This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA) — Eight people were killed and nearly a dozen were injured when a truck rammed into a crowd in downtown New York City in what the mayor called “an act of terror.” The suspect, who was driving a truck, hit people… Read more »
News
4 Jewish things you need to know about Catalonia
Independence supporters gather outside the Palau Catalan Regional Government Building in Barcelona, Oct. 30, 2017. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
(JTA) — After simmering for decades, national aspirations in the region of Catalonia in northeast Spain plunged that country into a major crisis with far-reaching international implications. The current crisis began earlier this month when federal police clashed with voters over an illegal referendum on independence. But it came… Read more »
Jews for Jesus commissioned a study on Jewish millennials. Here’s what it found.
The Barna group conducted a study involving 599 Jews born from 1984 to 1999. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Are Jewish millennials the most religious generation? And do one-fifth of them think Jesus was God in human form? Yes and yes, says a new survey of 599 Jews born from 1984 to 1999. The survey creates a contradictory portrait of Jewish millennials: These young… Read more »
Kiev’s American-style JCC gives low-income Jews the millionaire treatment
Children entering the Halom Jewish Community Center in Kiev, Ukraine, Sept. 8, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
KIEV (JTA) — This city of 2.5 million residents may be the capital of one of the poorest countries in the Former Soviet Union, but it offers a dazzling selection of luxury services to those who can afford them. On potholed streets where some elderly people are forced to… Read more »
IsraAID brings Israeli relief skills to the American season of disasters
Niveen Rizkalla working with IsraAID in Santa Rosa, Calif., in the wake of deadly wildfires there.(Courtesy of IsraAID
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For 17 years, the Israeli NGO IsraAID has been performing search and rescue, purifying water, providing emergency medical assistance and walking victims of trauma back to psychological health in dozens of disaster-hit countries. But no season has been busier than this past summer and fall, its… Read more »
McConnell allies label Bannon a white supremacist, infuriating Jewish conservatives
Stephen Bannon speaking at a campaign event for then Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore in Fairhope, Alabama, Sept. 25, 2017. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — As former White House strategist Stephen Bannon declares war on the Republican establishment, a faction linked to the Senate GOP leadership is firing back with the kind of charges previously heard from Democrats and Never-Trumpers when Bannon ran Trump’s campaign and sat in the White House.… Read more »
What’s green and flies? Netanyahu’s ‘pickle’ jab at the opposition
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, second from right, chairing the weekly Israeli Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Dec. 25, 2016. (Dan Balilty/AFP/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — In over a decade as prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has created more than his fair share of political memes — from the cartoon bomb he displayed at the United Nations to decry the Iran nuclear deal in 2012 to his “nix it or fix it” speech… Read more »
An Israeli chef in New York wants to shake up the way you think about spices
Lior Lev Sercarz teaches spice blending classes and sells spices at La Boite in New York’s Hell’s Kitchen. (Josefin Dolsten)
NEW YORK (JTA) — For many home cooks, spices are an afterthought, sprinkled on a dish lacking in flavor. Israeli-born, French-educated chef Lior Lev Sercarz wants to change that. “If you want to make good food and beverages you need to know about spices, and I would like to… Read more »
Why victims of terrorism care about a Philly fistfight in 1784
Israeli police and aid workers searching the scene of a suicide bomb attack on a bus in Tel Aviv, Sept. 19, 2002. (Rahanan Cohen/IDF/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The case of Joseph Jesner v. Arab Bank is a bid by about 6,000 Israelis who have been harmed by Palestinian terrorism to get redress from Jordan’s Arab Bank, which delivered money to the groups carrying out the acts. Yet when the U.S. Supreme Court heard… Read more »
Europe has a ‘Jewish’ soccer team problem
Feyenoord supporters Monti Ahmed, left, and Sjuul Deriet, right, along with a friend, waiting to enter De Kuip Stadium in Rotterdam, Oct. 22, 2017. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (JTA) — Seventeen-year-old Sjuul Deriet, standing outside this port city’s main soccer stadium on a rainy Sunday, vividly explains why he hates the people he calls “the Jews.” “They have the money, they run the business from management positions and they think they’re better than blue-collar people… Read more »
OP-ED Eager for the US to pull out of UNESCO? Not so fast.
The UNESCO headquarters in Paris (Wikimedia Commons)
(JTA) — Here we go again: The issue of how and why the United States should engage with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is back in the news. The announcement by the Trump administration that the U.S. will be pulling out of UNESCO over its biased… Read more »
Conservative movement doubles down on intermarriage and its rabbis ask why
Conservative movement doubles down on intermarriage and its rabbis ask why
NEW YORK (JTA) — “It doesn’t help.” “I don’t know how it happened or why it happened.” “The most common response I’m seeing is confusion.” That’s what some Conservative rabbis are saying about their movement’s recent major statement on intermarriage, which reasserts the ban on rabbis performing interfaith weddings… Read more »
Orthodox Union’s new project says women don’t need to be rabbis to be leaders
Adina Shmidman, a doctor of educational psychology and the founder of a mentoring program for rabbis' wives, will be the first director of the Orthodox Union's new Department of Women's Initiatives. (Courtesy of the O.U.)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The Orthodox Union is founding its own division to advance women as congregational leaders, as well as to promote Jewish study and communal participation for women in Modern Orthodoxy. The announcement comes nearly nine months after the group, an umbrella association of centrist Orthodox synagogues,… Read more »
State anti-BDS laws are hitting unintended targets and nobody’s happy
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signing his state's anti-BDS bill at a Jewish community center in Austin, May 2, 2017. (Office of the Texas Governor)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — On May 2, Israel’s Independence Day, Texas state Rep. Phil King stood smiling as Gov. Greg Abbott signed King’s bill banning the state from doing business with boycotters of Israel. “Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies, and we will not tolerate such actions against an important ally,”… Read more »
OP-ED Why we waited before publishing that story about Elie Wiesel
(JTA collage)
NEW YORK (JTA) — If a woman called the JTA office and said she wanted to tell her story of sexual harassment by a prominent community figure, we’d have questions. Would she put her name to the accusations? Can she corroborate them? Can she provide specific dates and descriptions… Read more »
Taboo-breaking film depicts Hungary’s grim welcome to Holocaust survivors
A scene from the film "1945" (Courtesy of Menemsha Films)
(JTA) — The time is just after the defeat of Nazi Germany. Two Orthodox Jews disembark from a train at a rural station in Soviet-occupied Hungary and, after offloading a heavy bag, they begin a silent, hour-long walk to a nearby village. The purpose of their journey is not… Read more »
Poor Israeli soldiers earn cash by taking on rich colleagues’ guard duty
Israeli soldiers rest from training in northern Israel, June 14, 2009. (Matanya Tausig/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – The Israel Defense Forces takes pride in its status as a “people’s army.” More than just a military, the IDF embraces its reputation as an equalizing force in Israeli society. Every soldier, rich and poor, is supposed to learn during mandatory army service what it takes… Read more »
Secular Humanists plan talk on intermarriage
The Secular Humanist Jewish Circle of Tucson will present a panel discussion, “Who’s a Jew? Intermarriage and the Future of Judaism,” with a keynote lecture by Paul Golin, executive director of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, on Saturday, Oct. 28, 1:30-3 p.m. at the Murphy-Wilmot Library, 530 N. Wilmot… Read more »
Olympic swimmer Jason Lezak will hold swim clinic
Jason Lezak takes the U.S. to gold with a record-breaking 4 x 100 medley anchor leg at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. (Courtesy Tucson Jewish Community Center)
Olympic swimmer Jason Lezak will present a Mutual of Omaha BREAKOUT! swim clinic on Sunday, Nov. 12, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. A total-person approach to swimming, the clinic can help swimmers break bad habits, build new skills, and uncover hidden talent. The clinic will… Read more »
Mega Challah Bake returning for fourth year
Women and girls dance at the Mega Challah Bake at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, Oct. 14, 2016. (Chabad Tucson)
Tucson’s fourth annual Mega Challah Bake will be held Thursday, Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. The event, for women and girls ages 9 and up, is a joint initiative of Chabad Tucson and the Tucson J with the participation of local congregations and… Read more »



