Tagged FRONT

Benjamin Netanyahu’s rival just agreed to stop fighting and join him. Here’s why.

Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz seen during election campaign in Ramat Gan on February 25. After 99 percent of votes counted, right-wing bloc led by Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu obtained 58 seats but 3 are missing to get a clear majority. Israeli PM Netanyahu says today that Gantz is 'linking up with terrorists' supporters' alluding at possible union with Arab Alliance Joint List. On Wednesday, March 4, 2020, in Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
March 27, 2020 / Gabe Friedman, JTA

(JTA) — One of the crazier weeks in Israeli politics in recent memory ended on a fittingly dramatic note: Benny Gantz, the former army chief who came close to unseating Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in three straight elections, laid down his proverbial arms. Gantz will join a so-called unity… Read more »

For Italian Jews, the ‘smell of death’ is all around

A cyclist protecting himself from the coronavirus passes in front of a synagogue in Turin, Italy, March 18, 2020. (Stefano Guidi/Getty Images)
March 26, 2020 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — At least twice a day, Micol Naccache breaks down in tears over what the coronavirus is doing to her city of Milan and its Jewish community. A high school teacher and mother of two, Naccache describes herself as “an optimistic person.” But she is struggling to stay… Read more »

You don’t need Zoom or Skype to say Kaddish without a minyan. Here’s a healthier option for the community.

A man recites the Mourner’s Kaddish from a prayer pamphlet. (Getty Images)
March 26, 2020 / Rabbi Seth Winberg

WALTHAM, Mass. (JTA) — Like so many others, I am feeling the spiritual loss and pain of our current inability to learn Torah and pray together in person. Many mourners are devoted to the customary recitation of Kaddish for a deceased close relative and struggling with how to do… Read more »

On Sunday, the rabbi logged on to Zoom: A bride and groom were waiting

Jalna Silverstein and Asael Papour are married in New York, March 22, 2020. (Courtesy of Silverstein)
March 26, 2020 / Ben Harris, JTA

(JTA) — Before everything changed, Jalna Silverstein and Asael Papour were planning a wedding much like many other Jewish nuptials on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They had a band and caterer lined up, a ceremony planned for the synagogue where Silverstein grew up and all the little… Read more »

What Jewish groups want to see in Congress’ $2 trillion pandemic spending bill

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 20: Socially distanced apart, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) attend a meeting with a select group of Senate Republicans, Senate Democrats, and Trump administration officials in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill March 20, 2020 in Washington, DC. The small group of lawmakers and officials are in negotiations about the phase 3 coronavirus stimulus bill, which leaders say they hope to have passed by Monday. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
March 25, 2020 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The White House has come to an agreement with Democrats and Republicans on a $2 trillion stimulus package, the biggest in U.S. history, in response to the major economic downturn triggered by the coronavirus. The Senate approved the package, 96-0, at midnight Wednesday. It could undergo… Read more »

‘Painful and deep’: Jewish nonprofits face dire economic prospects during and after coronavirus

The main entrance of the Staenberg-Loup Jewish Community Center in Denver, July 27, 2018. At the time, the center had staved off financial worries thanks to a newly formed nonprofit that bought its property and infused it with cash to wipe out $14.3 million in debt. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
March 23, 2020 / Ben Sales, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Some 38,000 people work at Jewish community centers across North America, staffing preschools, camps, gyms, classes, activities for seniors and more. Because of the coronavirus crisis, a lot of them are going to lose their jobs. “The cuts are going to be painful and deep,”… Read more »

Why Jewish communities are keeping mikvahs open amid the coronavirus outbreak — for now

Women's mikvahs in Israel, like this one in the settlement of Alon Shvut, are still open. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
March 22, 2020 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — When the rabbis of New Jersey’s suburban Bergen County took the bold step of shutting down almost all facets of communal Jewish life last week, they left the doors of one institution open: the women’s mikvah, or ritual bath. That pattern has been repeated in… Read more »

I’m a pediatrician who sees kids with coronavirus every day. It’s changed my whole way of life.

Health care providers wear protective equipment, like gloves, but some still get the coronavirus. (Getty Images)
March 22, 2020 / Dr. Alysa Frenkel-Schick, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — I am a pediatrician who for 15 years has practiced in a medical office in the heart of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We serve the local Hasidic community and see a variety of other patients from Brooklyn, the Lower East Side and Queens. When the coronavirus emerged… Read more »

Or Chadash, Temple Emanu-El explore merger

A joint Congregation Or Chadash-Temple Emanu-El ‘100 Menorah Celebration’ Shabbat on Dec. 27 filled the sanctuary at Temple Emanu-El. (Simon Rosenblatt - Facebook)
March 20, 2020 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

In an era when non-Orthodox synagogues throughout the country have seen membership decline, two Reform synagogues in Tucson, Temple Emanu-El and Congregation Or Chadash, are considering joining forces. Temple Emanu-El, established in 1910, is the oldest synagogue in Arizona, while Or Chadash is celebrating its 25th year. After more… Read more »

JFSA, others cancel events, focus on giving, digital resources in face of coronavirus

A view from the lobby of the Harvey and Deanna Evenchik Center for Jewish Philanthropy, home of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona and the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona (Martha Lochert)
March 20, 2020 /

UPDATE: The Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona have created a web page at www.jewishtucson.org/pandemic containing community resources, volunteer opportunities, and a link to donate to the newly created Jewish Community Pandemic Relief Fund, which provides emergency financial assistance and meets critical needs for individuals, families, and… Read more »

Congregation Or Chadash Sisterhood shines a light on volunteer Sandock
March 20, 2020 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor
Beverly Sandock

Community volunteer Beverly Sandock will be recognized in April by  the Congregation Or Chadash Sisterhood with its second annual Eshet Or (Woman of Light) award. In addition to 20 years of volunteer service at the synagogue, Sandock contributes to the community through daily professional and personal outreach. “Bev’s name… Read more »

Passover in a pandemic: Families on Zoom, solo seders, broken traditions

Jewish man reads passages from the Passover Haggadah (the story of Passover) during a Passover seder in North York, Ontario, Canada on, April 19, 2019. (Photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)
March 20, 2020 / Ben Sales, JTA

Rena Munster was looking forward to hosting a Passover seder for the first time. In past years, her parents or another relative hosted the meal. But this year she had invited her parents, siblings and other extended family to her Washington, D.C., home. Her husband, an amateur ceramics artist,… Read more »

Active GV volunteer has passion for aiding migrants

At her Green Valley home, Shura Wallin shows drawings created by migrant children sheltering in Nogales, Sonora. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
March 20, 2020 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

A grey, three-footed Mexican rescue cat named Tiny bats innocently at the frayed end of a dirty white rope. At the other end of the rope is a noose. The rope is one of many artifacts Shura Wallin has recovered from the Sonoran Desert between Green Valley and the… Read more »

He wanted to encapsulate Beijing’s Jewish community in a Passover Haggadah. The coronavirus complicated that.

Artist Leon Fenster says this page of his Beijing-themed Haggadah aims to capture the traditional Haggadah’s "curiously non-chronological form of storytelling." (Courtesy of Fenster)
March 19, 2020 / Alan Grabinsky, JTA

(JTA) — Unlike Shanghai or Hong Kong, which received Jews fleeing from World War II, Beijing does not have a robust Jewish history. In the words of Joshua Kurtzig, former president of the Reform congregation there, the massive Chinese capital is a “very transient city,” especially for Jews — meaning… Read more »

Saying Kaddish from balconies and fasting: How Hasidic Jews are responding to the coronavirus

Chabad children in Argentina study in the movement's online school in 2007. During the new coronavirus outbreak, the school has offered guidance to other Jewish schools transitioning to remote learning. (Courtesy of the Nigri International Shluchim Online School)
March 19, 2020 / Ben Sales, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — One of Avi Webb’s favorite times of the week is Sunday morning, when he takes his children to morning prayers at his synagogue and stays for a lesson on Hasidic thought. His kids play at an arts and crafts table while he studies. Webb is… Read more »

Jews in the United Kingdom prepare for distancing as Britain adapts to coronavirus

Philip Carmel, seen outside a Jewish cemetery in Russia during a work trip in 2018, says "the only difference between the United Kingdom and Italy is that we’re three weeks behind them.” (Cnaan Liphshiz)
March 19, 2020 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — As the coronavirus forced the shutdown of many synagogues in the United States and beyond last Shabbat, many British Jews celebrated the day of rest as usual. At the time, their government was taking a far less restrictive approach even as the leaders of other countries shut… Read more »

‘We’re not scared’: Some haredi Orthodox Jews in Israel are ignoring coronavirus social distancing rules

Some of the students at a haredi boys school in Ramat Beit Shemesh Bet, just west of Jerusalem, where classes are still being held, March 18, 2020. (Sam Sokol)
March 19, 2020 / Sam Sokol, JTA

BEIT SHEMESH, Israel (JTA) — “Do you want trouble?” the Hasidic man asked, leaning toward me intimidatingly. “Are you threatening me?” I asked, turning to look at the lean man in a flat black hat and long caftan. “No. But if you stay here, everyone will come and there… Read more »