Abraham Foxman NEW YORK (JTA) — Let’s be clear from the outset: the BDS movement, the effort to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, is sinister and malicious and is having a negative effect on Jewish students on some campuses and on the wider Jewish community. The origins of the… Read more »
Jeffrey Vinik says his Lightning has "really resonated" in the Tampa-area community, noting "great fans" and soaring television ratings. (Scott Iskowitz/TBL)
(JTA) — Jeffrey Vinik, the owner of the National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning, is experiencing a first: his team playing in the Stanley Cup Finals, which opened June 3 in Florida against the Chicago Blackhawks. (Under previous owners, the Lightning won the Stanley Cup in 2004.) Tampa… Read more »
The work of Polish-Jewish artist Agnieszka Kurant will be featured this summer at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. (Janek Zamoyski)
NEW YORK (JTA) — On June 5, Agnieszka Kurant will become one of only a handful of artists to have their work adorn the famous curved facade of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum here. Kurant’s “The End of Signature,” a neon white projection created from the actual signatures of… Read more »
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, rabbi of the Jewish settlement of Efrat conducts the Pidyon HaBen ceremony for a 30-day-old first born son in Efrat, West Bank, May 25, 2015. (Gershon Elinson/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — There’s no shortage of Israelis who want to reform the office of the Chief Rabbinate. Ranging from advocates of religion-state separation to leaders of Israel’s non-Orthodox movements to newspaper columnists, some want to end the Rabbinate’s monopoly over the country’s religious services; others want to dissolve… Read more »
“Son of Saul,” which recreates a harrowing Holocaust experience, garnered nearly universal acclaim at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. (Twitter)
(JTA) — Given the long and storied history of the Holocaust film genre, it’s unusual for a new movie on the subject to be lauded as innovative. But the new film “Son of Saul,” the first by Hungarian director Laszlo Nemes, is being called just that. It also was one… Read more »
As a teenager in Baltimore, Nechama Sonenthal had to grow up fast after her older sister fell into a coma and later needed life-saving brain surgery. That didn’t stop Sonenthal from serving her community while in high school and then traveling to Israel to train with first responders in… Read more »
Tracy Salkowitz When I first began meeting with donors on behalf of the Jewish Community Foundation, I was repeatedly struck by one thing: many donors seem to have a stumbling block to making the final decision about where they wanted to leave their funds. I dug deeper and found that donors… Read more »
Evelyn Becker (Courtesy Evelyn Becker) My daughter’s first-grade class hosted a Mother’s Day tea last week. Coffee, pastries, an adorable booklet titled “All About My Mother” written and illustrated by mine truly, and two poems about how I am the best mom ever. Pure fabulousness. So what’s there to write about? Well, before I… Read more »
Jimmy Wales on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: "You present what all sides have said and leave it to the reader to come to the answer." (Wikimedia Commons) TEL AVIV (JTA) — In 2003, two years after the website was founded, the editors of Wikipedia faced a dilemma: How should they refer to the part-fence, part-wall Israel was building along the West Bank border? The article’s first iteration — published amid the bloody second intifada, or Palestinian… Read more »
Pope Francis greeting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as the pope leaves St. Peter's Square at the end of a canonization ceremony in Vatican City, May 17, 2015. (Franco Origlia/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – When considering the Vatican’s creep toward recognition of Palestinian statehood, think “Israel-Vatican” and not “Jewish-Catholic,” say Jewish officials involved in dialogue with the church. A May 13 announcement on an agreement regarding the functioning of the church in areas under Palestinian control raised eyebrows in its reference… Read more »
Israel's national soccer team training in Tel Aviv, Sept. 4, 2013. (Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Israel’s diplomatic battles have spread to the soccer field. On May 29, the body that governs world soccer, FIFA, will vote on whether to suspend Israel from international play. FIFA’s 209-member countries will vote on a motion introduced by the Palestinian Football Association, which is… Read more »
Cast of "Mad Men" (Courtesy of AMC)
(JTA) — AMC’s ad campaign for the second half of the final season of “Mad Men” centered on the phrase “The End of an Era.” The clever double meaning of the phrase was that this was not only the end of an era within the show, as the plot spilled into… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) – A 39-year-old executive with an education startup and a 20-year-old naval academy student were among the seven people confirmed dead from an Amtrak train derailment in Philadelphia. Rachel Jacobs, the executive, who also is the daughter of former Michigan State Senator Gilda Jacobs, and Justin… Read more »
Oshrat Barel Ethiopian protest in Israel It’s been more than 30 years since the first immigrants came from Ethiopia to Israel. As a young teenager I remember the new immigrants coming to the merkaz klita (absorption center) in Revaya next to my hometown. My mother volunteered as the chair of the… Read more »
TAIBEH, Israel (JTA) — To get to her assigned kindergarten, Biyan Azam, then 5, would have had to walk alone through a bustling commercial district and cross a busy intersection. This Arab-Israeli city does not provide school buses and would not transfer Biyan to a school nearer to her home here.… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) – The Pew Research Center’s newly released 2014 U.S. Religious Landscape Study offers a trove of data on American Jews based on interviews with 35,071 American adults, 847 of whom identified their faith as Jewish. Here are some of the more interesting findings about the Jews. … Read more »
(JTA) — On April 19, Keren Zachmi’s daughter returned from her kindergarten near Tel Aviv wearing a yellow patch emblazoned with the word “Jude.” A teacher had put the yellow star on 17 kindergarteners so they would feel like Holocaust victims during Yom Hashoah, Israel’s national Holocaust commemoration day. Appalled,… Read more »
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism legislative assistants at a rally May 1 in Baltimore. (Courtesy of Religious Action Center)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – From roundtable discussions to protests and prayers to candid talk with law enforcement officials, American Jewish communities are joining in the debate about community policing in the wake of several high-profile deaths of unarmed black men while in police custody. Officials were short on specifics, but… Read more »
(New Jersey Jewish News via JTA) — This past week was exhausting, but not in the way I’ve become accustomed to as the father of three children in a demanding profession. It began with the uplifting gala of the Masorti Foundation and a conference celebrating 30 years of women’s… Read more »
Rabbi Yehuda Ceitlin It took only eight sincere words to rekindle the close connection between two American luminaries that had been shattered by political wars and opposing ideologies. Those eight words helped restore the bond of two Founding Fathers, both of whom served as presidents of the United States. Thomas Jefferson and… Read more »
