(We Are via Getty Images)
This story originally appeared on Alma. “Your Hebrew name?” the head of the yeshiva asked, pencil and paper poised to take it down for my aliyah, the honor of reciting Torah blessings. It was my third week at his school, a place where I’d reluctantly agreed to study for… Read more »
Hasidim, government officials and police officers stand in front of the K'hal Adas Greenville synagogue next door to the JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, N.J., the site of a deadly shooting, Dec. 11, 2019. (Laura E. Adkins/JTA)
CHICAGO (JTA) — Some commentators have used the word “epidemic” to describe the recent spikes in anti-Semitism. They may not realize how correct they are. Twenty years ago, upon my return to the United States after serving as a senior infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization in… Read more »
Diego Schwartzman, listed at 5-7 but probably shorter, is congratulated by Alexander Zverev, who stands 6-6, at the 2019 U.S. Open. Schwartzman defeated Zverev in the fourth round. (Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images)
This article originally appeared on Alma. I was never the best tennis player. Nor was I particularly good at soccer, basketball or any other sport my parents signed me up for. Still, I stuck with tennis through my junior year of high school, when I was unceremoniously cut from the… Read more »
Rabbi Levi Shemtov attends a ceremony posthumously awarding Raoul Wallenberg with the Congressional Gold Medal in honor of his heroism during the Holocaust, at the U.S. Capitol, July 9, 2014. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Early Friday afternoon, I received a call inviting me to the White House to participate in a same-day signing ceremony for legislation authorizing $375 million in Homeland Security grants to help protect synagogues, churches, mosques and other places of worship. I replied that while I would… Read more »
Members of the Jewish Orthodox community walk through a Brooklyn neighborhood on the Yom Kippur holiday, Oct. 9, 2019. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Relentless campaigns calling for curricula reform in the nation’s yeshivas. Misleading headlines about educational standards at Orthodox schools. Zoning efforts aimed at keeping large Jewish families out of suburban towns. Some see a direct link between such things and the anti-Semitic violence that has erupted… Read more »
Democratic presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg speaks to voters in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Jan. 15, 2020. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(JTA) — This is the second op-ed in a series of pieces about anti-Semitism and Jewish issues written by 2020 presidential candidates. This one is by Pete Buttigieg, 38, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency has sent five questions on the topic to all… Read more »
A view from outside the former death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland (Alexandre Marchi/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — As the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz approaches, survivors are preparing to gather and commemorate the event, testifying to their faith in life over death. Political and religious leaders from around the world will be there, too, declaring that what happened in that dark abyss will… Read more »
At left, Joint Arab List members present their party list to the election committee at the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, Jan. 15, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90); at right, Labor Party leader Amir Peretz and Meretz leader Nitzan Horowitz are seen at a meeting of the Labor-Gesher and Meretz parties list in Tel Aviv, Jan. 20, 2020. (Flash 90)
(JTA) — Two center-left parties in Israel merged their electoral lists last week ahead of a submission deadline for the March 2 election. Labor, the “founding party” of Israel, will run with Meretz, a left-wing party long committed to ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state. This reluctant… Read more »
Organizers of the Women's March at the march, Jan. 19, 2019. (Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (JTA) — As the Women’s March gears up for its fourth go on Saturday, the skepticism and disenchantment are palpable. Articles questioning the relevance of the Women’s March in 2020 abound, comparing its expected low number of 10,000 marchers against the estimated 4 million in 2017. I,… Read more »
Ronald S. Lauder holds a #WeRemember sign ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Courtesy of World Zionist Congress)
NEW YORK (JTA) — It is a fact well-documented and well worth repeating: Within 25 years, it is likely that no survivors of the Holocaust will be alive. As a Jew, I am frightened by how the world looks in 2020. The rise of anti-Semitism we are experiencing today,… Read more »
A house of cards (Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Thirty years ago, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term intersectionality as a way to help explain the oppression of African-American women. The theory of how different forms of discrimination interact is a useful tool to recognize the way privilege and oppression overlap. It can serve to… Read more »
Left: The Siyum HaShas at MetLife Stadium; right, the No Fear No Hate March in New York City (Photos: Left, courtesy Agudath Israel; right, Getty Images)
On Sunday, I joined tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews who marched from downtown Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge in a show of commitment to fighting the recent violent rise of anti-Semitism. Last week, I stood in Jerusalem with thousands of Jews at the Siyum HaShas, a celebration… Read more »
Participants in New York's solidarity march against anti-Semitism Jan. 5 cross the Brooklyn Bridge. (Jewish Federations of North America)
On Sunday, Jan. 5, a huge crowd responded to the call from UJA-Federation of New York to march against anti-Semitism. The sense of threat is so pervasive at this moment that Jewish Federations and other organizations bused thousands from other states and locales to march in solidarity with the Jews of New York, who have experienced an unprecedented wave of violent anti-Semitic attacks, most recently in Monsey on… Read more »
The fresh feeling of possibilities at the dawn of a new secular year (and decade) will no doubt be accompanied by business as usual in the political arena — loud bickering, mud-slinging and more regarding presidential candidates — not only in the House and Senate but in the homes… Read more »
I have sent the following email to President Trump, Senators McSally and Sinema, and Representative O’Halleran: My name is Jeffrey N. Penfil, DMD. I am both a business owner and a community volunteer, currently serving as President of the Dove Mountain Rotary Club. As an American citizen, a citizen… Read more »
LONDON (JTA) — The last two festivals to be added to the Jewish calendar prior to modern times — Purim and Hanukkah — are both about anti-Semitism. There is one obvious difference between them: Haman, of the Purim story, wanted to kill Jews. Antiochus, of the Hanukkah story, wanted… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — While a shooter was firing rounds of ammunition into two Jews in Jersey City, New Jersey, a kosher market worker and a police officer simply for who they are and where they were, I was halfway around the world, in Paris. More specifically, I was hurrying… Read more »
A Hasidic man crosses the street near the JC Kosher Supermarket in Jersey City, N.J., Dec. 11, 2019. Six people, including a police officer and three civilians, were killed in gunfire between two armed suspects and law enforcement. (Rick Loomis/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Another Jewish community has sustained a bloody attack that left Jews everywhere reeling. On Tuesday, a small enclave of Hasidic Jews in Jersey City, New Jersey had their worlds shaken and disrupted during a frightening siege. Schools were on lockdown, four people were murdered and people… Read more »
Midge Maisel, played by Emmy winner Rachel Brosnahan, does her stand-up routine in season 3 of "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel." (Amazon Prime)
Critics have long called out “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” co-creator Amy Sherman-Palladino for the lack of diversity in her shows about pushy, fast-talking white ladies. This outcry probably motivated Sherman-Palladino to set “Maisel” in the 1950s, when its sheer whiteness could be blamed on historical accuracy.… Read more »
Shira and Amichai Ish Ran hold a news conference at the Shaarei Tzedek hospital a week after being injured in a West Bank terror attack, Dec. 16, 2018. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash 90)
BEIT EL, West Bank (JTA) — I watched the news of the terrible Jersey City shooting last week with both horror and a sense of deja vu. Sadly, violent attacks against Jews, wherever we live, have become all too common. We can no longer assume our communal spaces and houses… Read more »
