President Barack Obama delivers a speech at the Jerusalem Convention Center, March 21, 2013. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
(JTA) — During his campaign for president in 2008, I wrote a column suggesting that Barack Obama was struggling to connect with Jews because they weren’t sure that he supported Israel’s cause in his gut — that is, in his kishkes. I may have been the first… Read more »
Lawrence Grossman (Courtesy of American Jewish Committee)
(JTA) — Foreign ministers of some 70 nations are expected to meet in Paris on Jan. 15, five days before the American presidential inauguration, for an international conference that is being advertised as dealing with the Middle East. No, this high-level gathering will not address the major crises bedeviling the… Read more »
David Posner (Courtesy of JCC Association)
(JTA) — A bomb threat is never an inconsequential thing. But 16 in one day is inconceivable – at least it was until Monday. That’s when 16 Jewish community centers in nine states received calls threatening a bomb on site. While the bombs turned out to be hoaxes, the calls themselves were not. They were… Read more »
Rabbi Marc Schneier (Courtesy of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding)
(JTA) — As we celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., American Jews should reflect anew upon the epic struggle he led to free African-Americans from the shackles of bigotry and take pride in the singular role played by the Jewish community in support of King and… Read more »
President Barack Obama speaks with John Kerry during a bilateral meeting with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in New York City, Sept. 21, 2016. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
(JTA) — What did Secretary of State John Kerry say last week that caused former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren to say that U.S. policy toward Israeli has become “sad, tragic and dangerous?” That led Sen. Ted Cruz to say that Kerry and President Barack Obama are… Read more »
There has been an uptick in hate crimes since the election, which has inspired a journalist to wear a kippah daily. (Ullstein Bild via Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — I do not like wearing a kippah. I grew up in a Reform synagogue where few people wore them, including the rabbi. The gendered nature of it bothers me. (Why, in some “egalitarian” synagogues, are men forced to wear them but not women?) And, quite… Read more »
Daniel S. Mariaschin (Courtesy of B'nai B'rith International)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The feeling in this country following the adoption of the anti-settlements resolution in the U.N. Security Council on Friday is more than palpable. For those who observe Shabbat, there was the knowledge on Friday afternoon that a vote in New York would occur after… Read more »
The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, June 14, 2016. (Flash90)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign he wants to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. His nominee for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, has said he hopes he will work from an embassy in the city. Trump’s transition team has affirmed the intention to move… Read more »
A Syrian civilian is loaded into a bus by members of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent at a makeshift shelter in Jibrin, on the eastern outskirts of Aleppo, Dec. 22, 2016. (George Ourfalian/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Aleppo, one of the world’s oldest cities and Syria’s largest metropolis, is synonymous with one of humanity’s cruelest conflicts — now surpassing the siege of Sarajevo as the deadliest and longest-running battle for a city in our time. With an estimated 31,000 deaths, the battle for… Read more »
Trees aflame in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, Nov. 25, 2016. (Gili Yaari /Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Over the past few weeks, more than 1,700 brush fires across Israel have destroyed homes, vehicles and countless irreplaceable personal possessions. As a nation, we have also suffered severe damage to more than 32,000 acres of precious natural resources – woodlands, grasslands and protected parklands,… Read more »
As most of us watched in horror and felt helpless as multiple fires consumed too much of Israel, fortunately, U.S. firefighters and other firefighters from around the world temporarily set aside their normal lives and went to Israel to help. One wishes that they know how grateful those of… Read more »
(JTA) — All I want for Hanukkah is Christmas. I grew up in suburban Chicago surrounded by my fellow Jews — at school, at camp, on the weekends, at my parents’ friends’ houses, in the streets and parks of my neighborhood. Even then, I knew that Jews made up less… Read more »
The new Hanukkah stamp provided an unexpected source of inspiration for a writer. (Courtesy of U.S. Postal Service)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In the weeks before Hanukkah, with anticipation of the holiday brightly filling my mind, the darkening news of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S. began to filter in. As I pictured our menorahs burning in their usual place — the front windows of our home —… Read more »
The Defender newsroom on Chicago's South Side in the late 1940s, with Audrey Weaver, the first woman city editor of any American newspaper, in the center. (Courtesy of Abbott Sengstacke Family Papers)
CHICAGO (JTA) — Forged at the dawn of the 20th century as both peoples arrived in northern cities, the political coalition between African-Americans and Jewish Americans has endured through defeat as well as victory. Jews and African-Americans were Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s two most enthusiastic constituencies, as they have… Read more »
Orthodox Jews try to prevent a group of Conservative and Reform rabbis and Women of the Wall members from bringing Torah scrolls into the Western Wall compound in Jerusalem, Nov. 2, 2016. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Like many of my friends, I grew up in the United States with a strong affinity for Israel. As a child we saved money to buy trees, learned Israeli songs, studied Hebrew, visited Israel and marched in Israeli Independence Day parades. I recall well that my… Read more »
(Eric Auchard/Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
(JTA) — Newsflash: “A rabbi under the huppah may boost Jewish engagement in intermarried homes,” according to a study released this past month by the Brandeis University Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies. That’s welcome new data but no news for us, two New York-area rabbis trained at the Jewish… Read more »
(JTA) — The upset victory by Donald Trump in the 2016 elections stunned a Jewish activist and leadership class that is at times as divided as the electorate at large. JTA asked some of those leaders to describe their concerns and expectations in a series of brief essays, “Worst… Read more »
(JTA) — In his inspiring book “Words That Hurt, Words that Heal,” Rabbi Joseph Telushkin wrote: “Because words can be used to inflict devastating and irrevocable suffering, Jewish teachings go so far as to compare cruel words to murder.” Thus it is painful to see the malicious character… Read more »
(Pixabay Commons)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — It was just a few weeks ago, on the night of Nov. 8, that my family had all anxiously exchanged text messages as we watched the election results trickle in. State by state, my Hillary-loving family saw our hopes slipping away — and now, too… Read more »
(JTA) — The upset victory by Donald Trump in the 2016 elections stunned a Jewish activist and leadership class that is at times as divided as the electorate at large. JTA asked some of those leaders to describe their concerns and expectations in a series of brief essays titled… Read more »
