Tagged FRONTTOP

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Like many of my friends, I grew up in the United States with a strong affinity for Israel. As a child we saved money to buy trees, learned Israeli songs, studied Hebrew, visited Israel and marched in Israeli Independence Day parades. I recall well that my… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Controversial pasts with incendiary statements and a fierce loyalty to the president-elect. Judging from the announcements Donald Trump is expected to make Friday, his White House and Cabinet is likelier to look a lot more like Stephen Bannon than Reince Priebus. Those are, respectively, Trump’s top… Read more »

  (JTA) — As a fan who runs the “Bob Dylan: Tangled Up in Jews” website, I should be ecstatic at the Nobel Prize in Literature awarded to the writer whose words have been the soundtrack to my life since I first sang them at a Jewish summer camp… Read more »

(JTA) — If you’re a rock fan, no matter your age, you’ve probably heard of bands like the Doors, the Ramones and the Stooges. But chances are you haven’t heard of Danny Fields. Fields, a Jewish guy from Forest Hills, Queens, deftly made the punk scene happen. He helped… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) – In a corner of former East Berlin, where shabby, red brick buildings meet cobblestone streets, lies a new Promised Land. Kanaan — a casual, vegetarian Middle Eastern restaurant named for the biblical lands before they were conquered by the Israelites — is something of a dream come true. And that’s not just… Read more »

PHILADELPHIA (JTA) — After Tim Kaine, Biden, Bloomberg, Bernie, Bill and both Obamas, it’s finally Hillary’s turn. Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, will close out a Democratic National Convention centered on highlighting America’s diversity, touting her qualifications and bashing her Republican opponent, Donald Trump. Clinton’s address will be… Read more »

Creating a legacy for future generations of compassionate community volunteers is an important part of being a member of the Maizlish family, which so far encompasses three generations in Tucson. Phyllis Maizlish started the Maizlish Family Foundation because she wanted to help others and inspire her family. “My husband… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — For a leader often accused of not wanting to talk peace with the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sure does a lot of talking about wanting to talk to the Palestinians. In a series of three statements this month, Netanyahu repeatedly stressed the need… Read more »

LONDON (JTA) — Less than two years after he moved his family from Paris to London, David Herz is already feeling at home in the United Kingdom. The co-founder of a communications agency, Herz is among thousands of French Jews who moved across the channel in recent years. He says… Read more »

  NEW YORK (JTA) — If there’s one story that sums up the changes afoot on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a once heavily Jewish neighborhood, it’s the saga surrounding the Anshei Meseritz synagogue. The Orthodox shul at 415 E. Sixth St. is a relic of a time… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) – When documentary photographer Richard Schofield stumbled upon a trove of unidentified prewar photographs in September 2013 in the storage room of the Sugihara House museum in Kaunas, Lithuania, he knew he had found something special. The photos, dating from about 1910 through 1940, were from a… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — During the five-plus years of Syria’s civil war, Israel has striven to stay neutral — supporting neither the government of President Bashar Assad nor the rebels, and certainly not the Islamic State. But on one issue, senior Israeli politicians have gladly taken sides: Israel keeping the… Read more »

Marlee Matlin made history in 1987 when she won an Academy Award for “Children of a Lesser God,” becoming the only deaf person to win an Oscar and, at 21, the youngest recipient of the Best Actress award. She owes much of that record-breaking achievement to her Jewish upbringing,… Read more »

PORTO, Portugal (JTA) — Five years ago, this city’s tiny Jewish community was so strapped for cash it couldn’t afford to fix the deep cracks in its synagogue’s moldy ceiling. The Jewish Community of Porto was also too poor to hire a full-time rabbi because of its small size… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — The hardest part was loading the assault rifle. That’s not because he was a newbie, unaccustomed to the workings of a Tavor rifle. Rather, 1st Sgt. Izzy Ezagui had lost an arm in combat. He’d overcome seemingly insurmountable bureaucratic hurdles and got a posting on a… Read more »

“I was a political appointee for two Republican presidents and two Democratic presidents. … What that makes me is an extinct species,” Ambassador Dennis Ross told a crowd of more than 850 at the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s “Together” campaign kickoff on Nov. 18 at Congregation Anshei Israel.… Read more »

“When we train for mass casualty incidents, we know that the blood isn’t real and when the training is over, everyone is going to stand up and walk away. How does Israel deal with real mass casualty incidents that can happen every day?” That question by Tucson Fire Department… Read more »

LESBOS, Greece (JTA) — As the small rubber dinghy crowded with Syrians and Afghans emerged from the midnight-black sea to land on a desolate pebble beach, the first people to greet the bewildered and frightened refugees were two Israelis. “Does anyone need a doctor?” Majeda Kardosh, 27, a nurse… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – As U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton spent plenty of time in daunting foreign territory. No, I’m not talking about Myanmar here. I’m speaking of the mind of Benjamin Netanyahu. A batch of emails released this week as part of the trove related to the… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — The murder of a 16-year old girl at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade has sparked calls for LGBT-rights legislation — as well as pushback from those who oppose it. Shira Banki died Sunday after being stabbed while marching in the parade on Thursday night. Five others were wounded… Read more »