Tagged HEADLINES

WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s time for the West to woo Latin America — some will say it’s about time. The United States and Israel appear to be heading toward increasing their focus on the area following years of neglect that has resulted in closer ties between Latin America and… Read more »

A rally in the suburban New York town of Massapequa, Long Island, protesting the stereotyping of Muslims is timed ahead of congressional hearings on Muslim radicalization convened by Rep. King, the local congressman, Feb. 22, 2011. (longislandwins via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Are the congressional hearings on radicalization among American Muslims an instance of McCarthyism, or is the opposition to them political correctness run amok? Jewish groups may disagree on why, but there appears to be wide consensus that the congressional hearings led by Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.),… Read more »

Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

Doctors should have a comforting bedside manner, but the subject has often been neglected in medical school curricula. Today, however, Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen’s award-winning course on humanism in medicine, “The Healer’s Art,” is taught in more than 50 percent of U.S. medical schools. Remen, the New York Times… Read more »

Gil Hoffman

Gil Hoffman, chief political correspondent and analyst for The Jerusalem Post, will present “Peace, Politics and Plutonium: An Israeli Insider’s Look at the Efforts to Prevent a Nuclear Iran and Advance Mideast Peace” at the University of Arizona on Tuesday, March 29 at 3 p.m. The lecture, which will… Read more »

Rabbi Bernard R. Kling

Rabbi Berrnard R. Kling will hold a Tucson Desert Shabbaton on April 8 and 9 at the Redemptorist Renewal Center. “Almost all Jews have tasted Shabbat. At a Shabbaton, you get to live Shabbat,” says Kling, whose motto is “Ivdu Et-Hashem B’Simchah — Serve the Eternal One with Joy.”… Read more »

BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) — It’s March, which means the days get longer and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict heats up on campuses across North America with the annual staging of Israel Apartheid Week. Last year, pro-Israel activists countered Apartheid Week events ranging from anti-Israel speeches to the staging of mock Israeli… Read more »

A 1905 postcard ashows a badkhn insulting a bride at her wedding ceremony. (Mel Gordon Archives)

BERKELEY, Calif. (JTA) — The Chmielnicki massacres weren’t particularly funny. From 1648 to 1651, nearly 100,000 Jews were slaughtered throughout Ukraine by Bohdan Chmielnicki and his roving bands of Cossacks. It was arguably the worst pogrom in history, leaving hundreds of Jewish communities in ruins. Yet according to Mel… Read more »

WASHINGTON (Washington Jewish Week) — When Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell sat down for an interview before a crowd of nearly 1,000 last year, his interlocutor, New York Times columnist David Brooks, wondered why the political heavyweight had agreed to openly discuss a matter as sensitive as his… Read more »

Community leaders worry that the widespread use of the Internet is undermining religious norms among Orthodox Jews. (Uri Fintzy)

NEW YORK (JTA) — For Josh, a Brooklyn computer technician who deals almost exclusively with a haredi Orthodox clientele, it was quite the conundrum: A man brings his computer to be cleaned of a virus that Josh believes was acquired while visiting a pornographic website. A few weeks later the… Read more »

President Barack Obama meets with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in the State Dining Room of the White House, March 1, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

NEW YORK (JTA) – President Obama reportedly urged Jewish communal leaders to speak to their friends and colleagues in Israel and to “search your souls” over Israel’s seriousness about making peace. In an hourlong meeting Tuesday with about 50 representatives from the Jewish community’s chief foreign policy umbrella group,… Read more »

As Rabbi Yossie Shemtov draws the grand prize raffle ticket at Chabad’s annual Purim party and wine tasting at Congregation Young Israel on Sunday, March 20, he may take a moment to reflect on the journey to this point. A mere 18 years ago he was standing in the… Read more »

Jon Cotter

The “Too Jewish with Rabbi Sam Cohon and Friends” radio show is launching JOiN (Jewish Organized i-Network), a business networking group with a focus on Jewish values and teachings. JOiN will hold monthly programs that will include facilitated networking, educational components and a spotlight on local businesses. The kick-off… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) – One guy we know, and we’re pretty sure he’s not in charge. The other guy we don’t know so well, and it looks like he might be in charge. The other three guys — who knows? The five figures comprising Egypt’s Supreme Military Council are commanding… Read more »

SAN FRANCISCO (JTA) — For three decades now, the American Jewish Reform movement has considered as Jewish the child of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother who is raised as a Jew. But most Reform Jews in the rest of the world still do not accept “patrilineal descent.” That… Read more »

Ruthann Pozez

Jewish Family & Children’s Services will honor Ruthann Pozez at its second annual Celebration of Caring complimentary breakfast event on Thursday, March 3. Pozez relocated from Topeka, Kan., to Tucson with her husband, Louis, co-founder of Payless Shoe Source, in 1983 and has been deeply involved with the Jewish… Read more »

Lynn Saul

The Jewish History Museum’s Jewish Storytelling Festival will begin with Lynn Saul’s discussion of her book, “Learning to Say Satoraljaujhely,” on Sunday, Feb. 27 at 2 p.m. This collection of poetry, short stories, memoir, and family and contemporary photographs reflects 200 years of Hungarian Jewish history, from the early… Read more »

Asher Susser

Asher Susser, visiting scholar in modern Israel studies at the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies, will present “Israel, Jordan and Palestine: One State, Two States or Three?” as part of the center’s Shaol Pozez Memorial Lectureship Series. The talk will be held Monday, Feb. 21 at 7 p.m. at… Read more »

The pro-Israel group StandWithUs was forced to revise this ad before it could be run on commuter rail platforms around san Francisco. (StandWithUs)

NEW YORK (JTA) — With public bickering over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict already having spilled over into university student senates, corporate pension boards and even local farmers markets, the latest battlefield in the debate over the conflict is municipal transit systems. In several major U.S. cities, advertisements on public buses… Read more »

Protesters pray in front of a tank in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Jan. 30, 2011. With the unrest in Egypt, a debate in Washington is emerging over whether to continue U.S. assistance to the country's military at $1.3 billion a year. (Iman Mosaad)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The consensus on U.S. assistance to Egypt is that it has delivered bang for its buck: The $1.3 billion in annual defense aid has stabilized a key ally and strengthened America’s profile in the Middle East. But in the wake of massive unrest that could unseat… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — For Israel, the popular uprising against the Mubarak regime raises the specter of its worst strategic nightmare: collapse of the peace treaty with Egypt, the cornerstone of its regional policy for the past three decades. That is not the inevitable outcome of the unrest; a modified… Read more »