Imre Kertesz
In June of 1944, an anonymous diarist in the Lodz Ghetto wrote, “The human language is too poor to describe the suffering of Jews in the ghettos of 1944. Where would the expressions come from, the descriptions, adjectives, that could only superficially describe our pain?” This diarist kept his… Read more »
Six Flags Great Adventure, an amusement park in New Jersey, on Passover becomes the site of an annual Orthodox Jewish pilgrimage. (Uriel Heilman)
JACKSON, N.J. (JTA) – Pinchas Cohen spent most of Monday wandering around Six Flags Great Adventure under a blazing sun, wearing a knee-length black coat and carrying a big box of shmura matzah under his arm. An imposing, Russian-born Chabad-Lubavitch Hasid who now lives in Brooklyn, Cohen came to… Read more »
Jesse Sbaih in his law office, April 8, 2016. (Ron Kampeas)
HENDERSON, Nev. (JTA) – Come November, Nevadans in this suburban Las Vegas district may well elect to Congress Jacky Rosen, a software developer and president of her synagogue. A Jordanian-American lawyer says her win would be at his expense, and it’s because of his Muslim faith. But Jesse Sbaih isn’t blaming… Read more »
Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders greet each other at the CNN Presidential Debate in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 14, 2016. (Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The combative tone in Bernie Sanders’ campaign statements faded on Tuesday evening to a softer pitch of suasion. “I congratulate Secretary Clinton on her victories tonight, and I look forward to issue-oriented campaigns in the 14 contests to come,” Sanders’ statement began after his rival for… Read more »
House Speaker Paul Ryan speaking with reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., April 13, 2016. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Paul Ryan wants you to know he’s not running for president, he’s no fan of the Obama doctrine and he’s not a neoconservative. What the Wisconsin congressman wants to be, he suggested at an April 14 breakfast in his Capitol Hill offices with foreign policy reporters, is the leader of… Read more »
Mel Brooks doing a Hitler bit in an interview for "The Last Laugh," director Ferne Pearlstein's new documentary about Holocaust humor. (Tangerine Entertainment)
NEW YORK (JTA) — In “The Last Laugh,” a new documentary about humor and the Holocaust (you read that right), the comedian Judy Gold tells this joke: If the Nazis forced her to stand naked on a line with other women, would she hold her stomach in? How you,… Read more »
Demonstrators protesting against the arrival of Muslim immigrants to Europe in The Hague, Netherlands, April 10, 2016. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — Donald Trump’s xenophobic views are neither new nor particularly shocking in Europe, where fears of jihadism and the challenges of illegal immigration are blowing winds into the sails of a rising far right. Although the Republican presidential hopeful’s statements on immigrants, Mexicans and Muslims are often… Read more »
Merav Michaeli, shown in the Knesset, came to the United States with the message that Israel is still improving. (Michal Fattal)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When a pro-Israel U.S. lawmaker greeted a member of Israel’s Knesset here last week, the former may not have anticipated the candor of the latter. “Give me good news,” Rep. Ted Deutch, D-Fla., told Merav Michaeli on April 13, a typical request when the ranking Democrat on the… Read more »
Orthodox Jewish men in Brooklyn, March 22, 2015. (Kena Betancur/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — For a people obsessed with numbers, the Jews have relatively scant concrete data about how, exactly, the Jews voted in Tuesday’s presidential primaries in New York. But we do know enough to make some educated guesses. Here’s what we know: Approximately 12 percent of… Read more »
Firefighters and rescue personnel at the scene of a bus bombing in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem, April 18, 2016. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — At least 21 people were injured in a bus bombing in Jerusalem, police said, in the first such attack in Israel in years. A city bus exploded and went up in flames Monday evening on a major thoroughfare in the southern end of the capital. The blast… Read more »
Simone Zimmerman (Facebook)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bernie Sanders’ campaign suspended its new Jewish outreach director over the tone of her past criticism of Israel. “She has been suspended while we investigate the matter further,” Michael Briggs, a campaign spokesman, said Thursday, referring to Simone Zimmerman. Zimmerman, a former J Street student activist,… Read more »
(Copyright Anne Lowe)
Tucsonan Anne Lowe created “Miriam Dancing With Her Timbrel” for the AJP, illustrating a poem she wrote some years ago. … Read more »
Actress Milana Vayntrub, the "AT&T Girl," volunteering with Syrian refugees in Lesbos, Greece. (Courtesy of Vayntrub/Can't Do Nothing)
(JTA) — You know Lily. You do. She’s that chipper, slyly witty girl who works at the AT&T store — not a real one, but the one you see in those ubiquitous TV ads. What you may not know is that the actress who plays her, Milana Vayntrub, is… Read more »
Isaak Koschland, director of Jewish Day School, Ichenhausen, Germany (Courtesy Holocaust History Center)
Child victims will be the focus of the annual community Yom HaShoah commemoration, sponsored by the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona, which will be held Sunday, May 1, at 2 p.m. at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. This year’s program, “They Were Children… Read more »
Estelle Darnault as Mary Lou in “Blind Date à la Juive”
The Arizona International Film Festival, running now through May 1, is celebrating its 25th year with films from 25 countries. Revolving around the theme “Bridging Cultures,” 30 full length features and 58 shorts in a variety of categories are scheduled at nine downtown venues. Among the films is “Blind… Read more »
(L-R) Rachel Davenport, Max Baruch, Alyssa Silva, Julie Zorn and Avi Erbst at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona council meeting March 29 at Temple Emanu-El.
(Karen Schaffner/AJP)
For local Jewish community organizations to reach and attract new members, specifically young Jewish adults, leaders must learn to use the tools of social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. That was the message of “A Whole New World … Engagement of Young Adults and Young Families,”… Read more »
Ted Cruz at the Jewish Center of Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, N.Y., April 7, 2016. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS (JTA) – Ted Cruz came here to woo Republican Jews over the weekend, and in the absence of his opponents for the GOP presidential nomination came away with qualified support based not on who he is but who he is not — Donald Trump. Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich skipped… Read more »
Newly elected Argentine President Mauricio Macri, right, invited the family of the late prosecutor Alberto Nisman to his home in January. Clockwise to his left are Rabbi Marcelo Polakoff; Nisman's daughter Kala; Macri's wife Juliana and daughter Antonia, and Nisman's daughter Iara. (Courtesy of the Office of the President of Argentina)
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — In January 2015, Rabbi Marcelo Polakoff was stuck in Buenos Aires when his phone rang. He’d been planning a trip to New York but a storm had canceled all flights, and Polakoff, the rabbi of Cordoba, a province in central Argentina, was cooling his… Read more »
Rapper Action Bronson, left, chowing down on some Frankel's fare with the Frankel brothers, Zach, right, and Alex. (Screenshot from Instagram)
NEW YORK (JTA) — The scene could easily have been mistaken for a rock concert at one of Brooklyn’s countless music halls.Smartly dressed 20- and 30-somethings crammed into a small corner building. The overflow crowd, clad in skinny jeans and black beanies, spilled onto the sidewalk, where they drank coffee… Read more »
A building funded by the European Union in the West Bank. EU-funded construction of some 1,000 buildings has stirred controversy. (Ben Sales)
MAALE ADUMIM, West Bank (JTA) — In a ramshackle village off a dirt road in the West Bank’s central hills, near an inhabited shack with a cloth roof and tin walls, stands an outhouse bearing a peeling sticker with the European Union flag. The text below the flag reads “Humanitarian… Read more »
