The Onya Collective is behind the new garden in South Tel Aviv. (Gabi Berger)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — The teeming blocks around this city’s New Central Bus Station are anything but scenic. Packed with humanity at every hour of the day, they are dizzying monuments to urban blight: equal parts graffiti, chaotic traffic and bustling, black-market commerce. So on a sunny Friday last… Read more »
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Sitting in front of a computer at the center of Israel’s largest army base, a soldier stares at the screen, moving pixel by pixel over a satellite photograph, picking out details and finding patterns. A few years ago N.S., who has autism, thought the Israel Defense Forces wouldn’t take him.… Read more »
Law enforcement officials investigating the Ford SUV at the scene
where suspects of the shooting at the Inland Regional Center in San
Bernardino, Calif., were killed in a shootout with police, Dec. 3,
2015. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(JTA) – Since last week’s mass shooting in the California city of San Bernardino, U.S. authorities have been piecing together what might have led Syed Farook and his wife, Tafsheen Malik, to gun down 14 of Farook’s colleagues at a holiday party for county health department employees. The attack raises… Read more »
Donald Trump speaking at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential
Candidates Forum in Washington, D.C., Dec. 3, 2015. (Alex Wong/Getty
Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In carefully tailored stump speeches that ranged in tone from apocalyptic to chummy, all but one of the Republican presidential candidates showed up in an attempt to woo Jewish voters. Many of the speeches at the Republican Jewish Coalition Presidential Candidates Forum, held Dec. 3 at… Read more »
Secretary of State John Kerry addressing the Saban Forum in
Washington, D.C., Dec. 5, 2015. (Courtesy of Brookings Institution)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at an annual U.S.-Israel confab, said Israel’s government must consider the consequences of evolving toward a single state incorporating the Palestinian areas. “How does Israel possibly maintain its character as a Jewish democratic state?” Kerry said Saturday at the Saban Forum in Washington,… Read more »
A Boy Scout saluting the American flag at Camp Maple Dell outside Payson, Utah, July 31, 2015. (George Frey/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) — With the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay employees lifted this summer, it’s a good time to be pitching scouting to the liberal American Jewish streams. So says Bruce Chudacoff, the chair of the National Jewish Committee on Scouting. A representative… Read more »
Indian-Spiced Cauliflower Latkes with Cilantro Chutney (Samantha Ferraro)
(The Nosher via JTA) — Growing up, my mom always made the best latkes. And while I know everyone probably says this about their mom, I maintain her latkes really were the best. She would stand over the sink shredding and shredding potatoes until night’s end. Then she would insist… Read more »
Families with special needs children of any age (infant to adult) are invited to a “no-shush” Shabbat service and potluck lunch hosted by Congregation Or Chadash on Saturday, Dec. 12 at 10 a.m. The event is organized by the Jewish Special Needs Moms group. The Dec. 12 gathering “is… Read more »
Jacob Ezra Schwartz Last week, I celebrated Thanksgiving in Israel in the most unusual yet meaningful way. We had a regular day filled with Gemara and Torah learning, but in the evening, I had the honor of attending both an azkara (memorial service) for American yeshiva student Ezra Schwartz (no relation) and… Read more »
I disagree with those of my fellow Jews who think Jews should assist Middle Eastern Muslims in immigrating to the USA. Those Europeans who advocated subverting legal, orderly immigration policies and welcoming a mass invasion of Middle Eastern strangers — ignoring the plain announcements of ISIS that they were… Read more »
Tracy Salkowitz I’ve often told people how honored I am to have my job. “You’re kidding,” they say. “Don’t you just talk about death?” In point of fact, we rarely talk about death. We talk about life! We at the Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona are the “pause doctors,” if… Read more »
Rabbi Charles Simon There’s a lot to celebrate in the Conservative movement, despite the news about our shrinking numbers. Our rabbis are finding new ways to connect with congregants. Our movement remains committed to kashrut, daily prayer, Shabbat and holiday observance. Our synagogues have become energetic, vibrant places that welcome people of… Read more »
Susan Katz Miller (Kveller via JTA) — “We get twice the presents!” Most interfaith kids will utter this classic, and rather obnoxious, boast at some point during childhood. And I have to admit, it makes me wince and grit my teeth a little. As an interfaith child myself, I understand all too… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with President Xi Jinping of China at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 9, 2013. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, sat kiddy-corner in armchairs at this week’s international climate summit near Paris, talking and laughing. “We have the best of relations, and they can be made even better,” Netanyahu told Modi at the meeting. To which Modi… Read more »
Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver arrives at the courthouse in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015. A jury heard Silver's corruption case boiled down to two conflicting portrayals of the once-powerful Democrat: one as a greedy lawmaker who enriched himself with bribery and another as a seasoned politician who played by the rules regarding outside income. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
NEW YORK (JTA) – The two men used to share the same synagogue pew. One’s wife was the other’s chief of staff. Now both share an ignoble distinction: guilty of accepting millions through illegal kickback schemes. There is one thing Sheldon Silver and William Rapfogel won’t share, however: a… Read more »
Choreographer Hofesh Shechter, left, with "Fiddler" cast members at New West 42nd Street Studios. (Lindsay Hoffman/Jeffrey Richards Associates)
NEW YORK (JTA) — Ever since Zero Mostel imagined himself as a rich man in the original 1964 Broadway production, “Fiddler on the Roof” has been a cultural landmark on Broadway and in the Jewish sphere. It’s one of those musicals that always seems to be in rotation. Over… Read more »
Jill Soloway, writer and director of "Transparent," filming the second season of the show on set. (Courtesy of Amazon Studios)
(JTA) — Writer and director Jill Soloway grew up in what she calls a “somewhat normalish, upper middle class Jewish household” in Chicago. Her mom was a public relations consultant (she worked for Mayor Jane Byrne) and her dad a psychiatrist. But she always sensed that “something was a… Read more »
The “Seeking Kin” column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA) – When Brazil native Fabio Rosenfeld brought up launching a search for his grandfather’s sister who had survived the Holocaust, I opened my “National Geographic Atlas of the World” to locate her hometown of Reghin. A… Read more »
Everything bagel latkes (Shannon Sarna)
(JTA) — I first tasted latkes for brunch at a trendy eatery on the Lower East Side about six years ago. Since then, I’ve seen them across the country on brunch menus everywhere from diners to Michelin Star restaurants. Latkes — or potato pancakes, as they’re known to non-Jews —… Read more »
Rabbi Tsipi Gabai blessing newly named transgender teen Tom Sosnik at Tehiyah Day School in El Cerrito, Calif., March 13, 2015. (Misha Bruk)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — On Nov. 5, delegates to the Union for Reform Judaism’s 73rd biennial convention unanimously adopted a resolution on the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming individuals. It was a moment of great pride and celebration, tempered by the knowledge that just two days earlier — and… Read more »
