Tagged FRONT

Ukraine fiscal crisis leads to major setback for homegrown Jewish philanthropy

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)
July 29, 2015 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(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 »

Pollard’s wait not over: Fight to bring him to Israel will outlast his release

Israelis calling for the release of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard in Jerusalem, March 21, 2013. (Liar Mizrahi/Getty Images)
July 29, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

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 »

Israelis say Pollard release won’t change stance on Iran

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)
July 28, 2015 / Ben Sales, JTA

  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 »

Israel’s U.S. envoy raps Huckabee on Holocaust-Iran deal analogy

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)
July 28, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

  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 »

Jewish lawmakers shut out noise as they consider Iran nuclear deal

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)
July 28, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

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 »

Jewish groups stake out positions on Iran deal, but whom do they represent?

Hundreds turned out for a protest in Los Angeles against the Iran nuclear deal, July 26, 2015. (Peter Duke)
July 28, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

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 »

Thousands protest the Iran deal at Times Square rally

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)
July 23, 2015 / Gabe Friedman, JTA

(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 »

European Maccabi Games to play at Olympic venues built by Nazis

Adolf Hitler, second from left, watching the Olympic Games in Berlin with the Italian crown prince, left, August 1936. (Fox Photos/Getty Images)
July 21, 2015 / Toby Axelrod, JTA

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 »

Op-Ed: At season of Jewish mourning, time to consider our own capacity for evil

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)
July 21, 2015 / Steven Fine, JTA

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 »

New film, ‘Rosenwald,’ tells story of Jewish philanthropist who transformed black lives

Julius Rosenwald with students from a Rosenwald School (Courtesy of Fisk University, John Hope and Aurelia E. Franklin Library)
July 18, 2015 / Lisa Hostein, JTA

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 »

What ‘no deal’ would have meant — and 5 other things to consider now that Iran accord has been struck

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)
July 17, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

(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 »

AIPAC to fight White House head to head in battle over Iran deal

The White House is said to be "on fire" and ready for battle in defending the Iran nuclear plan. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
July 17, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Cancel your summer vacations. That was the order AIPAC’s executive director, Howard Kohr, gave his employees in a staff meeting convened this week at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee after the United States announced the Iran nuclear deal. With the influential pro-Israel lobby group pushing for Congress… Read more »

Following Iran deal, Israel to lobby Congress — and reconsider a strike

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking to the media from his office in Jerusalem following the finalization of a nuclear deal with Iran, July 14, 2015. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
July 15, 2015 / Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decried an agreement over Iran’s nuclear program hundreds of times — most notably in a March speech to a joint session of Congress. Now that the agreement is signed, experts say Netanyahu has one way left to block it: Go… Read more »

At UA, new Chabad house adding space for students, family

The shell of the new Chabad UA house was completed last month. (Courtesy Chabad UA)
July 14, 2015 / Craig S. Baker, Special to the AJP

It was under the direction of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson (commonly and lovingly referred to as “The Rebbe” by practitioners of the Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy of Judaism) in the 1950s that Chabad began setting up permanent educational and resource centers for Jewish students on university campuses… Read more »

Rabbi quits N.J. pulpit, finds God and community in Montana

Rabbi Francine Roston: Rabbi Francine Green Roston and her family fell in love with Whitefish, Mont., on their first visit in the summer of 2010. (Uriel Heilman)
July 13, 2015 / Uriel Heilman, JTA

WHITEFISH, Mont. (JTA) – Until last year, Rabbi Francine Green Roston was among the Conservative movement’s rising stars. The first woman in the movement to head a congregation with more than 500 members, Roston, the spiritual leader of Congregation Beth El in South Orange, New Jersey, also published Op-Eds… Read more »

Tucson J community garden to plant seeds of commemoration, good health

Shay Hammer, who died at age 15, inspired the community garden being created at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. (Susanne Kaplan)
July 9, 2015 / Sheila Wilensky, AJP Associate Editor

It is forbidden to live in a town that does not have a green garden. — Jerusalem Talmud, Kiddushin 4:12 Sustainability, growing local and urban gardens are trending. But growing your own food has been a staple of a healthy lifestyle over the last century, from the early Zionists… Read more »

In Focus 7.10.15: THA eighth grade Israel Experience

At Hezekiah’s Tunnel in the City of David, from left: Yuval Barel, Ronnie Berkej, Maia Winsberg, Hayden Estrella, Marlee Dell, Hayley Yalen, Danielle Schwartz, Mallory Hulsey, Emberly Davis, Sheina Lewkowicz, Eva Lanoue, Rebecca Dubin, Corey Karp, Maya Levy, Aliya Markowitz
July 9, 2015 /

The Tucson Hebrew Academy 2015 trip to Israel marked the 13th such trip for the school, bringing the total of THA students who have visited Israel with their eighth grade classmates to 300. This year, 15 students along with Rabbi Billy Lewkowicz, the school’s director of Judaics/Hebrew studies, and… Read more »

Jewish community leader Irene Sarver dies
July 7, 2015 /

Irene M. Sarver, a longtime Jewish community and civic leader, died July 6, 2015. She was 95. Mrs. Sarver served on the boards and was a member of countless organizations, including Jewish Family & Children’s Services, Hadassah, the National Council of Jewish Women, the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona,… Read more »