Carolin Haase Atchison For more than three years, I have been researching my family’s history — and I’m still at it. When I received the results of my DNA test a couple of years ago, I was surprised, like the actors in the Ancestry TV ads. Instead of being of mainly German… Read more »
These records are part of a collection recently donated to the Jewish History Museum.
The Jewish History Museum is asking the public to donate their Jewish music collections — vinyl records only, please. In the summer of 2016, the museum received two dozen vinyl records of Jewish music, and now they want to pump up the volume. The museum wants to bolster its… Read more »
Maya Beiser performing an orchestral version of David Bowie's "Blackstar" album at the L'Auditori in Barcelona, Spain, July 13, 2017. (Robert Marquardt/Redfern)
NEW YORK (JTA) — There’s a small music room in the basement of cellist Maya Beiser’s large, kempt house in the leafy Riverdale section of the Bronx. It’s pretty spare — a few cellos, some basic recording equipment and posters from past concerts. Against one wall, though, rests a… Read more »
Berlin Mayor Michael Muller, right, speaks with Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal in Berlin, July 19, 2017. (Matthias Nareyek/Pool/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Berlin’s mayor, many local Jewish leaders agree, could do more to counter the city’s vocal BDS movement. But does that make him an anti-Semite? A report that the California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center may include Mayor Michael Müller on its annual list of the world’s 10 worst cases… Read more »
A gold statue of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is taken down at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, Dec. 6, 2016. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel recently got two new statues of political leaders: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Supreme Court President Miriam Naor. However, both statues were torn down within hours. For their creators, that was part of the point. Israel has very few official statues of its leaders —… Read more »
Sara Zielinski, with her mother Elizabeth, center, and a volunteer at a pre-Shabbat program at the Jewish Community Center of Krakow. Sara is part of the inaugural class of Frajda, the first pluralistic Jewish nursery and preschool in Krakow since World War II. (Courtesy of Jewish Community Center of Krakow)
KRAKOW, Poland (JTA) — Michal Zielinski, a 47-year-old from this city, grew up unaware of his Jewish roots. Thirty years after discovering that his paternal family is Jewish, following the death of his grandmother, Zielinski and his wife, Elizabeth are active members of the Jewish Community Center of Krakow,… Read more »
Miriam Ballin, holding her baby daughter, at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem. (Courtesy of Ballin)
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Jerusalem therapist Miriam Ballin is the kind of person who takes the initiative. Despite resistance from her haredi Orthodox community, she became a medic. Then she launched a pacesetting psychological first aid unit. Clearly she was not just going to stand idly by while Tropical Storm… Read more »
Tucssonans Gabe Green (front row, fourth from left) and Gabe Friedman (back row, third from left) were part of a multi-city team that won gold for 14U soccer. (Denise Wolf)
Ten teen-aged athletes from Tucson teamed up with other Jewish athletes from across the United States, Israel and Ukraine for the 2017 Maccabi Games in Birmingham, Ala., this summer. And they’re already looking forward to next summer’s games — not just for the sports or the fun, but for… Read more »
Aimee Katz (bottom left) with co-teacher Mali Geva (center) and students at the Eli Cohen Elementary School in Kiryat Malachi, Israel. (Courtesy Aimee Katz)
Not everyone gets the opportunity to follow their passions, so when I happened upon a program that would enable me to pursue my two greatest loves – travel and teaching – it was an easy decision to apply. TALMA, a teaching fellowship sponsored by the Charles and Lynn Schusterman… Read more »
Regina Spektor
Even if you don’t follow pop music, you may have heard pianist and songwriter Regina Spektor singing the catchy “Orange Is the New Black” theme song, “You’ve Got Time,” covering The Beatles’ “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in the animated feature “Kubo and the Two Strings,” or in numerous… Read more »
The Tucson Jewish Community Center and Chabad Tucson will present “Tales of a Hollywood Screenwriter” at the Tucson J on Thursday, Sept. 7, at 7 p.m. David Weiss will share stories of his wild ride to success and spirituality as screenwriter of the Academy Award-nominated “Shrek 2,” “Jimmy Neutron:… Read more »
Asher Susser Professor Asher Susser, Ph.D., will return to the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies to give the first lecture of the 2017-18 season, “Fifty Years Since the Six Day War — How the Middle East Has Changed,” on Tuesday, Sept. 5. The Six Day War of June 1967 was a… Read more »
Students from San Francisco’s Jewish Community High School perform their original play “Alice and the Black Hole Blues.” (Brian Dean Photography)
Fifteen thespians from San Francisco’s Jewish high school have taken their original play to the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The students arrived in the United Kingdom earlier this month to perform the show, “Alice and the Black Hole Blues,” at the world’s largest arts festival four times during a… Read more »
Binyamin Wood-Isenberg
The train was packed. It was rush hour on a Thursday evening traveling back from work in Manhattan. Most people had in their ear phones, some had out books, and a few people stared blankly into space. As I sat there with the Hebrew text of Toras Menachem on… Read more »
Gay rights activists organizing against state-sponsored anti-gay pogroms in the Russian republic of Chechnya are detained by police in St. Petersburg, Russia, May 1, 2017. (David Frenkel)
A new exhibit, “Invisibility & Resistance: Violence Against LGBTQIA+ People” will occupy the Contemporary Human Rights space of the Holocaust History Center on the campus of the Jewish History Museum when the museum opens for a new season Sept. 1. The exhibit, which will be on display through May 31,… Read more »
Rabbi Shai Held, a co-founder of Mechon Hadar, a traditional egalitarian yeshiva, has just released a book of Torah commentaries. (Courtesy of Mechon Hadar)
NEW YORK (JTA) — After the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, voices abounded calling the demonstration an affront to American values. Rabbi Shai Held called it an attack on God. “One of the most fundamental claims Judaism makes about the world is that every human being on the face… Read more »
The scene at the entrance to Emancipation Park during the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(JTA) — I was in Charlottesville on Saturday. I felt called to go because white supremacy is a hateful ideology that has murdered millions throughout history and continues to kill. I went because my family and ancestors suffered at the hands of anti-Semites throughout history, because I bear their… Read more »
Protesters and counterprotesters clashing at Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Is it OK to punch a Nazi in the face? That’s the question animating much of the discussion of Saturday’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, which quickly devolved into a brawl between rally-goers and a contingent of anti-fascist counterprotesters known as antifa. Following the clashes, a… Read more »
White supremacists rally in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017. (Ron Kampeas)
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (JTA) — The white supremacists, for all their vaunted purpose, appeared to be disoriented. Some 500 had gathered at a park here Saturday to protest this southern Virginia city’s plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from the park. Pressured by the American Civil Liberties… Read more »
White supremacists spar with counterprotesters as they attempt to guard the entrance to Emancipation Park in Charlottesville, Va., Aug. 12, 2017. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(JTA) — They believe the “white race” is in danger. They believe the United States was built by and for white people and must now embrace fascism. They believe minorities are taking over the country. And they believe an international Jewish conspiracy is behind the threat. These are the… Read more »
