JTA staff writer Ben Sales and his son relaxing at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in September 2016. (Courtesy of Sales)
CHICAGO (JTA) — Why did my synagogue ban my baby? It had been more than a decade since I attended my hometown synagogue for Yom Kippur, and it was my first time as a father, so I didn’t know what to expect. But I never imagined standing in the lobby,… Read more »
Bob Dylan onstage at the 17th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at The Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, Jan. 12, 2012. (Christopher Polk/Getty Images for VH1)
(JTA) — As a fan who runs the “Bob Dylan: Tangled Up in Jews” website, I should be ecstatic at the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to the writer whose words have been the soundtrack to my life since I first sang them at a Jewish summer camp… Read more »
(Katt Grigg/ Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
CLEVELAND (JTA) — Thank you: two simple words with tremendous meaning. Thank you for being part of our community. Thank you for raising your children with us. Thank you for being with us. Many of us are seeking meaning in our lives and wish to be valued for… Read more »
A woman in Lithuania marking the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust at a ceremony in Veliucionys, on the outskirts of Vilna, one of the most neglected of the 227 mass graves of Holocaust victims in the country, Sept. 23, 2016. (Courtesy of Efraim Zuroff)
(JTA) — Residents of Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania’s capital, had their pick of two events to mark the 75th anniversary of the Holocaust held this year on Sept. 23, their country’s official Shoah memorial day. The choice was rather simple because of the stark differences between the ceremonies, and… Read more »
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, July 28, 2016. (Paul Morigi/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, D.C. (JTA) — I support Hillary Clinton for president because I have seen her work up close – as first lady, senator from New York and secretary of state. She has the temperament, experience and judgment to be commander-in-chief and our country’s representative to the world. And I… Read more »
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump addresses the crowd at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 6, 2016. (John Sommers II/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — As my family and I prepare for Rosh Hashanah, we look back with grateful hearts for the brachot, blessings, in our lives. We take time to reflect on the joys and the challenges, the ups and downs, that we experienced during the previous year. To me, a… Read more »
(JTA) — As university professors, as committed Jews and as friends, we were puzzled by Arnold Eisen’s recent op-ed for JTA, “Jewish pride on campus is under siege. Here’s what your kids can do to fight back.” It is not because we disagree with his positions on Zionism, on Israel and Palestine,… Read more »
A student waving a Palestinian flag at a demonstration at Hunter College, part of the City University of New York system, Nov. 12, 2015. (Cem Ozdel/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Last week, the chancellor of The City University of New York released a report by CUNY-hired outside counsel investigating allegations of campus anti-Semitism. The investigation was triggered by a 14-page letter from the Zionist Organization of America to CUNY’s leadership, which noted, among other… Read more »
A church exterior
(Kveller via JTA) — It’s been 9 1/2 years since we moved to North Carolina to save ourselves from schlepping our then-infant triplets up four flights of Queens’ stairs. Yet there are some things I’m still unnerved by here. Like how many women leave their pocketbooks wide open… Read more »
(JTA) — When lowering my shoulder, planting my feet and pushing hard to make something happen, I love to reflect on the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s exhortation to act with “the fierce urgency of now.” My feelings in those moments are usually not very MLK-like — self-righteousness, self-satisfaction… Read more »
(iStock)
(Kveller via JTA) — The average age of childbearing in the United States is 26. For Jews, it’s a few years higher. Some of us Jewish moms, however, had our children significantly later than that. Here are 10 things that only “older” Jewish moms will recognize. 1. There’s an… Read more »
Students at the University of Delaware Hillel (University of Delaware Hillel)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Over 300,000 Jewish college students have arrived or will arrive shortly on American campuses — and what they experience there is likely not only to broaden their minds and uproot long-held assumptions, but shake their Jewish selves to the core. They will contend with powerful faculty… Read more »
MIAMI (JTA) — Every four years the same movie plays at the Jewish Political Film Festival: It’s the one where the Democrats pass another party platform with more ironclad support for Israel and then nominate yet another presidential candidate whose record on Israel is beyond question. The ending is… Read more »
WASHINGTON (JTA) — For years, the leaders of America’s most established Jewish organizations – AIPAC chief among them – have assured their members that when it came to Israel, there wasn’t much difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. Even suggesting that control of the White House or… Read more »
Dieudonne M'bala M'bala leaving a Paris courthouse, Feb. 4, 2015. (Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images)
(JTA) — It kills me to say this, but I may owe a Yom Kippur apology to Dieudonne M’bala M’bala. My extensive reporting about this French comedian of Cameroonian descent consistently portrayed him as a fanatical, vulgar and racist provocateur whose acts serve as a thinly veiled pretext for venting a… Read more »
Gene Wilder, right, in a scene with Cleavon Little from the 1974 comedy "Blazing Saddles." (Warner Bros./Courtesy of Getty Images)
(JTA) — Last year I joined some 3,000 people at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark for a wide-screen showing of Mel Brooks’ 1974 Western parody “Blazing Saddles.” In the onstage interview that followed, Brooks, then 89, was beside himself in his delight at sharing his 42-year-old comedy with a real… Read more »
Uri Dromi Those of us who remember the years before the Yom Kippur War will forever be more cautious than others. Then, Israeli were drunk with euphoria, believing, as the arrogant General Moshe Dayan used to say, that, “Our situation has never been better.” The Egyptian and the Syrian armies were… Read more »
(L-R): Tucsonans Bobby Present, Fran Katz and Deborah Oseran in Paris on the Jewish Federations of North America Campaign and Directors Mission in July.
This July, as incoming 2017 Campaign chair for the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, I had the opportunity, with my husband, Bobby Present, and Fran Katz, JFSA senior vice president, to participate in a Jewish Federations of North America Campaign and Directors Mission to France and Israel. The emotional… Read more »
Israeli left- and right-wing activists demonstrate in Tel Aviv, April 21, 2011. (Roni Schutzer/Flash90)
(JTA) — “If there is something that deprives me of sleep it is the fissures in Israeli society,” former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon declared, just after he resigned in May. That same day Ehud Barak, who preceded Yaalon as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense minister from 2009 to… Read more »
Harry Potter (Screenshot from YouTube)
(Kveller via JTA) — This summer, as I put my 8-year-old on the bus to sleepaway camp, he turned to his friend and said, “Let’s get on the bus quickly before our parents can say goodbye and be so embarrassing.” As they ran toward the bus, I could not… Read more »
