Beth-El Congregation in Fort Worth, Texas (Courtesy of Beth-El Congregation)
(JTA) — At 6:30 Wednesday morning, Oklahoma City Rabbi Abby Jacobson received a text from one of her teenage congregants expressing sadness at the presidential election results — and fear. “She said, ‘I’m sorry for texting you, rabbi, but I can’t say any of this at school,’” related Jacobson,… Read more »
Kristallnacht commemoration at the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam, Nov. 9, 2016. (Courtesy of Jonet.nl)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — His name was never mentioned during the Netherlands’ main commemoration event for Kristallnacht, but Donald Trump was likely on everyone’s mind at the ceremony at the Dutch capital’s majestic Portuguese Synagogue. It wasn’t for any imagined parallels between Trump’s election as U.S. president and the campaign… Read more »
Rep. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois at a celebration in Washington, D.C., for women leaders, Jan. 20, 2013. The Democratic congresswoman, an Iran deal backer, defeated Mark Kirk to win his Senate seat. (Bennett Raglin/Getty Images for Elle)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In dueling election recaps on Wednesday, J Street and the Republican Jewish Coalition claimed they beat the other when it came to supporting like-minded candidates. The arena was Congress and the weapon of choice was Iran: RJC campaigned against candidates associated with the nuclear deal, J Street… Read more »
Donald Trump at a campaign event in Sarasota, Fla., Nov. 7, 2016. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – In forging an unprecedented and stunning path to the presidency, Donald Trump claimed to represent Americans who were anxious, resentful and ready to make radical changes. Their electoral strength blindsided pollsters and pundits — and flabbergasted many Jews, for whom the Trump base was once largely… Read more »
President-elect Donald Trump delivers his acceptance speech at the New York Hilton Midtown in New York City, Nov. 9, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Donald Trump will be the next U.S. president, having swept to victory in at least 29 states with 288 electoral votes and jolted a Jewish community made increasingly anxious as his rough-edged nativist rhetoric emboldened the far right and amplified a strain of anti-Semitic invective not heard… Read more »
Ron Dermer, left, Israel's ambassador to the United States, meets with J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami in Jerusalem, April 2010. J Street is among the Jewish groups calling on Dermer to reject an award from a group seen as anti-Muslim. (Courtesy J Street)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Reform movement and other liberal Jewish groups are urging Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Ron Dermer, not to accept an award from an organization deemed by the Anti-Defamation League to promulgate anti-Muslim extremism. The ADL itself stopped short of asking Dermer not to accept the award next… Read more »
The stars of "Good Girls Revolt," a new series on Amazon inspired by Lynn Povich's memoir. (Courtesy of Amazon Studios)
(JTA) — Men were writers and women were researchers. That’s the way it was when Lynn Povich and 45 of her colleagues at Newsweek decided to take a stand. In 1970, the women banded together and became the first women in the media to file a lawsuit on… Read more »
Donald Trump speaks with reporters following the first presidential debate, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — On Monday, one day before Election Day, I received a call from a reader. She identified herself as a Reform Jew, 46, from Chicago. She had praise for JTA and our daily newsletter, but also a complaint: Our emphasis on the Trump campaign, including charges over… Read more »
President Barack Obama talks on the phone in the Oval Office, July 15, 2016. (Pete Souza/ official White House photo)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – It started several months ago in anxious whispers among pro-Israel leaders. Now it has burst into the open in full-page ads in The New York Times and op-eds in The Wall Street Journal: Does Barack Obama have a lame-duck surprise in store for Israel? Or, as… Read more »
Jacob Silberstein called his first presidential campaign "underwhelming. (Ben Sales)
NEW YORK (JTA) – Jacob Silberstein used one word to describe the first presidential campaign he’s experienced as a voter: “underwhelming.” Like many of his classmates at List College, a joint program here between Columbia University and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, Silberstein voted for Hillary Clinton. He… Read more »
Protestors march at a rally in London, July 2, 2016. (Isabel Infantes/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
(JTA) – If you’re a Jewish-American liberal who believes that Donald Trump could never become president, British Jews have one word of warning: Brexit. Following the shocking referendum vote in June favoring a British exit from the European Union, many British Jews now believe that their liberal circles and cosmopolitan lifestyles… Read more »
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during the second presidential debate, at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 9, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Some of us are voting for Trump. Most of us are voting for Clinton. But we Jews are all afraid. There are the scandals, yes. There are emails and sexual assault allegations and emails and fraud and racism and anti-Semitism and emails. There are issues like… Read more »
Bend the Arc protesters demonstrate outside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City, Sept. 29, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Pieties? Out. Passports? In. Paranoia? On its way. Jewish Americans have never been ones to sit out an election, whether it comes to voting, political fundraising or dinner table punditry. But even for a community grown used to the political fray, the 2016 campaign was different.… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Trump campaign has released a campaign ad promising to defeat an international global power structure featuring several prominent Jews in the financial world. The ad, the final Trump campaign ad before voters go to the polls Tuesday, has been criticized on liberal news websites and… Read more »
(JTA) — An Arizona teenager was sentenced to eight years in prison for plotting an attack on government buildings and the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Mahin Khan, 18, was sentenced on Friday in Maricopa County Superior Court a month after he pleaded guilty to charges of terrorism, conspiracy to… Read more »
Stuart Mellan “Weaving … is the essential art of creating the unified out of two opposites. If the meeting of opposites does not take place, nothing is created, for each element is defined by its opposite and takes its meaning from it.” — Dario Valcarenghi as quoted in “The Art of… Read more »
Jason Dov Greenblatt, seen at Trump world headquarters in Manhattan, is one of Donald Trump's two key Israel advisers along with being his top real estate attorney. (Uriel Heilman) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Less than a week before the presidential election, Donald Trump’s two top Israel advisers released a detailed plan that pledges assistance to Israel beyond current levels but stops short of pledging to kill the Iran nuclear deal. The 16-point plan, which was posted Wednesday on the Medium publishing platform… Read more »
Steve Levine The Beth Shalom Temple Center, Green Valley’s self-proclaimed “reconformadox” Jewish congregation, recently hired its first membership coordinator. Steve Levine was attracted to his new position for professional and personal reasons, and began his new job in September. “The Jewish community has been very good to me over the years,… Read more »
Dr. Eliezer Diamond Congregation Anshei Israel will host scholar-in-residence Dr. Eliezer Diamond on Friday, Nov. 11 and Saturday, Nov. 12. Diamond is an associate professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He teaches courses in rabbinic literature and introductory, intermediate and advanced Talmud studies. He is the author of… Read more »
More than a dozen local rabbis and educators will present adult education classes on myriad topics at the Jewish Culture Shuk on Sunday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. at Tucson Hebrew Academy. A shuk is an open marketplace; the Jewish Culture Shuk, presented by the Jewish Federation of Southern… Read more »
