Tagged ADL

(J. weekly via JTA) — A junior at Stanford University who is running for the student senate says she faced anti-Semitic questioning from a student group whose endorsement she was seeking. During a March 13 interview in front of eight members of the university’s Students of Color Coalition, Molly… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told top Senate Democrats he regretted that his planned address to the U.S. Congress is being perceived as partisan, as President Barack Obama’s top security adviser said the speech was “destructive.” Netanyahu wrote Tuesday to decline an invitation from Sens. Dick… Read more »

By now, it has become clear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to address Congress on March 4 has become a disaster – not just for him but more importantly for the US-Israel relationship. From the beginning, one of the chief objections to the visit — and the… Read more »

Former Israeli President Shimon Peres, with microphone, meeting in Tel Aviv with, from left, Sayyid Syeed of the Islamic Society of North America, Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States, Jan. 20, 2015. (JCPA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last month, Kari Alterman heard from every one of her Detroit-area Muslim dialogue partners, all of them calling to express their sadness and concern. They just didn’t do so publicly. Statements condemning violence are normally made after formal dialogues… Read more »

Demonstrators at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires protesting the death of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman. The banner at left reads "I am Nisman. I am the Republic," Jan. 19, 2015. (Movimiento Argentino de Fotografxs Independientes Autoconvocadxs Facebook page)

(JTA) – The mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman seems ripped straight out of a crime thriller. Nisman — the indefatigable prosecutor collecting evidence of culpability in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people — was found dead in his… Read more »

Ashton Carter, at podium, delivering remarks at the White House after being nominated by President Barack Obama to be the next defense secretary, Dec. 5, 2014. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ashton Carter has championed the sale to Israel of state-of-the-art combat aircraft, has aligned himself with Iran hawks and was observed becoming misty-eyed when serenaded by Israeli soldiers. Carter, 60, President Obama’s secretary of defense nominee, has been depicted in the media as the un-Chuck Hagel:… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Each year on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we recall the opening salvo of the violent assault on Jews that foreshadowed the Holocaust and ask ourselves what should have been done at that moment. In thinking about Kristallnacht, we should also consider the outpouring of violence… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – The Anti-Defamation League’s new national director will be social entrepreneur Jonathan Greenblatt — a special assistant to President Obama who earlier in his career co-founded the bottled water brand Ethos. Greenblatt, 43, will succeed Abraham Foxman, who announced in February that he would be stepping… Read more »

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators protest across the street from a pro-Israel really in Chicago, July 28, 2014. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — In Europe, the fight over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has prompted violent street battles, firebombs thrown at synagogues and even a mid-game attack against a visiting Israeli soccer team by protesters in Austria. In America, it has been more a battle of commentary,… Read more »

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, addressing the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church (U.S.A.) to urge the denomination to reject divestment, June 19, 2014. (Courtesy of Union for Reform Judaism)

WASHINGTON (JTA) – There were amendments and amendments to amendments in a debate lasting for more than four hours. There were dueling T-shirts. There was a last-minute appeal for a joint pilgrimage to speak hard truths to Benjamin Netanyahu. And there was a plea to emulate Jesus and speak… Read more »

Members of UCLA's student government listen to supporters and opponents of a divestment resolution targeting Israel in a session that stretched into the early morning hours of Feb. 26, 2014. (Courtesy of StandWithUs)

LOS ANGELES (JTA) – UCLA has some proud moments in the history of civil liberties. After World War II, UCLA and the University of California, Berkeley, were the hotbeds of opposition to an anti-communist loyalty oath that California tried to impose on academics. Ultimately the professors won in court… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — The last time Ambassador Samuel Lewis was at an Anti-Defamation League podium was in April 2008 as part of a roundtable celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary. The speakers were each asked to share their most vivid and representative recollections of Israel. Sam, a distinguished State Department… Read more »

Members of the National Socialist Movement rally near Los Angeles City Hall on April 17, 2010. (David McNew/Getty Images)

NEW YORK (JTA) — When Abraham Foxman steps down next summer from his longtime post as national director of the Anti-Defamation League, he’ll be leaving his successor with a much brighter picture on anti-Semitism in America than when Foxman joined the organization in 1965. In an age when anti-Semitic… Read more »

Martin Indyk, the U.S. special envoy for Ben Gurion International Airport on Jan. 5, 2014. (Matty Stern/U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv/Flash90)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As the Obama administration prepares to unveil a framework plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Jewish groups have responded by laying low. In contrast to the noisy Iran sanctions contretemps between the administration and much of the pro-Israel community, the leading centrist Jewish groups… Read more »

Menachem Stark, shown with his wife and seven children, was hailed as a loving father and generous giver by his Hasidic community. (Courtesy photo)

 NEW YORK (JTA) — The murder of Menachem Stark has sparked intense media scrutiny of the Brooklyn real estate developer’s troubled business record, prompting the New York Post to ask “Who didn’t want him dead?” on its front page. But while mainstream media outlets scrutinized the Satmar hasid’s relationships… Read more »

Nathan Lewin, left, and his daughter Alyza created headaches for major Jewish groups by persevering with a so-far unsuccessful lawsuit to get the State Department to recognize Jerusalem-born Americans as born in Israel. (Washington Week)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — On Sept. 27, the conservative political blogger Ken Berwitz was enraged — not by Democratic malfeasance, his favored bugbear, but by the policies of an Oklahoma-based chain of craft stores. Berwitz was bothered not only that Hobby Lobby was keeping Hanukkah tchotchkes off its shelves, but that… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — How do you confront hatred when it has no fixed address? Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League national director, attempts to pin down an answer to the question in his latest book, “Viral Hate.” Co-authored with privacy lawyer Christopher Wolf, the book chronicles the complications of countering… Read more »

Klansmen exiting the Shelby County Courthouse in Memphis, Tenn., moments before their rally, March 30, 2013. (Blake Billings)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (JTA) — Cantor Ricky Kampf descends from the bimah, adjusts his prayer shawl and strides up the aisle, cutting through the cavernous sanctuary to greet the familiar out-of-towner. “Y’all here for the shindig?” Kampf says at the Baron Hirsch Synagogue here as he grasps the hand of… Read more »

The Torah ark at the newly built Tiferet Israel Este synagogue in Caracus, Venezuela, March 17, 2013. (Association Israelita de Venezuela)

(JTA) — For more than a decade, Venezuelan Jews have been holding their breath, subject to the whims of a mercurial president who used his bully pulpit to intimidate, rail against Israel and embrace Iran   There was the police raid of a Caracas school in 2004, allegedly to search… Read more »

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, right, shaking hands with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the Venezuelan capital of Caracus, Nov. 27, 2009. (Omar Rashidi/PPO via Getty Images)

(JTA) — For more than a decade, Venezuelan Jews have been holding their breath, subject to the whims of a mercurial president who used his bully pulpit to intimidate, rail against Israel and embrace Iran. There was the police raid of a Caracas school in 2004, allegedly to search… Read more »