Tagged HEADLINES

Ron Prosor, Permanent Representative of Israel to the UN, speaks at a special event on “Children and the Holocaust”, held to mark the annual International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, on Jan. 27, 2012.(UN Photo/Devra Berkowitz)

NEW YORK—Speaking in a voice fraught with emotion at the United Nations General Assembly, Israeli ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor proclaimed, “The loss is unimaginable… the riches lost to the world untold. But, their spirit lives on, their dreams never died… Nothing can break the… Read more »

Khaled Abu Taomeh

The truth sometimes hurts; that is why the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been working hard to prevent the outside world from hearing about many occurrences that reflect negatively on its leaders or people. In recent years, the PA leadership, often with the help of the mainstream media in the… Read more »

Henry and Madeleine Cornet in their home near Brussels in the 1940s (Jan Maes)

As the sister of Belgium’s most powerful Nazi, Madeleine Cornet knew better than to inquire about the ethnicity of the three women she hired as housemaids in October 1942. Cornet did not want to further implicate herself by hearing what she already knew: Her new hires were Jews who… Read more »

Scott Edmiston

The Brandeis National Committee will host its annual University on Wheels event on Thursday, Feb. 7, at 9 a.m. at Skyline Country Club. Scott Edmiston, director of the Office of the Arts at Brandeis University, will speak on: “Truth or Beauty: The Need for Art in the 21st Century.”… Read more »

Rabbi Billy Lewkowicz

Congregation Bet Shalom will celebrate its 30th year by honoring Rabbi Philip (“Billy”) Lewkowicz and his wife, Ada, at a gala dinner on March 3. “Rabbi Billy has been associated with our congregation as a guest speaker, participant in study groups and panel discussions and especially as our religious… Read more »

Rabbi Jason Holtz

It has been a bit more than one month since the Newtown tragedy, where 26 people, including 20 children, were killed. It has been a bit more than two years since the tragic shooting here in Tucson. The sad reality is that the amount of violence involving guns in… Read more »

(JTA) — A few observations about the Israeli election results: Right-left split changes, but not a game changer: From an outsider’s perspective, Israel would seem to a very politically unstable place. The biggest party in the previous Knesset, Kadima, crashed from 28 seats to two. The No. 3 party, Yisrael… Read more »

Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency for Israel, is tasked with finding a solution to the growing battle over women’s prayer restrictions at the Western Wall. (Miriam Alster/Flash90/JTA)

TEL AVIV (JTA) — He brought unprecedented attention to the plight of Soviet Jewry. He stood up to the KGB. He survived nine years in Siberia. He served in Israel’s fractious government. Now, Natan Sharansky is facing his next challenge: finding a solution to the growing battle over women’s… Read more »

(Jewish Ideas Daily) — Israel uses the pretense of law to dominate and disenfranchise Palestinians in the territories. So argues Ra’anan Alexandrowicz in his documentary “The Law in These Parts,” a recent favorite on the New York film circuit. Since the film has garnered nearly universal acclaim, it is… Read more »

Dear Erica, I am very frustrated with the leadership of my children’s preschool. After the Newtown killings, I went straight to the head of the school and asked why we can’t have an armed guard outside the building. The school did send out an email to the entire school… Read more »

Reform leader Rabbi Rick Jacobs, shown speaking at the Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly in Jerusalem in November 2012, co-authored a letter to President Obama on eschewing action against the Palestinians that would damage efforts to renew peace talks. (Robert A. Cumins/JFNA)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Two major Jewish groups are at odds over the prospect of penalties for the Palestinians in the wake of their enhanced U.N. status. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee in recent weeks has backed two congressional bids to at least shut down the Palestine Liberation Organization… Read more »

Alan Elsner

A recent announce­ment that I had joined J Street as vice president of communications raised some eyebrows among some of my friends in the Jewish community. After all, as recently as two months ago, I was a member of senior management at The Israel Project, a very different organization.… Read more »

If there were a prize for the Arab country that has done most to promote Arab-Israeli peace recently, I’d seriously consider nominating Saudi Arabia. Admittedly, that’s a counterintuitive choice: Riyadh doesn’t even recognize Israel and shows no signs of doing so anytime soon; moreover, it finances the spread of… Read more »

Anna Greenberg lights the Chanukah candles at the service of healing in her honor Dec. 5. (L-R) Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon, Wendy Weise Cohon, Anna, Bruce Greenberg, Burney Starks (behind Bruce), Aaron Greenberg, Alayne Greenberg, Joree Sowards, Tzadik Rosenberg-Greenberg (MartyJohnston/TJCC)

“Anna-tude” – it’s a new word in the Tucson lexicon to describe the shining spirit of Anna Greenberg, 27, who has been fighting cancer with enormous courage and a wry sense of humor for more than a year. Anna was diagnosed with cancer in October 2011 after her dramatic… Read more »

Afshin Ellian

Among his many talents, Afshin Ellian has a knack for making people want to kill him. It’s a trait he demonstrated as a fugitive in his native Iran after the Islamic Revolution; then as a refugee in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where he angered secular Stalinists; and finally in Holland,… Read more »

Mike Reiss, writer/producer of ‘The Simpsons,’ as he would look in the cartoon world he helped create.

The 22nd annual Tucson International Jewish Film Festival, featuring almost two dozen comedies, dramas and documentaries about everything from music to bagels to the healing power of dolphins, will be held Jan. 10-20. A pre-festival kick-off will be held Sunday, Jan. 6 at 2:15 p.m. and 7 p.m. at… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — With public acceptance of same-sex marriage growing, liberal Jewish groups are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act that they have long opposed. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases related to same-sex marriage: an appeal of a… Read more »

Schoolchildren from the Haitian town of Zoranje standing outside their middle school that was built by the JDC. (Courtesy American Joint Distribution Committee)

NEW YORK (JTA) — It was the poor construction. There had been many earthquakes more powerful than the one that hit Haiti nearly three years ago, and there have been many more since. But few have been deadlier. When the tremor registering 7.0 on the Richter scale struck on… Read more »

Diane Heiman, co-author of "It's a...It's a...It's a Mitzvah," with children at a JCC of Greater Washington book event. (Courtesy Diane Heiman)

NEW YORK (JTA) — Chanukah, when children look forward to getting gifts and gelt, is an ideal time to recall Judaism’s commitment to helping others and tikkun olam, repairing the world. Two recently published books, “The Mitzvah Project Book: Making Mitzvah Part of Your Bar/Bat Mitzvah … and your… Read more »

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (JTA) — It’s no secret that Henry Ford was a notorious anti-Semite, and his company’s dealings with the Nazi Party during the Holocaust are well documented. But the company’s story has changed drastically in recent years. The Ford family’s donation of a rare 500-year-old Torah scroll… Read more »