewish New York congressional district represented by Anthony Weiner until… Read more »

JTA is introducing a new column, “Seeking Kin,” that aims to help reunite readers with long-lost friends and relatives. BALTIMORE (JTA) — Eliyahu Finkelstein grew up in the only Jewish family in the village of Zavizov in northwestern Ukraine, escaped from the Nazis after losing his parents and sister,… Read more »

Sept. 11 photo montage

NEW YORK (JTA) — Osama bin Laden is dead. A new skyscraper is rising at the site of the old World Trade Center. U.S. troops are withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. Ten years later, the physical legacies of 9/11 attacks are fading into history. Yet the conspiracy theories about… Read more »

It was an ominous hum. A dozen refrigerated trucks loaded with the body parts of victims of the 9/11 attacks filled a cavernous tent across the street from the office of the city medical examiner, their low-pitched buzz an eerie soundtrack to the solemn work being carried out at… Read more »

Ira Forman, longtime head of the National Jewish Democratic Council, was tapped by the Obama campaign to be its Jewish outreach director. (photo by Ira Forman)

WASHINGTON (JTA/WASHINGTON JEWISH WEEK) — The fight for the Jewish vote in 2012 is expected to be a tough one. So the Obama campaign is turning to the quintessential insider. On Aug. 16, the Obama campaign tapped as its Jewish outreach director Ira Forman, the former head of the… Read more »

MINORITY OF ONE: The New York Jewish Week looks at the lives of the small numbers of Jewish students enrolled at historically black colleges. “I create my own Jewish life,” says Abraham Mercado, a place-kicker for the football team at Baltimore’s Morgan State University, where he may (or may… Read more »

Tifereth Israel Congregation in New Bedford, Mass., is looking for former members and their descendants for its 90th anniversary celebration in November 2011. Please email Milton Goodman, executive director, at mgoodman@tinewbedford.org or contact the congregation through its Facebook page.… Read more »

Texas Gov. Rick Perry speaking at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, June 18, 2011. (Gage Skidmore/Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — To some conservative Jews, Texas Gov. Rick Perry would make an excellent presidential candidate. He’s been to Israel more than any other candidate in the field and has said he loves it. Some conservative Jews say Perry creates jobs. But other Jewish conservatives seeking the anti-Obama… Read more »

Tributes at the Oklahoma City bombing memorial on July 8, 2011. Federal authorities say concerns about Islamist extremists since then have not distracted them from right-wing extremism. (Kyle Monahan, Creative Commons)

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — With the Norway attacks fresh in mind and the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks fast approaching, are U.S. authorities paying attention to the right kinds of threats? The fear is that with polarization intensifying in America, extremists might mark the 10th anniversary of… Read more »

Sen. Joe Lieberman, right, shown visiting special operations forces in Afghanistan on July 4, 2011, says his strong Jewish faith leads him to forge an independent path, striking aliiances with both parties. [Sgt. Lizette Hart, U.s. Military Public Affairs, via Creative Commons]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Call Joe Lieberman the unlikely evangelical. The Independent senator from Connecticut — and the best-known Orthodox Jew in American politics — is probably more cognizant than most of his Jewish congressional colleagues about rabbinical interdictions against encouraging non-Jews to mimic Jewish ritual. Yet here he is,… Read more »

A poster campaign sponsored in part by the Jewish community's Security Community Network urges Jews to keep an eye out for suspicious objects.

(Washington) – Focus on behaviors common to all extremists: That’s the advice security experts are offering in the wake of the recent attacks in Norway by a perpetrator who appeared to be anti-Muslim rather than an Islamist. In the United States, the attacks in Oslo and on the island… Read more »

A screen shot of C-Span counting votes in the U.S. House of Representatives for a debt ceiling deal on Aug. 1, 2011, just as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords enters the chamber to cast her first vote since she was shot on Jan. 8. Giffords voted for the deal. (Philip Bump via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Even before the debt deal was signed Tuesday in Washington, U.S. Jewish groups and recipients of government largesse were asking the same question: Who’s going to get cut? It’s still too early to say. But the new “super committee” created to hash out the details of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Does Glenn Beck get Jews? It depends on whom you ask – to a degree – but it also seems to depend on the day of the week. Here he is on the night of July 19: “The Jewish people have been chased out of almost… Read more »

Trees left standing by Joplin High School following the May 22, 2011 tornado collected debris from the heavily damaged school, June 4, 2011. [John Daves/U.S. Army via Creative Commons]

NEW YORK (JTA) – When a tornado devastated the small city of Joplin, Mo., in late May, the city’s lone synagogue was left untouched — at least, physically. Bu tthen came the flood. Not as water, but in the form of phone calls from across the United States from… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Jewish service groups are telling their constituents to be on guard for a possible government shutdown or slowdown after Aug. 2, when the United States is scheduled to hit its debt ceiling. What that means is not yet clear: The government isn’t saying what it will… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the face of growing congressional concern over Middle Eastern extremism, some key Jewish Democrats are working to make sure President Obama has the leeway to dole out aid to Arab entities. The issue came to a head last week in the form of a State… Read more »