News

CLEVELAND (JTA) — An issue of historical concern to American Jews drew waves of applause when Donald Trump Jr. preached about it Tuesday night from the stage of the Republican National Convention. It wasn’t Israel, Iran or the fight against anti-Semitism. It was a call for the government to… Read more »

(JTA) — When the late Austro-Hungarian aristocrat Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi attended church on Good Friday, his father would famously cause a scene, storming out when the liturgy came to the anti-Semitic exhortation “Let us also pray for the faithless Jews.” Such protest was unusual in 19th-century Austria-Hungary, where anti-Semitism and other forms of racism were de… Read more »

CLEVELAND (JTA) — On the day Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican primaries, Marc Zell was ready to resign his position as vice president of Republicans Overseas, the party’s expatriate group. Zell, who lives in Israel, was put off by Trump’s inconsistent statements regarding the country. In particular, he… Read more »

  TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s government, sometimes called its most right-wing ever, is on a roll. The Knesset was expected to pass a law Tuesday evening allowing lawmakers to oust their colleagues from office for supporting terrorism or inciting racism — the third new government-backed law targeting anti-Zionist expression and leftist… Read more »

Daniel Gurevich holds a bottle of wine he won for catching a Pokemon at the Grand Choral Synagogue of St. Petersburg, July 2016. (Courtesy of Jewish News Petersburg)

(JTA) — As the Pokemon Go phenomenon grows, some institutions connected to European Jewry’s darkest hour have taken precautions against it. The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and State Museum in Poland has banned the addictive smartphone game, in which players viewing their environments through their device’s camera run in search of… Read more »

CLEVELAND (JTA) – Donald Trump’s campaign for the presidency rolled out its Israel Advisory Committee last week — no one noticed. Blame the unrelenting news cycle, if you will: July 14 was the day of the hideous mass killing in Nice, France. But also, his Israel Advisory Committee consists of… Read more »

Local businessman and community leader Bill Holmes, 58, died suddenly on Monday, July 18. “Bill, beloved husband of Shelley Pozez, lived his life fully and gave such joy to our world.  He was a treasured member of our Federation Board who, through the force of his personality and devotion to… Read more »

A Tucson man charged with plotting a terrorist attack on a motor vehicle department office in the Phoenix area also told an undercover FBI employee in October 2015 that he wanted to target the Tucson Jewish Community Center, a federal agent testified Tuesday at a hearing in Maricopa County… Read more »

HEBRON, West Bank (JTA) – Dozens of American Jews spent Friday in the West Bank practicing nonviolent resistance against Israel’s presence here. On hand to help were some bold-faced names in the American Jewish community’s Israel debate, including Peter Beinart, a leading liberal U.S. Jewish thinker, and Amna Farooqi, the… Read more »

CLEVELAND (JTA) – On the Lake Erie boardwalk, a few Republican delegates huddle next to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for a quick selfie before scooting away. Walker was the anti-Donald Trump for 15 minutes last year, until he quit and asked other lagging Republicans to rally around Texas Sen. Ted Cruz,… Read more »

Making a Difference Every Day: The Homer Davis Project, an effort to reach out to the under-served school children in the community at Homer Davis Elementary School, is the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s signature social action program. School. This coming school year, 2016-2017, begins the seventh year… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Voters who have their hearts set on supporting a left-wing secular Jew running an insurgent campaign still have a candidate. Jill Stein, the 2012 Green Party candidate, is making another run. And this year, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both earning historically low popularity… Read more »

Editor’s note: This piece was written before the failed military coup in Turkey this weekend. WASHINGTON (JTA) – The conventional wisdom has it that earning the sobriquet “the most right-wing government in Israeli history” does not lead to diplomatic successes. In recent weeks, on the Turkish, Egyptian and African… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — What was RBG thinking? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg launched a broadside against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the the last week, calling him unfit for office. She subsequently apologized, but not before voices on the right and left criticized her for seeming to compromise the… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – They’re elusive, but show up in the right place at the right time — and you might find one! No, we’re not talking about the latest iteration of Pokemon Go. This is about tracking prominent Jewish GOPers and Jewish organizational representatives attending the Republican National Convention next… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Being an American Jew, more than anything else, means remembering the Holocaust. That’s what nearly three quarters of Jewish Americans said, according to the Pew Research Center’s landmark 2013 study on American Jewry. Asked to pick attributes “essential” to being Jewish, more Jews said Holocaust remembrance than leading an ethical… Read more »

  BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) – When Shoshana Dembitz and Abigail Grafton first met, they spent several long moments gazing into each others’ eyes. But this wasn’t a love-at-first-sight occurrence. Rather, the two were attending a Shabbat service in which participants were split into pairs to look into each others’… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Three months after Israel’s Chief Rabbinate rejected his authority to perform conversions, one of America’s most prominent Modern Orthodox rabbis joined with Natan Sharansky to advance a message: The rabbinate needs to become more open. But not too much more. A widely respected rabbi in New York’s… Read more »

PHILADELPHIA (JTA) – Growing up in Namibia, Dan Craven would bicycle long distances upon the only two paved roads in his hometown of Omaruru — 80 miles heading north to Otjiwarongo and 45 miles south to Karibib. Cycling on what he calls the “tar roads” is how he fell… Read more »

(JTA) — The Claims Conference, which manages aid to Holocaust survivors, has negotiated a budget increase through 2018, including the largest one-time increase in homecare funding the organization has ever secured. In talks with the German government, the Claims Conference secured nearly $312 million in homecare funding for survivors… Read more »