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 »
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 »
Ted Cruz speaking at the Zionist Organization of America’s 2014 gala in New York City. (Screenshot from YouTube)
CLEVELAND (JTA) — Wednesday night’s gripping tale of a dramatic, sudden repudiation of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by Sheldon Adelson, the major pro-Israel philanthropist and Republican donor, seems a little less consequential in the light of Thursday morning, according to folks who are close with Adelson and his wife, Miriam.… 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 »
White Jews, and all Americans, must actively participate in the campaigns for racial justice and police accountability, Leo Ferguson writes. (Lior Zaltzman)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Last week, we watched in horror and dismay as violent event after violent event unfolded, each amplifying and recontextualizing the one before it. By Friday morning, July 8, five Dallas police officers were dead, three black men had been killed by the police (including the… 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 »
On the first Friday of each month, the Jewish residents of Fairwinds-Desert Point retirement community in Oro Valley are fortunate to welcome Chaplain Pinchas Zohav from the Northwest Jewish Federation who leads them in a Shabbat celebration. With prayers, songs, stories, wine and challah, the Sabbath is welcomed joyfully… Read more »
