Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement in Ramat Gan on September 10, 2019. Photo by Hadas Parush/Flash90
(JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that if he is re-elected next week, he’ll immediately annex a big part of the West Bank: the Jordan Valley. That’s kind of a big deal. On the other hand, it’s not really — yet. That specific eastern swath of the West Bank… Read more »
The Adas Israel Congregation in Duluth, Minn., burned down of yet unknown causes, Sept. 9, 2019. (Duluth News Tribune Screenshot)
NEW YORK (JTA) — American Jews woke Monday morning to the ancestrally terrifying image of a synagogue on fire. It was my family’s shul: Adas Israel in Duluth, Minnesota. There is a dollhouse model of the Great Synagogue of Vilna in Israel’s Museum of the Jewish People. “That is… Read more »
As each news cycle seems to create new challenges to our Jewish community’s sense of wholeness, how will we respond — individually and collectively? Will we become broken and divided — or if not — how will we retain our footing so that we may remain connected to each… Read more »
Israeli security forces stand guard in one of the alleys of Jerusalem's Old City following a knife attack, May 31, 2019. (Thomas COEX / AFP)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Fifty-two years ago, following the Six-Day War, Israel took control of the eastern part of this city. After annexing additional Arab villages to the north and south, it created what we know today as East Jerusalem, where approximately 200,000 Jews and 300,000 Arabs live. While Israel… Read more »
Alma Hernandez (center) with her family at her naming ceremony at Congregation Chaverim, April 8, 2016. (Courtesy Hernandez)
I am proud to be Jewish, Latina and bilingual. I have the honor of representing the state House of Representatives district where I was born and raised in Arizona. My home in Tucson is less than one hour away from the U.S.-Mexico border. Tucson and El Paso in many… Read more »
Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, shown in 2018, was recently accused by his state's Jewish leaders of peddling anti-Semitic tropes when he sent out a letter accusing George Soros and Michael Bloomberg of having "bought" the media. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)
BALTIMORE (JTA) — As Americans of conscience, many of us are deeply troubled by the hyperpartisan tone that seems to color almost every news story and cycle. The sensationalism that is so often present within our nation’s discourse undermines our collective ability to assimilate information and reach well-reasoned conclusions.… Read more »
A New York Times explainer of the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel; a gathering on the International Day of Quds in Times Square, NYC. (Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) – The Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s editor in chief, Andrew Silow-Carroll, and its opinion editor, Laura E. Adkins, shared their thoughts on a recent New York Times article answering “some of the most difficult questions” about BDS, or the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. Andrew… Read more »
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, at the microphone, shown in New York circa 1975. (Tim Boxer/Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — When the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, died in July 1994, I was one of many journalists in the Jewish media who did not see how the Hasidic movement he led could survive, much less thrive, in his absence. It has, of course. That… Read more »
Dearest Friends of the Tucson Jewish community, It seems to me that many of you have forgotten the training we all received when we were children. Remember the nurse at school who taught you two important rules: 1) Wash your hands, and 2) Don’t put something in your mouth… Read more »
A cover of Mad Magazine, which will no longer publish new content, from 1968. (Elizabeth W. Kearley/Getty Images)
Mad magazine is on life support, and I can’t say I’m either surprised or all that sad about it. DC Entertainment announced last week that the satirical magazine will stop publishing new content. It was like hearing about a beloved old relative who passed away: I hadn’t had any… Read more »
Family and friends mourn at the funeral of Solomon Tekah, outside Haifa, July 2, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90) *** Local Caption *** ??????
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JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israeli society has been gripped over the past week by the killing of Solomon Tekah, an unarmed 19-year-old Ethiopian Israeli. On June 30, an off-duty Israeli police officer shot and killed Tekah under highly contested circumstances. While emerging evidence seems to indicate that the policeman was not… Read more »
The late Fred Fruchthendler, left, with Jewish Family & Children’s Services’ President and CEO Carlos Hernández at the 206 JFCS Celebration of Caring event on April 10, 2016, which marked JFCS’ 75th anniversary. (Photo courtesy Jewish Family & Children's Services)
I remember when I first met Fred Fruchthendler. It was my first interview with the board of Jewish Family & Children’s Services of Southern Arizona for the position of president and CEO. After an hour or so of many tough and thoughtful questions, a voice that had not yet… Read more »
As Jews, we have a special responsibility to stand up for the migrants currently being held under deplorable conditions in ICE detention centers. The situation is completely untenable. A Trump administration lawyer recently argued to a court that the government’s obligation to provide “safe and sanitary” conditions for child… Read more »
I wish to thank the Arizona Jewish Post and interviewer Debe Campbell for the well-written article (“Retiree takes social justice to heart,” 6/28/19). She provided important information I shared with her when we met at the monastery. She has seen firsthand the role that so many volunteers and Catholic… Read more »
A Jewish wedding ceremony. Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz caused a stir when he compared Jewish intermarriage to a "second Holocaust." (Frank Rosenstein / Getty Images)
PHOENIX (JTA) – Israeli Education Minister Rafi Peretz’s recent tone-deaf declaration that intermarriage is akin to a “second Holocaust” was shocking and shameful, and desecrates the memories of those who perished in the Holocaust. While Peretz leads the Jewish Home party as well as the United Right coalition, and is… Read more »
Protesters demonstrate against the Trump administration's immigration policies at a Never Again Is Now rally on Independence Mall in Washington D.C., during the city's Independence Day festivities, July 4, 2019. (Michael Candelori/NurPhoto/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) – At the annual Christians United for Israel conference, Vice President Mike Pence lambasted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for comparing U.S. migrant detention centers to concentration camps. “This slander was an insult to the 6 million killed in the Holocaust, and it should be condemned by every American… Read more »
A Jewish woman holding a candle, with a "We Will Outlive Them" banner in the background, at a New York vigil for the victims of the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh. (Gili Getz)
NEW YORK (JTA) – In 2019, there are more haters than lovers of the Jewish Left. Especially in the United States, the mainstream Jewish community reviles left-wing Jews who embrace anti-Zionism. Meanwhile, the Jewish Left itself is split. On one side are the “Left Zionists” who support a two-state… Read more »
Jonathan Cohen, third from left, is seen with other members of the Netflix series "Family Business." (Netflix)
(JTA) — One fan’s recent description on Twitter of the new Netflix series “Family Business” isn’t too far off: a “French Breaking Bad but with weed.” The French series, which debuted last week, is a wacky comedy about a Parisian Jewish family, the Hazans, that turns its failed kosher… Read more »
Young Jewish adults from all over the world participate in the Birthright Israel program in Jerusalem, Jan. 14, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (JTA) – The year was 2000, and Michael Steinhardt had just dropped a bombshell that nearly brought an otherwise dignified conference to blows. “I tend, in my dourest moments, to consider both the Reform and Conservative Jews as historic accidents in the 21st century and suspect,… Read more »
A Jewish mother and her children are photographed outside a synagogue in Djerba, Tunisia, Jan. 1, 1950. Some 850,000 refugees from Tunisia and other Arab countries were expelled from their countries after the creation of Israel.
June 20 was World Refugee Day. And according to the United Nations page devoted to this commemoration, every minute 20 people leave everything behind to escape war, persecution or terror. I am one of those people. In 1948, when I was 6 months old, my mother risked everything to… Read more »
