The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preaches in 1960 at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
On Easter Sunday in 1959, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. rose in the pulpit of his Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, to deliver a sermon that focused on his just-completed visit, with his wife, Coretta, to Jerusalem and its holy sites. King’s trip that month to… Read more »
Rabbi Adina Allen and her husband, Jeff Kasowitz, founded the Jewish Studio Project in 2015 as a way for Jews to access their religion through art. (Ben Sales)
BERKELEY, California (JTA) — In the middle of a traditional Friday night service in this artists’ district in the crunchy mecca of Berkeley, California, a group of 40 worshippers paused their prayers to gather around a group of “found objects:” an empty picture frame, fake flowers, a doorknob. Each… Read more »
Rabbi Raziel Shevach, right, shown with his family, was killed in a shooting near Nablus in the northern West Bank. (Facebook)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The U.S. ambassador to Israel blamed the Palestinians for the lack of peace with Israel in the aftermath of a shooting in the West Bank that killed an Israeli man. David Friedman tweeted Wednesday morning, as the Israeli military expanded its search for the killer or killers, including… Read more »
Stephen Bannon at a White House news conference, Feb. 16, 2017. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Steve Bannon, the former top strategic adviser to President Donald Trump, is leaving his powerful perch at Breitbart News. Breitbart News in a statement Tuesday said Bannon is a “valued part of our legacy,” but various media, including The New York Times, said he was ousted… Read more »
Two Delta Connection passenger jets at LaGuardia Airport in New York, October 2017. (Robert Alexander/Getty Images)
NEW YORK (JTA) — It wasn’t long after Nahum Amir began working for Delta Airlines as a mechanic that he says his manager started calling him “the Jewish guy.” Then Amir says the manager accused him and other Jews of “killing kids in Gaza.” During the same period, Yaron… Read more »
(Shannon Sarna)
(The Nosher via JTA) — The crockpot has never been my favorite kitchen gadget. I know people love their crockpots and their instant pots, but there have been limited things I have made in a crockpot that I loved, or actually found more convenient. When I am dinner prepping for busy… Read more »
The historic Salt Lake Temple and the world headquarters of the Mormon church in Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 14, 2015. (George Frey/Getty Images)
(JTA) — A researcher says Mormons have posthumously baptized the late Lubavitcher rebbe, the grandparents of Carrie Fisher and Steven Spielberg, and hundreds of Holocaust victims, violating an agreement to halt the practice. Helen Radkey, a Salt Lake City-based independent researcher who has been looking into the Mormon practice… Read more »
Guy Maimon with his father outside the Tel Aviv bitcoin exchange where he just bought his first cryptocurrency, Dec. 19, 2017. (Andrew Tobin)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israelis lined up Tuesday afternoon at the newly opened bitcoin exchange in this city to purchase the coveted cryptocurrency. Amid the store’s yellow signage, the customers one by one inserted bank cards into a towering ATM-like machine. Sharply dressed young employees helped them make the… Read more »
From a wave of bomb threats to JCCs and a neo-Nazi in Charlottesville and to Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, 2017 was not a quiet year for Jews. (JTA collage)
(JTA) — The past year was not a quiet one, to say the least. From the tumultuous first year of Donald Trump’s presidency to a wave of bomb threats against Jewish community centers to the flood of high-profile sexual harassment allegations, Jews — like so many others —… Read more »
White Bean Soup With Zhug (Sonya Sanford)
(The Nosher via JTA) — I recently stumbled upon a Yemenite Jewish cookbook from the early ’60s called “Yemenite & Sabra Cookery,” by Naomi and Shimon Tzabar. It’s the type of cookbook I especially love to discover; the kind that covers a rare topic and is unusually designed. This… Read more »
Protesters against a coalition of the People's Party and the far-right Freedom Party in Austria demonstrate outside the parliament in Vienna, Dec. 14, 2017. (Herbert Neubauer/AFP/Getty Images)
VIENNA (JTA) — Like Germany’s governments, those of neighboring Austria have acknowledged their country’s role as a chief perpetrator of the Holocaust. Since the 1990s, Austrian officials have faced up to and condemned how their countrymen and authorities supported Adolf Hitler, an Austria native, and his war of annihilation… Read more »
A choir started over 20 years ago by the late Karla Ember at Congregation Ner Tamid continues to perform at concerts and Shabbat and holiday services. “There have been many changes in content and personnel over the years, but Congregation Kol Simchah, successor to Congregation Ner Tamid, carries on,”… Read more »
Gil Shaham
Grammy-award winning violinist Gil Shaham will perform Tchaikovsky’s “Concerto in D major, Op. 35,” considered one of the best known and yet most difficult of all violin concertos, with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra on Friday, Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m. The concert also will include Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and Juliet… Read more »
Laura Green Laura Green, Zionist affairs chair of the Desert-Mountain Region of Hadassah, will present an Israel update for Hadassah Southern Arizona on Sunday, Jan. 7 at 10:30 a.m., during a brunch at Skyline Country Club. Green, who last spoke in Tucson in October 2014, grew up on Long Island, New… Read more »
(Kveller via JTA) — After experiencing a yearlong medical crisis due to complications with ulcerative colitis, my daughter, Nava, made a complete recovery. Miraculously, after a tremendous amount of hard work, she resumed her life and was able to live it exactly as she had in the past. Now… Read more »
The sfinj hails from North Africa. (Wikimedia Commons)
TEL AVIV (JTA) – The sufganiyah is the plump, shining star of Hanukkah in Israel. During the holiday season, the famed jelly doughnut poses in the windows of cafés and bakeries across the country. It sparkles with oil and sugar, and shows just enough filling to keep fans… Read more »
Rabbi David Kaufman and his wife Julie, attend the White House Hanukkah party in Washington, D.C., Dec. 7, 2017. (Courtesy of Kaufman)
DES MOINES, Iowa (JTA) — A Jewish woman walks into the post office to buy Hanukkah stamps for her holiday cards. The person behind the counter asks, “What denominations?” The Jewish woman responds, “Oy! Are we so polarized? Some Orthodox, some Conservative and some Reform.” Yes, we are so… Read more »
Jerusalem is seen here from the Mount of Olives. (Flickr Commons/Dan)
(JTA) — E.B. White famously wrote that there are “roughly three New Yorks”: the one of the native New Yorker, the one of the commuter, and the New York of the “person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.” To which… Read more »
(Lior Zaltzman)
NEW YORK (JTA) — In a recent talk at Temple Emanuel here, former first lady Michelle Obama spoke about how women live with tiny cuts that build up over time, cuts that we endure without noticing, even as we bleed. That is what it is to be a girl… Read more »
Slow Cooker Pot Roast (Jennifer Stempel)
(The Nosher via JTA) — As someone who runs her life a million miles per minute, but still values the fruits of a home-cooked meal, the slow cooker is certainly a mainstay in my kitchen. Because of this favorite small appliance, my family gets to enjoy rich, hearty meals… Read more »
