Tagged HEADLINES

WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week via JTA) – For Orthodox Jews, President Barack Obama’s proposed tax reforms present a numbers-crunching paradox: Income he designates as well-off may mean just getting by for large families. Obama’s 2015 budget, which was introduced Monday, aims to offset economic breaks to upper-income families to… Read more »

Israeli arcaeologist Yoram Haimi, right, has been warning of threats to important historical artifacts at the Sobibor death camp in Poland, September 2013. (Courtesy of Yoram Haimi)

SOBIBOR, Poland (JTA) — After he uncovered the path that two of his uncles followed to the gas chambers at Sobibor, Yoram Haimi thought the complex he had worked years to unearth would be preserved for posterity. So when Polish authorities announced in 2011 that they would build a… Read more »

(Jewniverse via JTA) – It might seem that the only Jews left in Pakistan are underground – in Karachi’s lone Jewish cemetery. But that’s not quite so. Faisal (Fishel) Benkhald, the son of a Muslim father and Iranian Jewish mother, dares to call himself a Jew in a country… Read more »

Protesters clashing with Israeli police following the funeral of Sami al-Ja'ar in Rahat, in southern Israel, Jan. 18, 2015. (Activestills.org)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — In an economically depressed town populated largely by a minority group, a young man is killed under disputed circumstances. In the days that follow, riots consume the town, pitting frustrated and angry residents against the police, who maintain their officers acted in self-defense. But activists… Read more »

Rabbi Rachel S. Mikva

Religious ideas can be used both constructively and destructively, says Rabbi Rachel S. Mikva, Ph.D., the upcoming Rabbi Albert T. Bilgray scholar-in-residence at Temple Emanu-El. Mikva aims to encourage critical thinking about “Dangerous Religious Ideas” in the 29th Bilgray Memorial Lectureship series from Feb. 5 to 7, in collaboration… Read more »

Stav Shaffir makes a point at a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee in Jerusalem, Sept. 3, 2014. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — Stav Shaffir was angry. The 29-year-old firebrand is known for her outbursts, which have gotten her kicked out of multiple Knesset hearings in the past year. But when she rose in the Knesset on Jan. 21 to answer Jewish Home party leader Naftali Bennett’s charge… Read more »

International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced a preliminary examination concerning the "situation in Palestine." (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — On Jan. 16, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, launched a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.” Here is a review of what that means based on interviews with experts on international law and statements by the ICC and Israeli and U.S. officials. Has… Read more »

Demonstrators at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires protesting the death of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman. The banner at left reads "I am Nisman. I am the Republic," Jan. 19, 2015. (Movimiento Argentino de Fotografxs Independientes Autoconvocadxs Facebook page)

(JTA) – The mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman seems ripped straight out of a crime thriller. Nisman — the indefatigable prosecutor collecting evidence of culpability in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people — was found dead in his… Read more »

A scene from "Grand Budapest Hotel" (Fox Searchlight Pictures)

(JTA) —Wes Anderson’s whimsical film “The Grand Budapest Hotel” was nominated for nine Academy Awards last week, just days after winning the Golden Globe for Best Comedy or Musical. Named one of the best films of the year by several top critics, it could earn Anderson, a director whose… Read more »

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (second from right), marches at Selma with Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Bunche, Rep. John Lewis, Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth and Rev. C.T. Vivian. (Courtesy of Susanna Heschel)

HANOVER, N.H. (JTA) — The 50th anniversary of the 1965 march at Selma is being commemorated this year with the release of the film “Selma.” Regrettably, the film represents the march as many see it today, only as an act of political protest. But for my father Abraham Joshua… Read more »

Anett Haskia fared poorly in the Jewish Home primary but said party voters embraced her despite her background. (Ben Sales)

PETACH TIKVAH, Israel (JTA) — Outside the Moriah Synagogue in this central Israeli city, boys in ritual fringes and girls in long skirts handed out fliers for the dozens of candidates running in the Jan. 14 primary for the Jewish Home party, a right-wing, modern Orthodox faction. Religious voters… Read more »

BRUSSELS (JTA) — Seventy-two hours after a deadly attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, dozens of Jewish community officials from across Europe were operating a hectic situation room at a hotel in the Belgian capital. But crisis managers and community leaders were not dealing with the horror unfolding… Read more »

In the wake of the recent terror attacks in Paris, the Jewish Federations of North America expressed its solidarity with the 500,000-strong French Jewish community, the families and friends of the victims of the Charlie Hebdo shooting and the entire nation of France. JFNA has opened an emergency mailbox… Read more »

Alfred Dreyfus (Getty Images)

(JTA) — Last week’s deadly hostage siege at a kosher supermarket in Paris has French Jews (and some non-Jews) proclaiming “Je suis juif,” or “I am Jewish,” in solidarity with the four people killed in the attack. Who are the Jews of France? Here’s a primer. How many Jews… Read more »

The Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona is getting ready for its annual Campaign Super Sunday phone-a-thon and Mitzvah Day on Sunday, Jan. 25, at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. From 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., volunteers can make calls soliciting tax-deductible gifts to the Federation that support Jewish life… Read more »

Congregation Or Chadash will hold a Texas Hold’em poker tournament, plus a dinner and casino night, on Saturday, Feb. 7 at the Tucson Scottish Rite Cathedral, 160 S. Scott Ave. The tournament is limited to 150 players on a first-come, first-served basis. Walk-ins are welcome, unless sold out. The… Read more »

The Strauss ECE Dancing Dreidels perform at Temple Emanu-El’s “Greatest Hanukkah on Earth! XVI” on Sunday, Dec. 14. About 550 people attended the event.

… Read more »

Tracy Salkowitz

Community foundations are the cool­est thing ever … well, you would think so, too, if you had the greatest job in the world. The first community foundation was created in Cleveland in 1914 by Frederick Goff, a local banker, who understood the need for a centralized philanthropic vehicle to… Read more »

Celebrated French Jewish cartoonist Georges Wolinski was killed in the attack on the Paris headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, 2015. (Wikipedia Commons)

(JTA) — An attack on the Paris headquarters of a French satirical magazine has left at least 12 people dead, including the Jewish caricaturist Georges Wolinski. Two of the reported fatalities in Wednesday’s attack were police officers, according to the French daily newspaper Le Monde. Later reports said that… Read more »

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, meeting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo, May 14, 2014. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

TOKYO (JTA) — Reading his Japanese-language newspaper over breakfast, Rabbi Mendy Sudakevich spotted an ad for a self-help DVD titled “Get rich like the Jews.” “Almost anywhere else in the world, such an ad” — published in several widely read Japanese dailies — “would have been deemed anti-Semitic incitement,”… Read more »