Tagged FRONT

Peter Beinart joins U.S. Jews for civil rights-style protest in West Bank

Peter Beinart, left, marching with other activists from the Center for Jewish Nonviolence through the West Bank city of Hebron, July 16, 2016. To Beinart's right is the movement's CEO, Ilana Sumka. (Andrew Tobin)
July 19, 2016 / Andrew Tobin, JTA

HEBRON, West Bank (JTA) – Dozens of American Jews spent Friday in the West Bank practicing nonviolent resistance against Israel’s presence here. On hand to help were some bold-faced names in the American Jewish community’s Israel debate, including Peter Beinart, a leading liberal U.S. Jewish thinker, and Amna Farooqi, the… Read more »

At Republican convention, Donald Trump sharing the limelight with rock and roll

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker greets attendees at the opening bash of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, July 17, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
July 18, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

CLEVELAND (JTA) – On the Lake Erie boardwalk, a few Republican delegates huddle next to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for a quick selfie before scooting away. Walker was the anti-Donald Trump for 15 minutes last year, until he quit and asked other lagging Republicans to rally around Texas Sen. Ted Cruz,… Read more »

6 things to know about Jill Stein, the last Jewish presidential candidate standing

Jill Stein announcing that she will seek the Green Party's presidential nomination, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., June 23, 2015. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
July 17, 2016 / Ben Sales, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Voters who have their hearts set on supporting a left-wing secular Jew running an insurgent campaign still have a candidate. Jill Stein, the 2012 Green Party candidate, is making another run. And this year, with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump both earning historically low popularity… Read more »

Turkey, Egypt, Africa: How ‘hard-liner’ Netanyahu pulled off a diplomacy trifecta

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry meeting in Jerusalem, July 10, 2016. (GPO)
July 17, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

Editor’s note: This piece was written before the failed military coup in Turkey this weekend. WASHINGTON (JTA) – The conventional wisdom has it that earning the sobriquet “the most right-wing government in Israeli history” does not lead to diplomatic successes. In recent weeks, on the Turkish, Egyptian and African… Read more »

What was Ruth Bader Ginsburg thinking in criticizing Donald Trump?

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at The Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C., Dec. 6, 2015. (Chris Kleponis/AFP/Getty Images)
July 14, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — What was RBG thinking? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg launched a broadside against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the the last week, calling him unfit for office. She subsequently apologized, but not before voices on the right and left criticized her for seeming to compromise the… Read more »

After Elie Wiesel, can anyone unite American Jews?

Elie Wiesel arriving for a roundtable discussion on the Iran nuclear deal on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., March 2, 2015. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
July 11, 2016 / Ben Sales, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Being an American Jew, more than anything else, means remembering the Holocaust. That’s what nearly three quarters of Jewish Americans said, according to the Pew Research Center’s landmark 2013 study on American Jewry. Asked to pick attributes “essential” to being Jewish, more Jews said Holocaust remembrance than leading an ethical… Read more »

Wedding of lesbian firebrands, both 76, is a celebration of Jewish and ‘Aquarian’ traditions

At 76, longtime activists Shoshana Dembitz, seated, center left, and Abigail Grafton, seated, center right, married in El Cerrito, Calif., on June 27, 2016. The ceremony was officiated by Rabbi Diane Elliot, seated left, and her husband, Rabbi Burt Jacobson. (Lea Delson)
July 11, 2016 / Alix Wall, JTA

  BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) – When Shoshana Dembitz and Abigail Grafton first met, they spent several long moments gazing into each others’ eyes. But this wasn’t a love-at-first-sight occurrence. Rather, the two were attending a Shabbat service in which participants were split into pairs to look into each others’… Read more »

Bestselling author followed sun to Tucson

Arthur Naiman
July 7, 2016 / Sarah Chen, Special to the AP

Author and publisher Arthur Naiman has no time for those without humor or creativity. The Chicago-born Tucson transplant by way of New York, Paris and the Bay Area has published more than 30 nonfiction books and started two publishing companies. A philosophy major at Brandeis University, he had no… Read more »

Thessaloniki’s mayor wants his Greek city to remember its vibrant Jewish past

A street in the Ladadika neighborhood, which used to be the Jewish quarter in Thessaloniki, Greece. (Wikimedia Commons)
July 7, 2016 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) –  “I am proud to be a Vlach,” says Yiannis Boutaris, the mayor of Thessaloniki, Greece’s second largest city. Ostensibly, we’re here at the Washington Hilton to discuss Boutaris’ bid to put the Jewish back in Thessaloniki, a city — perhaps best known as Salonika —once home to the largest… Read more »

Did the Brexit vote unleash the bigots? Some British Jews think so

Protestors march at a rally in London, July 2, 2016. (Isabel Infantes/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
July 7, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, jta

LONDON (JTA) — For two years, in her travels around the English capital, Natalie Pitimson has toted a library bag emblazoned with a word in Yiddish. “The word ‘schlep’ written on the side perfectly describes my regular hour-long trek through central London,” Pitimson, a senior sociology lecturer at the University… Read more »

In post-Brexit Scotland, Jews warm up to leaving UK

Howard and Claire Singerman standing outside Mark's Deli, a Jewish restaurant in Glasgow, July 4, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
July 7, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

EDINBURGH, Scotland (JTA) — The last time that Scotland voted on whether to become independent from the United Kingdom, most of its 7,000 Jews thought doing so was a bad idea. Worried that Scottish independence would encourage nationalism and embolden an already aggressive anti-Israel movement with deep roots in the… Read more »

Local Jewish cemetery, once derelict, gains national attention

Volunteers recruited by Peace Corps volunteer Brooke Nagle start cleanup work on the Bisbee-Douglas Jewish Cemetery on March 17. (Courtesy Brooke Nagle)
July 7, 2016 / David J. Del Grande, Special to the AJP

Every graveyard tells its own story, says Tucsonan Richard Rosen, former owner of the Bisbee-Douglas Jewish Cemetery, located about 100 yards from the U.S.-Mexico border. Regardless of its current condition, the land still radiates a strong spiritual energy, says Rosen. “There’s something right about it, and there’s also something… Read more »

Elie Wiesel gave the Holocaust a face and the world a conscience

Elie Wiesel poses with students in Tucson on March 1, 1993, when he gave the concluding lecture in the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s “Discovery IV” series. Over the years Wiesel visited Tucson several times, including in 2005, when he gave the inaugural University of Arizona Presidential Lecture, speaking on “Confronting Fanaticism: Building Moral Unity in a Diverse Society.”
July 3, 2016 / Sarah Wildman, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel laureate who became a leading icon of Holocaust remembrance and a global symbol of conscience, died on Saturday at 87. His death was the result of natural causes, the World Jewish Congress said in a statement. A philosopher, professor… Read more »

BLOG Why not Al Franken? Some think the senator and former comic could be Hillary’s VP

Sen.Al Franken attending the 68th Annual Writers Guild Awards in New York City, Feb. 13, 2016. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images For The Writers Guild Of America)
June 29, 2016 / Andrew Silow-Carroll, JTA

  (JTA) — Last week Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said that if Hillary Clinton asked him to be her running mate, he’d take the job. “If Hillary Clinton came to me and said, ‘Al, I really need you to be my vice president, to run with me,’ I would… Read more »

Jewish groups putting up a fight against growing opioid epidemic

Eve Goldberg, whose son died of an opioid overdose in 2013, now runs an organization in his memory that seeks to create a community of young adults recovering from addiction. (Ben Sales)
June 29, 2016 / Ben Sales, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Eve Goldberg’s son, Isaac, was in a panic. He had to get out of college. Isaac Goldberg Volkmar had been at the University of Rhode Island for less than a semester in 2009 when he called his mother desperate to escape. He had joined a… Read more »

The Brexit: Six things you need to know

A slim majority of British citizens have voted to leave the European Union. (Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)
June 29, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

Great Britain and the rest of Europe woke up to a new reality Friday as a slim majority of British voters said their country should leave the European Union. Markets trembled, British currency crashed and British Prime Minister David Cameron announced his pending resignation. It was a major blow to an alliance… Read more »

Brexit splits UK from Europe and Labour from its party leader

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in London after the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, June 24, 2016. (Rob Stothard/Getty Images)
June 29, 2016 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) —  Only a week ago, Jeremy Corbyn seemed to have survived his biggest public relations debacle as the leader of Britain’s Labour Party:  the proliferation of anti-Semitic rhetoric among its members. Yet this week, the British vote to leave the European Union achieved what Corbyn’s opponents failed to… Read more »

Counselors bring Israeli culture to Camp J

Israel Biton and Danit Yona, camp counselors from Israel, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center (Courtesy Weintraub Israel Center0
June 23, 2016 / Phyllis Braun, AJP Executive Editor

Danit Yona, 22, one of two Israelis working as counselors at the Tucson Jewish Community Center’s Camp J this summer, says she learned her nearly flawless, American-accented English from watching TV shows like “Full House,” “Family Matters” and “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” after school. “I also had a… Read more »