Sen. Charles Schumer was the subject of a cartoon that some saw as questioning his loyalty to the United States. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Congress and the American people are focused on what everyone agrees is a historic, serious and consequential foreign policy decision — the fate of the nuclear deal with Iran. While we all hope for a debate based on substance and conducted with civility, the truth… Read more »
A house under construction for Gaza evacuees in the town of Beer Ganim. (Ben Sales)
NITZAN B, Israel (JTA) — Ask Aviel Eliaz and Itzik Wazana about their evacuation from Gaza 10 years ago this month and both will tell you it’s like a tree. For Eliaz, it’s an olive tree sitting in a large pot in his front yard. He planted the tree… Read more »
From left, Jill Totenberg, Nina Totenberg and Amy Totenberg viewing their father's Stadivarius violin, which was stolen after a concert 35 years ago, at an FBI news conference in New York City announcing the recovery of the violin, Aug. 6, 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Jewish violin virtuoso Roman Totenberg enjoyed a long life, making it to the ripe old age of 101. But that wasn’t quite long enough to be reunited with the prized instrument that was stolen from him in 1980. The FBI officially announced Thursday that it had recovered Totenberg’s… Read more »
Family members of Ali Saad Dawabsheh outside their home in a West Bank Palestinian village after an arson attack that killed the 18-month-old boy, July 31, 2015. Jewish extremists are suspected of setting the fire. (Oren Ziv/Getty Images)
(JTA) – There are some striking similarities between last week’s arson attack on a Palestinian home that killed an 18-month-old boy and last summer’s kidnapping and immolation of a 16-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdeir. Then, as now, Jewish extremists were the prime suspects in the attack. Then, as now, the murder… Read more »
Children in the southern Israeli kibbutz of Nahal Oz playing near a colorfully painted concrete shelter, July 6, 2015. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Few communities were as battered during last summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas as Nahal Oz, a kibbutz of some 350 people located just a mile from the Gaza border. At one point in the fighting, 40 missiles landed on the community in a single… Read more »
Tali Mizrahi, a member of the anti-racism group Light Tag, visiting the home of a Palestinian baby allegedly killed by Jewish arsonists. (Ben Sales)
DUMA, West Bank (JTA) — The smell of stale smoke wafted from the burnt concrete home now marked by a banner bearing the grinning face of a baby and, in bold red letters, a name: Ali Saad Dawabsha. Some 100 Jewish visitors trudged hesitantly under the banner and into the… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visiting the hospitalized family of a West Bank Palestinian baby killed in an arson attack, July 31, 2015. (Flash90)
Updated 8.5.15 WASHINGTON (JTA) – Ahead of what may be the toughest diplomatic battle of his career, a final bid to kill the Iran nuclear deal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suddenly found himself facing down a terrorist threat – apparently from Jews. The flow of Iran… Read more »
Hundreds of people protesting against the Iran nuclear deal on July 26, 2015, in Los Angeles, California. (Peter Duke)
NEW YORK (JTA) — There have been three major polls of American Jews since the announcement of the nuclear deal between world powers and Iran — by the L.A. Jewish Journal, The Israel Project and J Street— all with significantly different results. Two show U.S. Jewish support for the Iran nuclear… Read more »
Egg banks report that they cannot meet the demand for Jewish donations. (Ian Waldie/Getty Images) ROCKVILLE, Md. (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) – Laura has donated her eggs four times to women who needed help having children. “It gave me a real sense of purpose,” she said. “It really is a great personal pleasure to know that I have something that changes someone’s life.”… Read more »
A heavily damaged hotel near the Donetsk airport in Ukraine, Feb. 26, 2015. The fighting between Ukraine and Russian-backed rebels has wreaked havoc on the Ukraine hryvnia.(Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
(JTA) – For many years Rami Waisman, the director of a major jewelry chain, was earning enough to give back handsomely to the Jewish communal institutions in his eastern Ukraine hometown, Dnepropetrovsk. But these days Waisman is struggling and can no longer financially support such institutions as the local synagogue,… Read more »
Israelis calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in Jerusalem, March 21, 2013. (Liar Mizrahi/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Barack Obama will not alter the terms of Jonathan Pollard’s parole once he is released, a signal that Israel’s struggle to bring him to the country whose citizenship he has assumed will outlast his November release date. “Mr. Pollard will serve his sentence as mandated… Read more »
Uri Ariel, left, Israel's minister of housing, and Knesset Chairman Yuli Edelstein at a Passover seder held in honor of Jonathan Pollard, pictured, at the Knesset, April 8, 2014. (Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — When the United States frees convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in November, many in Israel will celebrate the moment for which they have fought and hoped. What Pollard’s release won’t do, officials and analysts say, is make most Israelis feel any better about the nuclear deal with Iran. Pollard, who was convicted… Read more »
Mike Huckabee fielding questions at The Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, July 18, 2015. The Republican presidential candidate is standing by remarks he made over the weekend that President Obama is marching Israelis "to the door of the oven" as part of the Iran nuclear deal. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Call it a double miracle for the pastor who would be president: Mike Huckabee managed to unite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama while grabbing the spotlight from Donald Trump. Netanyahu’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, slammed Huckabee, a Republican… Read more »
Sen. Charles Schumer participating in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, July 8, 2015. Schumer, a New York Democrat, is seen as a key vote on the Iran deal. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Turn off the ads, turn down the noise and read, listen and consult. That’s what five key Jewish lawmakers say they are planning for the five to seven weeks they have to contemplate their vote on the Iran nuclear deal. There are 28 Jews in Congress,… Read more »
Hundreds turned out for a protest in Los Angeles against the Iran nuclear deal, July 26, 2015. (Peter Duke)
NEW YORK (JTA) – When the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles came out with a strongly worded statement last week opposing the Iran nuclear deal, it became one of a handful of federations across the country to stake out a clear position on the agreement. “This Iran deal… Read more »
A protester's sign urging U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer to vote against the Iran deal at the "Stop Iran Now" rally in Times Square, July 22, 2015. (Gabe Friedman)
(JTA) — New York Sen. Chuck Schumer was not actually in New York on Wednesday, but the Democrat’s influence on the fate of the Iran deal loomed large when several thousand people descended on Times Square to protest the agreement. Many of those demonstrating against the agreement chanted “Where… Read more »
Adolf Hitler, second from left, watching the Olympic Games in Berlin with the Italian crown prince, left, August 1936. (Fox Photos/Getty Images)
BERLIN (JTA) – They are roaring through Europe, raising dust as they go: Jewish bikers bearing an Olympic-style torch all the way from Israel to this German city. Next week, 11 core riders will pull their steel steeds into Berlin’s famous outdoor amphitheater, the Waldbuehne, to help usher in… Read more »
Giacinto-Boulos Marcuzzo, the Roman Catholic auxiliary bishop of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, inspecting the torched Church of the Multiplication in the Galilee, June 18, 2015. (Basel Awidat/Flash90)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The burning a few weeks ago of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, a historic church in the Galilee region of Tabgha built on the foundations of a sixth-century house of worship, is not the first act of evil allegedly carried… Read more »
Julius Rosenwald with students from a Rosenwald School (Courtesy of Fisk University, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Alex Bethea, the son of cotton and tobacco farm workers, was in sixth grade in 1965 when his family moved from Dillon, South Carolina, to the tiny town of Fairmont, North Carolina, where he attended a school called Rosenwald. But it wasn’t until this week, 50… Read more »
Portraits of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, right, and the former Ayatollah Khomeini looking out over Tehran, June 4, 2015. Iranian power is at the center of the debate over the nuclear deal signed between Iran and six world powers. (John Moore/Getty Images)
(JTA) – The nuclear agreement signed this week between the U.S.-led group of six world powers and Iran raises as many questions as it answers. As critics and proponents dissect the details, here are six issues to consider. It’s not only about nuclear weapons. In all probability, Iran will acquire nuclear weapons. This… Read more »
