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 »
Israeli left-wing activists hold placards and their national flag during a Peace Now march calling on Israelis to end the occupation of Palestinian lands, in Tel Aviv, Dec. 19, 2015. (Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — As progressive American Zionists, we take seriously the critique of Israel and Zionism by professors Hasia Diner and Marjorie N. Feld, contained in their Aug. 1 Haaretz article, “We’re American Jewish Historians. This is why we’ve left Zionism behind.” However, unlike them, we affirm progressive Zionist… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the launch of a new innovation center at the Peres Center for Peace in Jaffa, July 21, 2016. (Yair Sagi/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The Israeli prime minister is being investigated, and the media is atwitter. The probe is preliminary and no details have been released. But reports sayBenjamin Netanyahu is suspected of money laundering. His former chief of staff was interrogated recently and held under house arrest, reportedly in connection… Read more »
Pope Francis, left, greets the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, during a papal visit to the city’s synagogue, Jan. 17, 2016. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
(JTA) — This week, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Poland, visiting Auschwitz – the notorious death camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is comprised of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau. Birkenau is the actual… Read more »
David M. Elcott (Courtesy of Elcott)
NEW YORK (JTA) — We met Demoz Deboch at services in Gondar, Ethiopia. It was Friday night in June of 2013 and we were surrounded by hundreds of white-clad Falash Mura, the descendants of Jews who were now living a Jewish life in neighborhoods near the Jewish compound set up by… Read more »
Matan and Michelle Ben-Aviv with their children Charlie, left, and Samuel, who were conceived with the aid of in-vitro fertilization. Inspired by their journey, the couple launched the Making Miracle Babies Fertility Fund. (Courtesy of Michelle Ben-Aviv)
MIAMI (JTA) — Growing up, I always dreamed of being a mom. Even as a kid I would brainstorm baby names, tell my dolls bedtime stories and swear that I would be a cool mom and let them eat cookies for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I had it all… Read more »
Demonstrators outside the offices of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo protesting his executive order calling for New York companies to divest from organizations that support the BDS movement, June 9, 2016. (Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Ever since the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel began picking up steam three years ago, its proponents have brazenly declared the movement’s inevitable triumph. In April, for example, a pro-divestment group at the University of Chicago issued a statement proclaiming that by the school’s… Read more »
It finally happened. My son is almost 9 months old, and this week, for the first time, a stranger came up to me and asked me to “take him somewhere else.” Even worse, it happened at synagogue. The woman who approached me was quite obviously not a member of… Read more »
Donald Trump addressing the crowd at a campaign rally in Cincinnati, Ohio, July 6, 2016. (John Sommers II/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign never recovered after he was caught on video telling a group of millionaires that 47 percent of Americans will always vote for Democrats because they don’t take “personal responsibility” for their lives and are “dependent upon government.” The incident has become a… Read more »
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, left, and Jewish Agency for Israel Chairman Natan Sharansky at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations in North America in Baltimore, discuss the Soviet Jewry movement and marking the 25th anniversary of its pinnacle event, The March on Washington, Nov. 12, 2012. (David Karp)
(JTA) — On my bookshelves there are two rows of volumes on the Soviet Jewry movement. Squeezed in among the tomes is a small, well-worn paperback with pages no longer attached to the spine, “The Jews of Silence,” by Elie Wiesel. This slim volume is, however, a bridge.… Read more »
Soldiers attending the funeral of Alon Albert Govberg, who was killed in a terror attack in Jerusalem, Oct. 14, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
(JTA) — Dirty, hot and exhausted Israeli soldiers waiting for their bus home from the army base tend, understandably, to be in a hurry to get on board. But when I was living in Israel during the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising, soldiers didn’t jostle to be first in… Read more »
Headlines could convince a stranger that Israel is like a Hebrew-speaking version of Iran, Shuki Friedman writes. (Lior Zaltzman)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Religionization! Religionization! To read the newspaper headlines in Israel, to view its documentary films and attend its expert panels with academics, a stranger might think that upon landing at Ben Gurion Airport, he or she will have arrived at nothing less than a Hebrew-speaking version… Read more »
Idit Klein (Courtesy of Keshet)
BOSTON (JTA) — In the wake of the Orlando shooting, statements of solidarity with the LGBTQ community quickly tumbled forth. Some expressions of support came from unlikely sources such as the Orthodox Union and the Catholic Church. But what does a statement of solidarity mean in response to… Read more »
Young Israeli LGBT equality activists light candles at Zion Square in Jerusalem in solidarity with the victims of the shooting attack at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., June 12, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
(Kveller via JTA) — My dear innocent child, Something terrible happened. A very bad man took a gun and went into a place where there were many kind, innocent, loving people, and he shot them. He killed many and injured even more. No, none of our family members were… Read more »
Dear friends, On the evening of June 26, the Jewish History Museum will host the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona (JFSA) Pride program Celebrating Marriage Equality, an event that will mark the one year anniversary of the Marriage Equality Act, a landmark moment for our country and for LGBT… Read more »
Charles Lindbergh, wearing a helmet with goggles up, in the cockpit of an airplane at Lambert Field in St Louis, Mo., 1923. (Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Donald Trump is doubling down on “America First.” After Trump used the term “America First” in late April to describe his policies, the Anti-Defamation League sent him a letter urging him to drop the historically tainted slogan — speaking for Jews and others who remember it as the… Read more »
Jewish boys wave Israeli flags near the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem as part of celebrations for Jerusalem Day, June 5, 2016. (Zack Wajsgras/Flash90)
HOLLYWOOD, Fla. (JTA) — Normally, to quote the famous song, “I love a parade.” Except when I don’t. This weekend was the celebration of the 49th anniversary of the reunification ofJerusalem during the Six-Day War. The anniversary was accompanied by gleeful — one might even say ecstatic — observances throughout the… Read more »
The Book of Ruth articulates Jewish values related to dating and sexuality, Rabbi Donna Kirshbaum writes. (Wikimedia Commons)
OMER, Israel (JTA) — As Jews, we tend to pride ourselves on our tradition’s values and how we pass them on to future generations; values such as education, tzedakah, loving the stranger, pursuing justice and tikkun olam, “repair of the world.” But if you were to start a conversation today… Read more »
Rabbi Joshua Stanton HOBOKEN, N.J. (JTA) — Kosovo is a “newborn” country, a majority Muslim state that fought for its independence from Serbia only eight years ago. Yet it has erected a Holocaust memorial outside its parliament, elected a female president, held pride parades in support of LGBTQ rights and supported the building… Read more »
Flags planted by Jewish War Veterans of the United States Cleveland Post 14 at Zion Memorial Park in Bedford, Ohio, in honor of Memorial Day, 2015. (Jewish War Veterans of the United States, via Facebook)
NEW YORK (JTA) — In Israel, when the two-minute siren sounds at 11 a.m. on Yom Hazikaron, the Jewish state’s Memorial Day, the nation comes to a halt. As we saw just two weeks ago, cars on streets and highways pull over, and drivers and passengers get out of their vehicles… Read more »
