News

(JTA) — The Israeli parliament passed a bill that would retroactively legalize some West Bank settlements built on private Palestinian land. Knesset lawmakers voted 60-52 in favor of the measure late Monday to legalize some 4,000 settler homes. The law, which prevents the government from demolishing the homes, comes less than a… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) – Israeli settlements are no big problem. Wait — maybe they are, after all. The Iran deal is trash. No, the deal is here to stay, despite being “weak.” On Feb. 2, the White House pronounced on Israel’s announced settlement expansion that it “may not help”… Read more »

AMONA, West Bank (JTA) — In a dramatic clash with the settlement movement at this hilltop outpost, the state seemed to have won.  Over two sometimes violent days, Feb. 1 and 2, security forces evacuated the residents of Amona, along with hundreds of protesters, as ordered by Israel’s High Court of Justice. Yet… Read more »

Tucson’s Holocaust History Center is raising the consciousness of new law enforcement officers. The “What You Do Matters: Lessons from the Holocaust” program marks a new educational partnership between the Jewish History Museum/Holocaust History Center and law enforcement in Arizona. The classes focus on teaching new cadets about the… Read more »

More than 100 people packed the Holocaust History Center at the Jewish History Museum on Friday, Jan. 20 for a gallery chat, “States of Exile: Arizona’s place, and the place of Arizona, in the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans,” with Tucson poet Brandon Shimoda. After acknowledging the ancestors of… Read more »

As part of a campaign in honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, members of the Tucson Holocaust Survivors group at Jewish Family & Children’s Services, teens from Tucson Hebrew High and staff at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona joined over 200,000 people worldwide posting photos holding “We Remember” signs… Read more »

The Tucson Jewish Community Center will hold a series of four “Celebration of Heritage” concerts beginning Feb. 15. Roza Simkhovich, a longtime community volunteer and former Tucson J board member, will host the series. All performances will be held at 6:30 p.m. and include: Wednesday, Feb. 15  — The… Read more »

Invisible Theatre will stage “Lebensraum” by award-winning playwright Israel Horovitz Feb. 7-19. The play is set at the dawn of the 21st century. The new German chancellor invites 6 million Jews from around the world to make Germany their home as a gesture of reconciliation. Three actors play more… Read more »

At least 17 Jewish community centers across the United States were targeted with bomb threats in the third wave of such mass disruption this month. Paul Goldenberg, the director of Secure Community Network — an affiliate of the Jewish federations of North America, which advises Jewish groups and institutions… Read more »

Rabbi Susan Silverman

Activism and family values are in Rabbi Susan Silverman’s DNA. Raised in a secular Jewish home in New Hampshire by parents committed to liberal politics, she is active on behalf of asylum seekers in Israel, advocates for liberal Judaism and is founding director of Second Nurture, which promotes adoption… Read more »

  (JTA) — Responding to a rising number of interfaith families, Conservative synagogues will be voting on a measure from their umbrella body that would allow congregations to admit non-Jews as members. Currently, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s Standards for Congregational Practice restrict synagogue membership to Jews. But the new language, which congregations… Read more »

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — “Five million non-Jews died in the Holocaust.” It’s a statement that shows up regularly in declarations about the Nazi era. It was implied in a Facebook post by the Israel Defense Forces’ spokesperson’s unit last week marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. And it was asserted… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — One year ago, we thought we had made history. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government passed the Western Wall agreement, for the first time granting official recognition to non-Orthodox Jewish streams and women’s rights at Judaism’s holiest site. We were proud of achieving a historic compromise because… Read more »

  CHICAGO (JTA) — Taylor Clearfield went to the airport Friday to welcome a Syrian refugee family. The next day, she returned with a sign to protest the ban on refugees entering the United States. President Donald Trump had enacted the prohibition via executive order on Fridayafternoon, between Clearfield’s two… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The Jews of Friesland, a region in the northern Netherlands, are not known for stories with happy endings. During the Holocaust, Friesland’s vibrant Jewish community was forever obliterated, including its endemic customs and distinct Yiddish dialect. It is one of the starkest examples of how the Holocaust… Read more »

  (JTA) — Where’s Jared Kushner? Supporters of President Donald Trump have often defended his election campaign against charges of anti-Semitism by noting he has an Orthodox Jewish daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren. Jews on the right are excited about Kushner’s role as a special adviser to the president, assuming… Read more »

  (JTA) — A year after they submitted their application for asylum in the United States, Shahi and his mother expected to be let in. As Iranian Jews who applied for asylum through a federally recognized agency for refugee status, their case was expected to be simple. Shahi (not… Read more »

DULLES, Va. (JTA) – The Israeli-born high-tech millionaire gathered his family after turning on CNN. The rabbi who leads an interfaith group got a text from a Muslim friend. The corporate lawyer was tracking a pro-bono email list she’s on. Within a few hours, all of them had descended on Dulles Airport,… Read more »

(JTA) — The U.S. ban on refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries has affected several Jewish families, according to the refugee support and advocacy group HIAS. The ban, which came Friday in an executive order signed by President Donald Trump, has plunged into further uncertainty the lives of a Jewish… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – “Cantor Kaufman!” Rabbi Jonah Pesner shouted across the intersection of 3rd and D in Washington’s Northwest quadrant, packed sidewalk to sidewalk with women in pink pussycat hats and their male friends. “A song!” Jason Kaufman, the cantor at Beth El in Alexandria, Virginia, draped in a… Read more »