Jonathan Greenblatt (Courtesy of the ADL)
NEW YORK (JTA) — For more than a century, the Anti-Defamation League has been known as a group that combats anti-Semitism. But one year after taking the group’s helm, Jonathan Greenblatt wants it to focus on more than just the Jews. Greenblatt’s predecessor as ADL national director, Abraham Foxman,… Read more »
Former members of the U.S. military carrying boxes with more than 100,000 signatures requesting that Sen. John McCain and other Republican leaders withdraw their endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump following a press conference in Washington, D.C., Aug. 4, 2016. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — “This condemnation is against you personally,” the Jewish War Veterans said earlier this week, concluding its message to Donald Trump. “You, Mr. Trump, deserve our contempt.” If the sign-off to the statement condemning the Republican nominee for his attacks on the Muslim parents of a soldier killed in action… Read more »
Shaul Bassi, the Merchant in Venice Project Director and coordinator of the Venice Ghetto 500 anniversary committee, on the Ghetto Nuovo bridge in Venice, Italy. (Ruth Ellen Gruber)
VENICE, Italy (JTA) – Last week, an international, multilingual cast performed Shakespeare’s controversial play, “The Merchant of Venice,” in the secluded main plaza of the city’s historic Jewish Ghetto. It was the first time the play was performed in the iconic location, where some of the action takes place. Enclosed by tall tenements and the… Read more »
Andrea Murez recalls Israelis telling her at the 2013 Maccabiah Games that she should swim for Israel -- and now she is. (Hillel Kuttler)
NETANYA, Israel (JTA) – Andrea Murez steps on the diving board, adjusts her goggles, swings her long arms and propels herself into the water at the Wingate Institute athletic complex here. Murez is training with a dozen other swimmers. She is the one preparing for the Summer Olympics a… Read more »
Donald Trump speaking on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 21, 2016 (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — It’s never been easy for Jewish Republicans. Jews have broken overwhelmingly for Democratic candidates since Woodrow Wilson. Despite rising American Jewish affluence, usually a harbinger of conservative voting patterns, a plurality self-defines as liberal. Republican Jews have poured millions into upping their share of the Jewish… Read more »
Oded Revivi (Courtesy of Avi Hyman Communications)
EFRAT, West Bank (JTA) — The Yesha Council has represented Israel’s settlement of the West Bank for nearly five decades. They’ve helped create what appears to be an irreversible reality to both critics and champions: Some 400,000 settlers live in settlements, where they enjoy their own wineries, Israeli chain stores,… Read more »
Aly Raisman competes in the floor exercise at the 2016 U.S. Women's Gymnastics Olympic Trials in San Jose, Calif., July 10, 2016. (Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
(JTA) — There are athletes, and then there are Olympic athletes. And then there are Jewish Olympic athletes. When the 2016 Summer Olympics open Friday, we’ll of course be cheering the American athletes — all 555 of them — and we’ll be rooting for Israel, too, which this year is… Read more »
Israeli gymast Neta Rivkin competes in the women's rhythmic gymnastics all-around individual final at the Baku 2015 European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, June 19, 2015, is one of Israel's best hopes to medal. (David Ramos/Getty Images for BEGOC)
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) – When the 2016 Olympic Games open here on Friday evening, Israel will proudly show off its largest delegation ever, with 47 athletes competing in 17 sports. Among them are golfer Laetitia Beck, the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor; Lonah Chemtai, a Kenyan-born marathoner, and Ron Darmon, the first triathlete to represent… Read more »
Rabbi Denise Eger, center, reads the Torah during her installation as CCAR president, March 16, 2015. Eger contributed an essay, "Creating Opportunities for the “Other”: The Ordination of Women as a Turning Point for LGBT Jews," in a new book on women rabbis. (David A.M. Wilensky)
It’s a really big book. “The Sacred Calling: Four Decades of Women in the Rabbinate” is 776 pages, plus LVI pages of frontmatter (translated from Roman numerals and publisher’s jargon, that’s 56 pages of introductory material before page 1) and eight blank ones at the end. It’s a paperback,… Read more »
Hillary Clinton acknowledges the crowd during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, July 28, 2016. (Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images)
It was Hillary Clinton’s night, but the Rev. William Barber II was the sleeper star. The self-described “theologically conservative, liberal, evangelical biblicist” drew repeated, enthusiastic applause –including when he described Jesus as a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew and declared that “when we love the Jewish child and the Palestinian child… Read more »
Pope Francis, left, greets the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, during a papal visit to the city’s synagogue, Jan. 17, 2016. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
(JTA) — This week, Pope Francis will be making a pilgrimage to Poland, visiting Auschwitz – the notorious death camp in Poland where 1.1 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Auschwitz is comprised of two camps: Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II, also called Birkenau. Birkenau is the actual… Read more »
A French flag flies at half mast at an empty beach on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice a day after a terrorist attack in the French city killed 84, July 15, 2016. (David Ramos/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — To the millions of tourists who visit Nice annually, the city in southeast France is an ultimate holiday destination that offers inviting beaches and luxury casinos, stunning architecture and world-class museums. Sandwiched between the Maritime Alps and the Mediterranean Sea, Nice is France’s largest tourist destination after Paris, with 5 million… Read more »
Shabbos Kestenbaum, 17, attending a breakfast for the Virginia delegation to the Democratic National Convention, July 26, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Amanda Renteria, the national political director for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, was running through the campaign’s messages for minorities and women: immigration for Hispanics, land use for Native Americans, various policies for defending children and women. She didn’t mention Jews in her briefing Tuesday morning for specialty media, and there’s… Read more »
Florida State Sen. Dwight Bullard, wearing a Palestinian kaffiyeh, or headscarf, said Palestinians should have the right to citizenship in Israel. He visited the West Bank and Israel in May as part of a delegation from the Black Lives Matter movement. (Ben Sales)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — The Democratic Party has spent the first couple days of its convention projecting unity on issues from fighting racism to fair trade. But fissures are showing here on one issue that Democrats have long been united on: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their party, which has long commanded… Read more »
Bernie Sanders supporters gathering at City Hall in downtown Philadelphia on the first day of the Democratic National Convention, July 25, 2016. (Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — Bernie Sanders’ delegates are going to raise hell on the floor of the Democratic National Convention, his own wishes be damned. “Change that’s worth a damn always comes from the bottom up, not from the top,” said Norman Solomon, coordinator of the Bernie Delegates Network, an… Read more »
James Schamus, left, and Logan Lerman on the set of "Indignation." (Alison Cohen Rosa)
BOSTON (JTA) — James Schamus remembers the block he faced while writing the screenplay for Ang Lee’s 1994 film “Eat Drink Man Woman.” Creating the right voices for the film’s Taiwanese characters was not going well “and Ang Lee was getting very nervous.” In a desperate effort to turn… Read more »
Debbie Wasserman Schultz sitting for an interview at the Wynn Resorts Ltd. before the first Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, Oct. 13, 2015. (Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — When Debbie Wasserman Schultz spoke Monday morning to the Florida delegation as the national Democratic convention got underway, some delegates cheered. Other delegates booed. The chaos at the Marriott Hotel here demonstrated the degree to which the Florida congresswoman, perhaps the party’s most prominent Jewish leader,… Read more »
U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, speaking to a reporter before the Democratic Party debate in Manchester, N.H., Dec. 19, 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Just last week, Debbie Wasserman Schultz was playing the anti-Semitism card against Donald Trump. But in a startling turnaround, on the eve of her own party’s convention, it’s the South Florida congresswoman who is out as chair of the Democratic National Committee — over a… Read more »
Donald Trump Jr. gesturing to the crowd after delivering a speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 19, 2016. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
CLEVELAND (JTA) — An issue of historical concern to American Jews drew waves of applause when Donald Trump Jr. preached about it Tuesday night from the stage of the Republican National Convention. It wasn’t Israel, Iran or the fight against anti-Semitism. It was a call for the government to… Read more »
British Prime Minister Theresa May, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel speak to the media following talks at the Chancellery in Berlin, July 20, 2016. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
(JTA) — When the late Austro-Hungarian aristocrat Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi attended church on Good Friday, his father would famously cause a scene, storming out when the liturgy came to the anti-Semitic exhortation “Let us also pray for the faithless Jews.” Such protest was unusual in 19th-century Austria-Hungary, where anti-Semitism and other forms of racism were de… Read more »
