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 »
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)
(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 »
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)
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… Read more »
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)
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 »
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)
(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 »
Jerome Segal, a philosopher running for the U.S. Senate, at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2018. (Ron Kampeas)
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 »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 6, 2018. (AIPAC)
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… Read more »
AIPAC Executive Director Howard Kohr speaks to the Israel lobby’s policy conference in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2018. (AIPAC)
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… Read more »
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)
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… Read more »
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)
(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… Read more »
Louis Farrakhan speaks at a news conference at the Mosque Maryam in Chicago, March 31, 2011. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Louis Farrakhan was an anti-Semite in 1972 when he said Jews were “in control of the media.” He was an anti-Semite in 1984 when he said “Hitler was a very great man.” He was an anti-Semite in 1995 when he said “You are the synagogue of Satan,… Read more »
AIPAC President Mort Fridman addresses participants at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2018. (AIPAC)
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… Read more »
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)
(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 »
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)
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 »
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)
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 »
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 »
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)
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 »
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)
(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 »
From left to right: Gabby, Cole and Serena Deutch drew inspiration from the Purim story for their fundraising initiative. (Courtesy of Gabby Deutch)
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(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… Read more »
Sipora, a Jewish refugee from Iran, looking out the window of her daughter's Netherlands home, Feb. 15, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
UTRECHT, Netherlands (JTA) — To the dozens of revelers of this city’s main Purim party, a Jewish grandmother who cooks the event’s annual Persia-themed holiday feast is a rare communal asset. Since she immigrated to the Netherlands in 2012 from her native Iran, the soft-spoken newcomer has been volunteering… Read more »
