Tagged FRONT

False accusations of anti-Semitism hurt the Jews more than you realize

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)
August 9, 2019 / Rabbi Hershel D. Lutch, JTA

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 »

Palestinian and Israeli discovered a shared past when they met as Washington interns

Mohammed Ahmad, left, and Eran Nissan speak at a New Voices Leadership event on Capitol Hill, July 11, 2019. (Ron Kampeas)
August 9, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — In its 10 years of placing young Palestinian and Israeli leaders with Congress members, no lawmaker asked New Story Leadership for one of each — until Jamie Raskin did. This summer, Eran Nissan and Mohammed Ahmad have been interning in the office of the Maryland Democrat,… Read more »

He posed as a righteous Jewish convert for 19 years. Then he wrote a 2,000-page anti-Semitic screed.

Johann Andreas Eisenmenger published “Judaism Unmasked,” one of the most noxious and highly influential anti-Semitic works ever written. (Wikimedia Commons/JTA Montage)
August 9, 2019 / Henry Abramson, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — “Eisenmenger belonged to the class of insects which sucks poison even out of flowers,” the 19th-century Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz wrote. Graetz was referring to Johann Andreas Eisenmenger, a young 17th-century scholar from Mannheim, Germany, who dedicated some 19 years of his life to mastering… Read more »

Meet the ‘Anti-Squad’: Rep. Elissa Slotkin and her ‘gang’ offer Democrats a path of moderation

Rep. Elissa Slotkin speaks to Alan Caldwell at a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Lansing, Mich., July 30, 2019. (Ron Kampeas)
August 5, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

LANSING, Michigan (JTA) — Tom Dalton could be the poster boy for Elissa Slotkin’s path to a second term and, she would argue, to Democrats keeping the U.S. House of Representatives. The 67-year-old Vietnam navy vet routinely votes Republican — but says he would not hesitate to vote for… Read more »

The El Paso shooting is being investigated as domestic terrorism. Does that matter?

Armed police officers gather next to an FBI armored vehicle at the Cielo Vista Mall in El Paso, Texas, Aug. 3, 2019. The shooter who killed at least 22 people there is being investigated as a domestic terrorist. (Joel Angel Juarez/AFP/Getty Images)
August 5, 2019 / Ben Sales, JTA

(JTA) — Before he killed at least 22 people at a Walmart on the southern border, the gunman in El Paso posted a white supremacist manifesto on the fringe social network 8chan denouncing a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The U.S. Justice Department announced that it would treat the shooting… Read more »

Trump condemns bigotry and white supremacy in response to El Paso and Dayton shootings

President Donald Trump makes remarks about the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton at the White House as Vice President Mike Pence looks on, Aug. 5, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
August 5, 2019 / Ben Sales, JTA

(JTA) — President Donald Trump said “hate has no place in America” in an address to the nation following the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Trump pledged additional resources to the FBI to investigate domestic terrorism. He called for strengthening detection of… Read more »

The youngest correspondent covering the debates is a 10-year-old Jewish kid

Jefferson Henry Kraft is (probably) the youngest correspondent in the Democratic debate spin room in Detroit on July 20, 2019. (Ron Kampeas)
July 30, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

DETROIT (JTA) — For any reporter, careening in a year from reviewing restaurants to covering the presidential debates would be a pretty fast rise. But then again, Jefferson Henry Kraft is only 10 years old. Kraft is the KidScoop Media correspondent covering the Democratic presidential debates, taking place here… Read more »

Former Peruvian president denied bail in corruption case because officials fear he would flee to Israel

Former President of Peru Alejandro Toledo speaks during a discussion on Venezuela at The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., June 17, 2016. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
July 30, 2019 / Gabe Stutman, JTA

SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — A former Peruvian president living in the Bay Area and facing bribery charges in his home country has been denied bail by a federal judge in San Francisco out of fear he would flee — to Israel.… Read more »

3 participants share what they learned on J Street’s first alternative to Birthright trip

A Palestinian shepherd uses a bucket to get water from a well in the village of Susya south of the West Bank city of Hebron on August 19, 2017. (Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images)
July 30, 2019 / Elyse Endlich, Liyah Foye, Gabriella Kamran, JTA

(JTA) – Editor’s Note: In March, the the liberal Israel policy group J Street announced that it would be creating a 10-day free trip to Israel, designed to provide students with both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives on the conflict. Many interpreted the announcement as a move to compete with… Read more »

What The New York Times got right and wrong about BDS: An exchange

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)
July 30, 2019 / Andrew Silow-Carroll, Laura E. Adkins, JTA

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 »

As Russia cracks down on dissent, Netanyahu campaign ads feature Putin

Banners for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's reelection campaign in Tel Aviv show him alongside Vladimir Putin, right, and Donald Trump, July 28, 2019. (Adam Shouldman/Flash90)
July 29, 2019 / Sam Sokol, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party has launched a new ad campaign featuring Russian President Vladimir Putin, coinciding with one of the Kremlin’s largest crackdowns on political dissent in years. Large multi-story banners featuring Netanyahu with Putin, as well as others featuring President Donald Trump and… Read more »

In Eastern Europe, Holocaust museums are missing from key historical sites

The House of Fates Holocaust museum, housed in a former railway station that deported Jews to concentration camps, seen in Budapest, Jan. 21, 2019. It has not opened to the public despite having been finished five years ago. (Ferenc Isza/AFP/Getty Images)
July 29, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — In the capital of Lithuania, an institution formerly known as the Museum of Genocide Victims barely mentions the murder of nearly all the country’s Jews by Nazis and locals, focusing instead on the years of abusive Soviet rule. In Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city, another so-called museum hosts… Read more »

Elijah Cummings’ district, which Trump derided as ‘disgusting,’ has a significant Jewish population

Committee Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., listens to an aide during a meeting of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., June 12, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
July 29, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — Jewish leaders in Baltimore have come to the defense of Rep. Elijah Cummings, the African-American Democrat who has come under withering attack from President Donald Trump. After spending a week berating the group of four Democratic freshman known as “The Squad” — all women of color —… Read more »

John Lewis backs the right to boycott — even though he opposes BDS

Rep. John Lewis listens as speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi speaks about the Voting Rights Enhancement Act, H.R. 4, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 26, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Getty Images)
July 26, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., explained why he backed a resolution upholding the right to boycott “at home and abroad” — even though he also voted to condemn the boycott, divestment and sanction movement aimed at Israel Lewis was a cosponsor of a House… Read more »

Six stunning finds from the Met’s exhibit on medieval Jewish treasure

At left, a gold coin of Louis of Hungary, 1342-53; at right, a jeweled silver brooch, second quarter of 14th century, both from the Colmar Treasure. (Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge, RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY via Metropolitan Museum of Art)
July 26, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — There are few remnants of the once flourishing Jewish community of the town of Colmar, in France. Jews were blamed for the outbreak of the Black Death plague there in 1348-49, and many were burned to death. A Roman emperor who then controlled the area… Read more »

Six years on, the parents of a Jewish Army veteran who committed suicide are still fighting for change

Howard and Jean Somers testify about their son Daniel's suicide before a U.S. House Committee hearing about the Veterans Affairs' mental health care procedures, July 10, 2014. (Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
July 26, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — In 2007, Sgt. Daniel Somers returned home after two tours in Iraq, where he worked in intelligence and special operations. For years he struggled to get on with his life, but his Army service had left him with deep scars, including post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury… Read more »

Rescued twice: The archive that survived the Holocaust and the AMIA attack

Ester Szwarc, the academic coordinator of the AMIA building's Idishe Wiesenshaft Institute, or IWO, said the archive had split in two “like an apple" on July 18, 1994. (Courtesy of IWO)
July 16, 2019 / Alan Grabinsky, JTA

(JTA) — Abraham Lichtenbaum was getting ready to leave his house on July 18, 1994 when, at 9:53 a.m., he heard an explosion: The headquarters of Argentina’s 200,000-strong Jewish community, the AMIA, located less than four miles from his home, had been bombed. Eighty-five people died and 300 were injured… Read more »

PJ Library connects local families to Jewish life

PJ Library events and activities, such as building model Seder plates with Legos, often draw large crowds. (Debe Campbell/AJP)
July 12, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

PJ Library is a national program that encourages local Jewish families with young children to explore Jewish values and culture through books. Coordinated by Mary Ellen Loebl at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, the free program sends an age-appropriate Jewish-content book monthly to 740 children between the ages… Read more »