Reflecting its new motto, "Protect the Refugee," HIAS is helping refugees in Chad. (Courtesy HIAS) TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (JTA) — The new HIAS is not your grandmother’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and it’s certainly not the one that brought her mother over from the Pale of Settlement. After decades as the Jewish community’s foremost voice on immigration — first in leading the resettlement of Jews… Read more »
Hadassa Margolese walking her daughter Naama to school in Beit Shemesh a few days after Naama was harassed by haredi Orthodox men, December 2011. (Kobi Gideon/Flash90/JTA) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Two years ago, Hadassa Margolese became a symbol of resistance to haredi Orthodox domination after she allowed her 8-year-old daughter to tell an Israeli reporter how religious men had spit on her as she walked to school. The report made headlines around the world and… Read more »
Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, seen in a January 2011 photo, are among top-ranking House Democrats inclined to engage Iran's new president in talks on his country's nuclear program. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — In increasingly strident tones, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been telling his American friends that the purported moderation of Iran’s new president is a ploy aimed at relieving international pressure and buying the Islamic Republic more time to cross the nuclear threshold. But in ways… Read more »
Jewish participants of an interfaith conference in Sarajevo saying the Kaddish over the graves of 1985 Srebrenica massacre victims, July 2013. (Courtesy CMJ) SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (JTA) — Sarajevo is a city with a rich multicultural past, but it also bears the scars of war. Take a short walk through the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina and you will see the many cemeteries and bullet-riddled walls, which are undergoing restoration. These lay side by side… Read more »
Hoogvliet was among four Dutch supermarket chains that distanced themselves from a boycott on Israeli settlements goods they were said to be enacting. (Creative Commons) THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — Two weeks ago, the Dutch public learned of what appeared to be an unprecedented victory for European advocates of boycotting Israeli products. Four major supermarket chains reportedly declared a boycott of products from the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. But the… Read more »
Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich, left, and Rabbi Menachem Margolin of the Chabad-affiliated Rabbinical Centre of Europe have been at odds publicly over Schudrich's handling of the kosher slaughter case in Poland. (Creative Commons/Facebook) (JTA) — A few weeks before Poland’s parliament voted last month on whether to overturn a ban on ritual slaughter, Rabbi Menachem Margolin was scheduled to meet the Polish president in an effort to find a solution to the problem. The ban had been imposed in January, when a Polish… Read more »
Dr. Mehmet Oz, right, and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem, Aug. 2, 2013. (The Jewish Values Network) TEL AVIV (JTA) — Dr. Mehmet Oz sat down to talk with JTA on the Tel Aviv coast last week, but what he really wanted to do was go to the beach. Oz, the surgeon and well-known TV personality, was in Israel for the first time and had a… Read more »
Arizona freshman Rep. Matt Salmon, shown with wife Nancy at a June 2013 meeting with conservative television host Glenn Beck, drafted a letter asking the U.S. attorney general to hinder the release of Palestinian prisoners -- a move that Israel approved to help kick-start negotiations with the Palestinians. (Matt Salmon Facebook) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli settler leader Dani Dayan has made it his mission over the years to warn members of Congress, particularly Republicans, of the perils of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Dayan has been a regular visitor to Washington, his trips often coinciding with developments in the peace process. During… Read more »
Dave Blackburn, shown at center during last week's opening ceremony, is attending the Maccabiah as a paralympian in table tennis after six previous appearances as an able-bodied softball pitcher. (Courtesy Dave Blackburn) RAMAT GAN, Israel (JTA) — Dave Blackburn beamed triumphantly, surrounded by a crowd of American athletes and cheering spectators. It was like old times, the great pitcher basking in applause. But Blackburn wasn’t being ushered off the field with a championship trophy in hand as he was after leading… Read more »
(L-R): Israeli negotiators Yitzhak Molcho and Tzipi Livni, Vice President Joe Biden, President Barack Obama, and Palestinian negotiators Saeb Erekat and Mohammed Shtayyeh at an Oval Office meeting to discuss the formal resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, July 30, 2013. (U.S. State Department) WASHINGTON (JTA) — After 20 years of stops, starts and a bloody intifada in between, John Kerry believes he can pull out a final status Israeli-Palestinian peace deal in nine months. What clock is the U.S. secretary of state trying to beat? According to his aides, the one ticking… Read more »
An Orthodox woman blows a whistle in protest against efforts to promote women's prayer at Jerusalem's Western Wall, July 8, 2013. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — On the morning of July 8, at the beginning of the Hebrew month of Av, the Western Wall plaza was a cacophonous mess. Women of the Wall, the activist group that holds women’s prayer services each month at the site known as the Kotel, loudly sang… Read more »
When swimmer Garrett Weber-Gale heard his name announced last Wednesday as the U.S. flag bearer for the opening ceremony of the 19th Maccabiah Games, he just about lost his breath. A two-time gold medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Weber-Gale had spoken with JTA earlier this week about the… Read more »
Kate, the duchess of Cambridge, rides in a carriage back to Buckingham Palace in London in June 2013, is in labor in a hospital wing of St. Mary's Hospital named for a wealthy Jewish man. ( Chris Jackson/Getty) NEW YORK (JTA) – When the news broke Monday that Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William, had gone into labor, it seemed that London could not have been more prepared. For weeks, reporters and photographers had been camped out in front of the maternity ward at… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Jerusalem, June 28, 2013.(Amos Ben Gershom/GPO/Flash90) TEL AVIV (JTA) — We don’t know. That’s the operative phrase of the new round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks announced Friday and ostensibly set to begin in the coming days in Washington. We don’t know their parameters, or if Israel will freeze settlements, release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners or agree to… Read more »
U.S. Olympic gymnast and gold medalist Aly Raisman lights the torch during the opening ceremony of the 19th Maccabiah Games at Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium, July 19, 2013. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90/JTA) JERUSALEM (JTA) — U.S. Olympian Aly Raisman lit the torch at the opening ceremony of the 19th Maccabiah Games, which features a record number of nearly 9,000 athletes. Thursday night’s ceremony at Teddy Stadium in Jerusalem featured pyrotechnics and performances with hundreds of dancers and popular Israeli singers, as… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations will resume, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced. “The representatives of two proud people today have decided that the difficult road ahead is worth traveling,” Kerry said in the Jordanian capital of Amman on Friday, where he was on his sixth visit… Read more »
Bruce and Alayne Greenberg, parents of Anna Greenberg, who died May 28, 2013 after a valiant struggle with cancer, met with songwriter and actress Bette Midler last month in New York, where Midler is starring in “I’ll Eat You Last.” “Alayne and I had a heartfelt discussion with Bette… Read more »
In Kenya, the home of this young HIAS client, the immigrant aid society has taken in refugees from conflicts in neighboring countries, among others. (Courtesy HIAS) TARRYTOWN, N.Y. (JTA) — The new HIAS is not your grandmother’s Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, and it’s certainly not the one that brought her mother over from the Pale of Settlement. After decades as the Jewish community’s foremost voice on immigration — first in leading the resettlement of Jews… Read more »
Former Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers embraces his one-time goalie Patrick Roy at Roy's 2008 retirement ceremony at the Bell Centre in Montreal. (Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images) JERUSALEM (JTA) — Of all the compelling stories of athletic achievement and challenges overcome that could be told by the 9,000 participants gathering in Israel for the 19th Maccabiah Games, it might be hard to find one to top Jacques Demers. He’s a coaching legend, having led the iconic… Read more »
Israeli Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, left, sampling some halvah at a factory in the West Bank Jewish settlement city of Ariel, June 4, 2013. (Assaf Shilo/Israel Sun/Flash 90/JTA) THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — The intensity with which Israel reacted this week to new European guidelines prohibiting support for projects based in disputed territories surprised not only EU diplomats, but also their Israeli counterparts. The guidelines, which preclude already nonexistent EU grants to Israeli entities in the West… Read more »
