Tagged HEADLINES

Tisha b’Av (the 9th day of the month of Av) which we commemorate this year on July 21-22, reminds us that over 2,000 years ago Jews failed to heed the warnings of the prophet Jeremiah, with the result that the first Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, the first of… Read more »

  (JTA) — At the annual convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in June 1934, the assembled religious leaders were confronted with questions that especially resonate for Americans in the Trump era: How should we approach those who oppose us and are working against our interests? Should we… Read more »

A few months ago I wrote a humor piece titled “Don’t eat off the seder plate, and other tips for non-Jews attending their first seder.” It drew a miffed response from a rabbi friend who often works with interfaith families and suggested “it’s time to drop terms like ‘non-Jew’ and… Read more »

Cool treats Cool off from the inside out with some of our favorite spots. Atomic Frog Ice Cream Parlor and Café, 9725 N. Thornydale Road, is a perfect example. While it specializes in “Parlor Tricks,” including ice cream, smoothies and sundaes, it’s more than just an ice cream parlor.… Read more »

Fashionistas in Southern Arizona may not embrace big shearling coats and oversize knit scarves with the fervor of their East Coast sisters. But there were many other looks to love on the runways at this February’s Fall Fashion Week in New York. Ann Carroll of Mills Touché boutique in… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — As a seasoned ghost writer who specializes in biographies, Miriam Dubi-Gazan says there is no such thing as a boring life story. Her attention to detail, creativity and editing skills yield satisfying results even for clients whose resumes are not exactly the stuff of spy novels… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Breaking religious barriers is nothing new for Rabbi Daniel Lehmann. Ordained at New York’s Yeshiva University, the flagship of Modern Orthodoxy, he most recently was president of Hebrew College near Boston, which is devoted to pluralistic Jewish… Read more »

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(JTA) — On June 11, the Knesset’s official no smoking day, the Likud party’s Yehudah Glick announced that he was embarking on a hunger strike until the body passed a tax on loose tobacco equal to the tax on cigarettes. Glick’s dramatic gesture was a sign of a seldom-discussed crisis… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) – In the compact, open kitchen of the apartment here that Dalit Gvirtsman shares with her husband, about a dozen women are jostling for space. One is chopping tomatoes, another is sauteing onions and another is squeezing a few dollops of honey into cooked egg noodles.… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — When Adam Ferziger wants to describe the “deteriorating” relationship between American and Israeli Jews, he reaches back to a 2,000-year-old divide. “To use a metaphor, we have a contemporary Jerusalem and Babylon kind of dynamic,” said Ferziger, a history and contemporary Jewry professor at Bar-Ilan University in Tel… Read more »

(JTA) — On June 10, 2002, Charles Krauthammer delivered the Distinguished Rennert Lecture upon receiving the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University’s Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies. Below is an excerpt from the lecture titled “He Tarries: Jewish Messianism and the Oslo Peace.”  In the 1990s, America slept and… Read more »

Alma Hernandez, a Mexican-American Jew and daughter of immigrants, is running for the Arizona House of Representatives and founded a progressive Jewish group in Tucson. (Courtesy of Hernandez)

(JTA) — When Mary McCabe explains America’s immigration courts to children who have been separated from their parents, she tries to make it interactive. She draws a sketch of a courtroom and asks kids to identify the figures in the room — like the judge or the lawyers —… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — More than 70 years have passed since Meijer van der Sluis first laid eyes on the love of his life. He was at a home for child survivors of the Holocaust, and he opened the door for her. He still remembers her short haircut and exactly… Read more »

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Tel Aviv has been decked out in rainbow flags for weeks. Suddenly, it seems, every restaurant, coffee shop and store is super “gay friendly.” The city’s Pride Parade is traditionally held on the second Friday of June. Fifteen years ago, estimates were that 9,000 people… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Growing up in the Orthodox community of Monsey, New York, as the son of an African-American mother who converted to Judaism and a white Ashkenazi father who became religious later in life, Isaiah Rothstein knows what it’s like not to fit in. The New York hamlet… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Halie Soifer says her transition from national security expert to political operative started with a crisis of violence: the deadly neo-Nazi march last summer in Charlottesville, Virginia. Soifer says the march, which culminated in a car-ramming attack on counterprotesters that killed one and injured at least 20,… Read more »

By Ben Sales NEW YORK (JTA) — The Orthodox Union released a statement criticizing the Trump administration’s policy of separating the families of illegal immigrants after they cross the U.S. border. The statement came one day after the O.U., an umbrella Orthodox group, hosted a speech by Attorney General… Read more »

(JTA) — “Ethics of the Fathers” includes this bold advice from Rabbi Yishmael: “When we learn in order to act, we become learners, teachers, preservers and doers.” So many Jewish institutions are asking how they might engage younger people, raise a new generation of leaders and appeal across age groups.… Read more »

In an essay for JTA on Michael Chabon’s intermarriage views, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Steven M. Cohen and Jack Wertheimer describe a “left camp” that argues for greater acceptance, welcoming and inclusion of the intermarried and their family members, and a “Jewish right” that argues for holding on to distinctions… Read more »