News

ADL annual report: Anti-Semitic incidents in Arizona show record increase
March 8, 2018 /
Carlos Galindo-Elvira

The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Arizona surged to 26 in 2017, with the largest single-year increase on record for the region, the Anti-Defamation League said in a new report released Feb. 27. Nineteen percent of the incidents occurred in Tucson, including the bomb threats to the Tucson Jewish… Read more »

OP-ED Post-Parkland activism shows teens don’t need our praise. They need a place at the table.

Marjory Stoneman High School student Cameron Kasky addresses area students as they rally at his school after participating in a countywide school walkout in Parkland, Fla., Feb. 21, 2018. (Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images)
March 8, 2018 / David Bryfman, JTA

(JTA) — In the aftermath of the fatal mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, the Jewish community should take note: Teenagers are not just the future of the Jewish people; they are the dynamic force driving social change today. Today we are witnessing history unfold as the American teenage populace… Read more »

Most U.S. Jews oppose Trump. He was cheered at AIPAC. Awkward?

From left to right: U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. Danny Danon and Israeli Minister of Justice Ayelet Shaked applaud for Vice President Mike Pence as he addresses the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 5, 2018. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
March 7, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — A poll last year by the American Jewish Committee showed that 77 percent of American Jews disapproved of President Donald Trump’s job performance. American Jews had voted 70 percent to 25 percent in favor of Hillary Clinton over Trump. With the exception of the Orthodox, majorities of all… Read more »

Women’s March renounces Farrakhan’s anti-Semitism, but supports a leader who embraced him

The organizers of the Women's March, from left to right: Bob Bland, Linda Sarsour, Carmen Perez and Tamika Mallory at BET's Social Awards in Atlanta, Feb. 11, 2018. (Paras Griffin/Getty Images for BET)
March 7, 2018 / Debra Nussbaum Cohen, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Organizers of the Women’s March renounced the anti-Semitic views of Louis Farrakhan, but they stood behind one of its co-presidents who attended a speech last month by the Nation of Islam leader and seemed unperturbed by his attacks on Jews. Tamika Mallory, co-president of the… Read more »

Poland’s Holocaust law upends one activist’s decade of progress in interfaith relations

Bogdan Bialek, right, and Michal Jaskulski during a 2016 discussion in Warsaw about the film made about Bialek's interfaith efforts in Poland. (Courtesy of the makers of Bogdan's Journey)
March 7, 2018 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — The Catholic journalist Bogdan Bialek is used to being called a traitor in Poland for his commemorations of Jewish victims of a 1946 pogrom in his city of Kielce. For over a decade he has promoted awareness of and atonement for the murders, violating taboos that regard… Read more »

He’s the Jew who inspired the PLO declaration of independence. Now he wants to take down AIPAC.

Jerome Segal, a philosopher running for the U.S. Senate, at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2018. (Ron Kampeas)
March 7, 2018 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Thirty years ago, Jerome Segal made headlines in Israel and the United States with an odd pedigree: He was the committed Jew who wrote the Palestinian declaration of independence. That was never quite accurate — the University of Maryland professor of philosophy wrote an op-ed for… Read more »

In Israel, Netanyahu is embattled. At AIPAC, he was at home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 6, 2018. (AIPAC)
March 7, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is mired in several corruption scandals back home, and his political future seems increasingly under threat. But you wouldn’t know it from his speech Tuesday at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee: He looked energized and… Read more »

In outreach to progressives, AIPAC airs a hearty endorsement of the two-state solution

AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr speaks to the Israel lobby’s policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2018. (AIPAC)
March 7, 2018 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee opened its arms to progressives this week, launching its annual policy conference with direct appeals to pro-Israel liberals who have lately considered the lobby an unwelcoming extension of Israel’s solidly right-wing government. In addition to major speeches and smaller… Read more »

Oscars 2018: For Jewish nominees, a night not to remember

Armie Hammer, left, and Israeli actress Gal Gadot present the Academy Award for best hair and makeup at the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles, March 4, 2018. (Craig Sjodin via Getty Images)
March 7, 2018 / Tom Tugend, JTA

  LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Half a century ago, Bob Hope’s films were wildly popular, but the comedian was never nominated for an Academy Award. So when Hope served as host of the 1975 Oscar bash, he opened his monologue with “Welcome to the Academy Awards … or as… Read more »

Will Israel’s clash with Poland affect Holocaust commemoration trips?

March of the Living participants carry Israeli flags at the former Nazi Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland, April 24, 2017. (Omar Marques/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
March 7, 2018 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

  (JTA) — Three years ago, Shaul de Malach had no problem joining fellow educators from his country on a trip to former Nazi death camps in Poland. Like tens of thousands of Israelis and Jews in the Diaspora who go on commemorative missions each year, de Malach “didn’t… Read more »

Why more Orthodox Jews are going to AIPAC

AIPAC President Mort Fridman addresses participants at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2018. (AIPAC)
March 7, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — On the second floor of the downtown convention center here, hundreds attending the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee packed a standing-room-only hall. A bouncer stood outside to control the overflow crowd. It wasn’t a session on boycotts, Iran or the… Read more »

This teen had a gender neutral b’nei mitzvah

The Thorpe children and their parents Miriam Taylor Thorpe, third from right, and Martyn Thorpe, second from right, celebrating Esther's b'nei mitzvah with congregant Hava Fleming. (Courtesy of Miriam Taylor Thorpe)
March 1, 2018 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — When Esther Thorpe came out as non-binary a year ago, identifying neither as male nor female, Miriam Taylor Thorpe was worried. Esther’s mother already had a child come out as gay and feared that Esther, 14, would have trouble finding a Jewish community that would be accepting… Read more »

What is AIPAC’s role in the age of Trump?

Donald Trump waving after addressing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., March 21, 2016. Trump was elected president nearly eight months later. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
February 28, 2018 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — When candidate Donald Trump spoke at AIPAC’s Policy Conference in 2016 and said Barack Obama may be the worst thing that ever happened to Israel, many cheered, many choked and the organization apologized. The fallout from that event will haunt the proceedings when 18,000 activists, including… Read more »

Austria just hosted Europe’s largest conference on anti-Semitism. It was challenging with a far-right party in the government

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, right, of the Austrian People's Party and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the Freedom Party give a news conference in Vienna after their first Cabinet meeting, Dec. 19, 2017. (Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images)
February 28, 2018 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

VIENNA (JTA) — Until December, Milli Segal’s main challenge as a producer of Jewish-themed events in Austria was balancing her duties at work with her hands-on approach to being a Jewish grandmother of four. As an organizer of prestigious Holocaust commemoration projects, Segal, 63, is on a first-name basis… Read more »

Meet the Jewish teenager from Maryland running to be governor of Kansas
February 27, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA
Ilan Cohen says it was a "very easy process" to get on the ballot in Kansas even though he is not legally allowed to vote. (Courtesy of Cohen)

(JTA) — Ilan Cohen loves Kansas. He knows a couple of people in Kansas. He’s currently, officially, running to be governor of Kansas. And one day he hopes to visit Kansas. And turn 18. And be able to vote. And graduate from high school. Right now, Cohen is a… Read more »

For women in Jewish fundraising, harassment is an occupational hazard

The Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York organized a town hall on sexual harassment in the Jewish nonprofit community, Jan. 25 , 2018. (Deborah Nussbaum Cohen)
February 26, 2018 / Debra Nussbaum Cohen, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — She was young, Jewish and the founder of a nonprofit organization that aids deprived children in Southeast Asia. He was a potential funder more than twice her age, promising donations and introductions to influential people. “He dangled a lot of carrots,” she said in retrospect.… Read more »

Parkland students begin to heal at Jewish conference in New York

In center, with the red beard, Rabbi Shaya Denburg, co-director of CTeen in Coral Springs, Fla., with Rabbi Moshe Klein on his right; Chayale Denburg, co-director of CTeen in Coral Springs, Fla., who is standing and second from right; and some survivors of the Parkland, Fla. school shooting. The survivors were in New York this weekend for Chabad's CTeen conference. (Itzik Roytman/Cteen)
February 26, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

(JTA) — Seven survivors of the Parkland school shooting were among thousands of Jewish high school students who attended the annual conference of the Chabad movement’s youth group. Responding to the Feb. 14 shooting became an impromptu theme of the conference, which was hosted in New York City by… Read more »

Florida congressman’s kids are using hamantaschen to help end gun violence

From left to right: Gabby, Cole and Serena Deutch drew inspiration from the Purim story for their fundraising initiative. (Courtesy of Gabby Deutch) --
February 26, 2018 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

  (JTA) — The college-aged kids of a Jewish congressman from Florida are raising money to end gun violence by selling hamantaschen. Gabby, Serena and Cole Deutch launched the Bake Action Against Gun Violence initiative on Sunday. Their father is Rep. Ted Deutch, a Florida Democrat who represents the district where… Read more »