Chelsea Gutierrez An anti-Semitic sticker was posted downtown on Tucson’s Fourth Avenue recently, and more appeared on the University of Arizona campus. “The stickers appear to be the same type that surfaced here in Tucson approximately one year ago,” says Paul Patterson, Jewish community security director (see www.azjewishpost.com/2019/tucson-is-not-immune-to-hate-messaging-fliers-show). There also is the… Read more »
Amy Hirshberg Lederman Since March of this year, we have been forced to reassess and restructure how we think about and interact with the world. From empty calendars and stockpiled closets to work, family, and social lives that resemble nothing we have ever known, we bear witness to living in a COVID-19… Read more »
synagogues and Jewish agencies offer an assortment of virtual engagement programs for long summer days spent sheltering from the heat and the coronavirus. The list below includes some items that have crossed our desks recently but it is by no means exhaustive; check with other local organizations for additional… Read more »
Surgeons doing knee surgery at Hadassah hospital's Mount Scopus campus use the ROSA robot, made possible with a grant from USAID's Office of American Schools and Hospitals Abroad. (Gurion Rivkin)
JERUSALEM — Orthopedic surgeons at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center on Mount Scopus recently welcomed a newcomer to their team. She’s incredibly efficient, never needs a coffee break, doesn’t complain about the long hours and isn’t worried about catching COVID-19. That’s because she’s a robot. Called ROSA, short for Robotic… Read more »
Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez, right, met with the head of the AMIA Jewish group and the father of an AMIA bombing victim in Buenos Aires, July 14, 2020. (Courtesy of AMIA)
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — In the days before the 26th anniversary of the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish center bombing that killed 85 in 1994, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez has conveyed to Jewish leaders his desire to end the decades-long legal case that followed the attack, which has been complicated… Read more »
A photo of a Camp Gan Israel in Plano activity from a 2018 promotional video. (Screenshot from YouTube)
(JTA) — A Jewish day camp in suburban Dallas has closed after at least two campers and two counselors tested positive for COVID-19. The closing of Gan Israel of Plano, Texas, on Tuesday night serves as a cautionary tale as schools look to reopen this fall. The camp, which… Read more »
Jaivet Ealom is now a political science student at the University of Toronto. (Cole Burston)
This story originally appeared on Alma. Jaivet Ealom is the only known person to have ever escaped the notoriously brutal Australian-run refugee detention center on Manus Island. As a Rohingyan refugee fleeing Myanmar’s campaign of genocide, Jaivet found himself imprisoned on the remote island near Papua New Guinea for three… Read more »
Some synagogues are requiring congregants to sign waivers releasing them from liability for COVID-19 infections. (Graphic: Laura Adkins)
(JTA) — If you want to pray with a minyan at Beth Sholom Congregation in Potomac, Maryland, the synagogue has a page on its website that guides you through the process. At the top is a helpful video in which the Orthodox synagogue’s two rabbis describe the procedures the… Read more »
A woman walks with her child in the West Bank Jewish settlement of Efrat, April 26, 2020. (David Vaaknin for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
MITZPE YERICHO, West Bank (JTA) — It’s been surreal watching from Israel as Americans discuss my future. I’ve gotten used to presidents spending years developing plans for my neighborhood and other towns in Judea and Samaria, also known as the West Bank — they mean well and I truly… Read more »
Children sing at the inauguration of an avenue named for the Righteous Among the Nations in Moissac, France, April 28, 2013. (Courtesy of Moissac, ville de Justes oubliée)
(JTA) — The municipal council of Moissac sometimes calls its placid French town overlooking the Tarn River, near Toulouse, “the city of the Righteous Among the Nations.” It’s a reference to how hundreds of locals during the Holocaust helped resistance activists rescue about 500 Jewish children — an occurrence that… Read more »
Jewish football players participated in an online conversation July 12, 2013. Clockwise from upper left: Anthony Firkser, conversation organizer Michael Neuman, Geoff Schwartz and Greg Joseph. (Screenshot from virtual event)
(JTA) — Former professional football player Geoff Schwartz wasn’t surprised when he heard about Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver DeSean Jackson’s anti-Semitic Instagram posts. “I just thought to myself it’s ignorance — someone who has no idea whatsoever what anti-Semitism is, why his quote could be hurtful to Jews, or… Read more »
New immigrants from North America arrive on a flight arranged by the Nefesh B'Nefesh organization at Ben Gurion airport in central Israel on Aug. 14, 2019. (Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel could see a sharp increase in immigration over the next few years spurred on by the coronavirus crisis, two groups involved with arranging immigration to the country claim. The chairman of the Jewish Agency — a nonprofit focused on bolstering Israel-Diaspora ties and immigration to… Read more »
Orthodox children watch as protesters march through Brooklyn on June 3, 2020.(Angela Weiss/Getty Images)
(JTA) – A last-ditch effort by Orthodox Jews in New York to clear the way for overnight camps this summer fell short Monday as a federal judge declined to intervene against Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s decision to keep the camps closed. The judge was responding to a lawsuit brought last… Read more »
An aerial view of Flamengo Park in Rio de Janeiro, July 5, 2020. (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The bombshell news on Tuesday was ironic for some — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, one of the world leaders who has most staunchly downplayed the potential of the coronavirus pandemic, had contracted the virus. Despite his ardent support of Israel, Bolsonaro’s tempered rhetoric on… Read more »
A view of the Frankfurt skyline, May 8, 2020. (Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images)
BERLIN (JTA) — There were approximately 30,000 Jews in the city of Frankfurt before World War II, making it the largest community in Germany. By the time the U.S. military occupied the city in 1945, there were only about 100 left. “Jewish life was destroyed,” said Tobias Freimuller, author… Read more »
A homeless woman is seen on the streets of the Skid Row neighborhood in Los Angeles, May 16, 2020. (Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Art had been living with his mother for more than 30 years when she lost her apartment a little over a year ago. Though the mother was able to move in with one of Art’s brothers, the 49-year-old former tennis coach had nowhere to go… Read more »
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Defense Minister Benny Gantz at a meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem, June 28, 2020. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
(JTA) — Since April, all eyes following the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been glued to July 1. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had negotiated the date into his government coalition deal with his rival Benny Gantz. On July 1, as stipulated in the agreement, Netanyahu could put the topic of annexing… Read more »
The U.S. Supreme Court handed proponents of school vouchers a victory in the Ezpinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue case. (Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images)
(JTA) – For Orthodox Jewish advocacy groups, the last day of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 session brought a big win. On Tuesday, the high court handed school voucher proponents a victory in ruling that a state-run scholarship program funded by tax-deductible gifts could not exclude religious schools. The… Read more »
A shot of the campus of Camp Ramah in Canada re-created on Minecraft. (Courtesy of Jake Offenheim)
(JTA) — This was going to be Jake Offenheim’s 14th straight summer at Camp Ramah in Canada. Then camp was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Offenheim, who was set to be a counselor for the fifth year, couldn’t bear a summer without Ramah — so he re-created it on… Read more »
Milton Glaser in his New York studio in 2014. (Neville Elder/Corbis via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Milton Glaser, the godfather of modern graphic design who passed away on his 91st birthday on Friday, didn’t talk about his Jewish identity very often. But when he did, he made clear that his New York Jewish upbringing defined his artistic sensibility. Born to Hungarian immigrant parents,… Read more »
