Tagged FRONTTOP

Notre-Dame will be rebuilt – but most European Jewish sites never will be

A Star of David stands in the Nozyk Synagogue, Warsaw's only surviving synagogue from before World War II and located in the city's former ghetto, April 12, 2018 (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)
April 18, 2019 / Ruth Ellen Gruber, JTA

BUDAPEST (JTA) – Architecture and built heritage can be powerful symbols. Notre-Dame de Paris is one of the most famous and familiar buildings in the world, visited by an astonishing 30,000 people a day, or 13 million people a year. It is embedded in global collective consciousness and immortalized around the… Read more »

The final polls are in and Israel’s election is a nail-biter

A Likud party supporter holds a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem, April 7, 2019. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
April 8, 2019 / Marcy Oster, JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The final polls before Israel’s national election on Tuesday show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party running either neck and neck or up to five seats behind upstart challenger Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party. The last polls allowed by law were published Friday. Exit polling… Read more »

Despite Brexit woes, Theresa May is a hero to many British Jews

Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at a United Jewish Israel Appeal dinner in London, Sept. 17, 2018. (Peter Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images)
April 4, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — As the United Kingdom’s political establishment continues its tailspin over Brexit, little can be said with certainty about either’s future. All bets are off as Prime Minister Theresa May, whose own survivability in office seems increasingly doubtful, continues a desperate balancing act meant to satisfy her own coalition’s many… Read more »

Tucson sluggers aim Team Israel at ’20 Olympics

Alexis ‘A.J.’ Kaiser, seen here at bat for Syracuse University, grew up in Tucson and will be a member of Team Israel in women's softball. (Courtesy A.J. Kaiser)
March 22, 2019 / Alexandra Sharon Pere, AJP Intern

Softball players across the country are coming together this summer to train for the Team Israel women’s softball team, which will be led by Stacey Iveson, the University of Arizona women’s softball director of recruiting-operations. Iveson is a former Wildcat player and coach, and won four junior college national… Read more »

We found the (actual) first Jewish woman to finish the Iditarod sled dog race

Susan Cantor ran the Iditarod in 1992 after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. (Courtesy of Cantor)
March 21, 2019 / Emily Burack, JTA

(JTA) — Blair Braverman wasn’t the first Jewish woman to finish the Iditarod sled dog race, as we mistakenly reported. That title goes to Susan Cantor, who completed the race in 1992. Twenty-seven years before Braverman crossed the finish line on Sunday, Cantor completed the grueling 1,000-mile course in 14… Read more »

Tucson’s Markzon to bring Thunderbirds, lightning over Arizona

U.S. Air Force Maj. Jason Markzon on point of his Thunderbirds Demonstration squad (USAF)
March 8, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

There’s always excitement when the elite Thunderbirds Demonstration Squad roars into Tucson’s Davis-Monthan U.S. Air Force Base for an air show. But this year’s “Thunder and Lightning Over Arizona,” March 23-24, brings a hometown pilot soaring into town for the performance. Maj. Jason Markzon, flying the #8 slot and… Read more »

Democrats’ anti-Semitism resolution tied to Ilhan Omar will now also condemn Islamophobia and white supremacy

Nancy Pelosi at her weekly news conference at the Capitol, Feb. 28, 2019. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
March 7, 2019 /

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Democrats are revising a statement on anti-Semitism to include other forms of bias following complaints by caucus progressives that the original resolution unfairly singled out Rep. Ilhan Omar. Despite the impassioned objections of at least one Jewish Democrat, House Democrats are set to vote on the… Read more »

World’s first privately funded, Israeli lunar mission to launch today at 8:45 p.m. from Cape Canaveral

Beresheet payload (at the top, in gold), the first Israeli lunar spacecraft. (Photo credit: Courtesy of SSL)
February 21, 2019 /

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., Feb. 18 – Israeli nonprofit SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) today announced that Israel’s inaugural voyage to the moon – the world’s first privately funded lunar mission – will begin on Feb. 21 at approximately 8:45 p.m. EST, when the lunar lander “Beresheet” (“In the Beginning”)… Read more »

Researchers unlock the mystery of Polish diplomats who rescued Jews

Heidi Fishman holding up an op-ed she wrote about her family's rescue from the Holocaust using a Paraguayan passport. (Courtesy of Fishman)
February 19, 2019 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

AMSTERDAM (JTA) – Growing up, Heidi Fishman knew that she was alive thanks to her grandfather’s Paraguayan passport. A Jewish author from Vermont, she was told as a little girl that Heinz Lichtenstern’s passport was the only reason that her maternal grandparents and mother managed to avoid being sent… Read more »

5 Jewish things to know about Amy Klobuchar

Amy Klobuchar speaks at the 2018 DGA Honors Show in New York City, Oct. 18, 2018. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images for DGA)
February 7, 2019 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The race for the Democratic presidential nomination is starting to look like a CNN panel — more people fit than you think possible. Up next is Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. She’s committed to bipartisanship, close to Republicans like her late Senate colleague John McCain from Arizona… Read more »

Violins of Hope resonate with stories of Shoah

Israeli Amnon Weinstein, who has restored more than 60 violins that survived the Holocaust, will be in Tucson for Violins of Hope Feb. 17. (Daniel Levin)
January 25, 2019 / Debe Campbell, AJP Assistant Editor

Israeli violin maker Amnon Weinstein and his son Avshi have spent the last two decades locating and restoring violins from the Holocaust as a tribute to those who were lost, including 400 of their own relatives. Amnon calls these the Violins of Hope. Violins of Hope will be at… Read more »

How a Jewish brother and sister are making political history

Rabbi Yehiel Kalish attending the swearing-in of Dafna Michaelson Jenet, his sister, at the Colorado House of Representatives in Denver, Jan. 11, 2017. (Courtesy of Michaelson Jenet)
January 24, 2019 / Josefin Dolsten, JTA

(JTA) — Only days after being sworn into the Illinois House of Representatives on Sunday, Rabbi Yehiel Kalish paid a visit to Israel. The father of six said he needed guidance from rabbis in the Jewish state to serve in his new role. “The immediate reaction of the Chicago political… Read more »

In repressive Myanmar, a tiny Jewish community hangs on to the past

The Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in Yangon dates back to the 19th century. (Charles Dunst)
January 9, 2019 / Charles Dunst, JTA

  YANGON, Myanmar (JTA) – There was a Hanukkah party last month in this former capital city and enough guests — over 200 — to surprise an uninvited tourist. “They’re no Jews here anymore,” the tourist proclaims, confused about the celebration at Yangon’s regal Chatrium Hotel. “Yes there are,” replies… Read more »

10 years ago, the Bernie Madoff scandal rocked the American Jewish world. Here’s how those victims have fared.

Bernie Madoff arriving at Manhattan federal court, March 12, 2009. (Stephen Chernin/Getty Images)
December 20, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) — Robert Lappin was in Palm Beach when he found out that his charity was broke and his money was gone. It was the same small, moneyed Florida town where he would see Bernie Madoff at the Breakers Palm Beach, the golf resort where both men… Read more »

Austria, where far right is part of government, takes a leading role in Europe’s fight against anti-Semitism

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz speaks to an Israeli Holocaust survivor from Austria in Jerusalem, June 10, 2018. (Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)
November 20, 2018 / Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA

(JTA) — Less than one year after the election of Sebastian Kurz as Austria’s leader, he has taken his government to the forefront of the fight against Europe’s spiraling anti-Semitism problem. Frequently criticized for failing to own up to Nazi persecution, Austria with Kurz as chancellor has become an international… Read more »

Why early elections are off the table for now in Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the Knesset in Jerusalem for a faction meeting, Nov. 19, 2018. (Miriam Alster/Flash90)
November 19, 2018 / Marcy Oster, JTA

  JERUSALEM (JTA) — “It’s Hard to Say Goodbye If You Won’t Leave” was the title of an old episode of “Frasier.” It could also describe the latest chapter in a coalition crisis that threatens to bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s  government. The Israeli prime minister narrowly avoided having to… Read more »

Netanyahu says he supports a Palestinian ‘state-minus’ controlled by Israeli security

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, is interviewed onstage by Jewish Federations of North America Chairman Richard Sandler at the General Assembly in Tel Aviv, Oct. 24, 2018. (Kobi Gideon/Israeli Government Press Office)
October 24, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled that he supported a Palestinian “state-minus,” wherein Israel would maintain a military presence across Israel and the West Bank. Netanyahu also said in a question-and-answer session Wednesday at the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America that… Read more »

The tragic tale of Superman’s Jewish creators, told in graphic novel form

The cover of "The Joe Shuster Story: The Artist Behind Superman," by Julian Voloj and illustrated by Thomas Campi. (Super Genius)
October 8, 2018 / Gabe Friedman, JTA

(JTA) – When Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel created the Superman character in the early 1930s, they were still living at their parents’ homes. Of course, the character and his story — the arrival from another planet, his dual identities as mild-mannered reporter and flying, bulletproof crime fighter  —… Read more »