Tagged HEADLINES

(JTA) — Hank Azaria said he will no longer voice the character of Indian convenience store manager Apu on “The Simpsons.” Azaria has been the thickly accented caricatured voice of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, manager of the show’s Kwik-E-Mart convenience store, for 30 years. “All we know there is I won’t… Read more »

(JTA) — A Wisconsin man with Jordanian roots was arrested for vandalizing a synagogue as part of his involvement in a white supremacist and neo-Nazi hate group known as The Base. Yousef Barasneh, 22, was arrested Friday as part of a nationwide investigation into the extremist group. Six other… Read more »

(JTA) – A week before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Pope Francis renewed his condemnation of anti-Semitism, decrying its “barbaric resurgence.” Francis was addressing a delegation from the Simon Wiesenthal Center that met with him at the Vatican on Monday. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed in Italy and throughout… Read more »

(JTA) — A transgender woman in England has given up her legal fight to see her five haredi Orthodox children. The woman has not seen the children, whom she fathered when she was living as a man, since leaving a haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community in Manchester in 2015. At a… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Chief Rabbinate has officially recognized the Beta Israel Jewish community from Ethiopia as Jewish. The ruling issued in November, but first reported Sunday by the Kan national broadcaster, accepts the position of the late Sephardic chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who ruled in 1973 that the… Read more »

(JTA) — Donald Trump Jr., son of the president, said he has met Lev Parnas and said he thought the Ukrainian-American businessman was Israeli. Trump Jr. told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that he and his father took photos with Parnas at political fundraising events, but that is… Read more »

(JTA) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leading a congressional delegation to Poland and Israel to commemorate 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, laid a wreath at the former Nazi camp on Tuesday. Pelosi joined her Polish counterpart, Elzbieta Witek, the speaker of the Sejm, the lower house of… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Joe Biden mocked President Donald Trump’s claims to speak out against anti-Semitism, saying the president is dividing the country and turning a blind eye to white supremacists. “President’s talking about how he’s worried about anti-Semitism,” Biden told The New York Time’s editorial board in an interview… Read more »

(JTA) — The United Kingdom designated the entire Hezbollah organization as a terrorist group and froze its assets. The Finance Ministry move, which was announced Friday, is part of the implementation of the UK’s Terrorism and Terrorist Financing rules, Reuters reported. Until now, only Hezbollah’s military wing was subject… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Alan Dershowitz, the constitutional scholar, will join President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team. “Professor Dershowitz will present oral arguments at the Senate trial to address the constitutional arguments against impeachment and removal,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman quoted Trump’s legal team as saying on Friday.… Read more »

(JTA) — Hundreds of Muslims chanted about killing Jews outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on Friday morning, prompting police to disperse the crowd. The chants began as worshippers were leaving the mosque following prayers atop the Temple Mount, Israel’s Channel 13 reported. No one was injured in clashes… Read more »

(JTA) — The Chelsea soccer club in Britain marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a commemorative mural of Jewish players and prisoners of war who were sent to a Nazi camp. The mural was unveiled Wednesday on a wall outside of the West Stand at Stamford Bridge and is… Read more »

(JTA) — Ukraine’s parliament for the first time commemorated the Holocaust ahead of the international date in memory of the victims. The Verkohvna Rada in Kyiv held a memorial ceremony on Thursday ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. The date was designated in 2005 by the… Read more »

(JTA) — Gladys Bourdain, who convinced an editor to publish the first article written by her chef son Anthony, has died. Bourdain died in hospice on Friday in the Bronx, New York. She was 85. She worked for nearly 25 years as a copy editor at the New York… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish organization in Ukraine said that the number of anti-Semitic incidents documented there last year decreased by 27 percent over 2018. The United Jewish Community of Ukraine, one of several groups representing Ukrainian Jewry, said in a report published Monday that it has documented 66 anti-Semitic… Read more »

(JTA) — An Israeli fashion model said that she was denied a job offer from a Lebanon-born French designer because of her nationality. Arbel Kynan told At magazine in Israel earlier this week that Maison Rabih Kayrouz cancelled a gig that had been lined up for her at Paris… Read more »

(JTA) — A New Jersey pizzeria has fired the manager accused of sending anti-Semitic text messages to a teenage employee after he asked to take off for a Jewish holiday. The family that owns Maurizio’s Pizzeria & Italian Ristorante in Eatontown, New Jersey, also has apologized to the teen… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) –Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin about regional developments and about the case of an American-Israeli woman jailed for drug smuggling. “The conversation was warm and to the point and strengthened the Prime Minister’s optimism that the issue of the… Read more »

(JTA) — A Florida man who has presented himself as a child Holocaust survivor has withdrawn as a plaintiff in a trial against a former Nazi concentration camp guard. Moshe Peter Loth made headlines in November when he hugged defendant Bruno Dey during his trial in Hamburg, Germany. Loth has… Read more »

(JTA) — A man sprayed a swastika and racial epithets on the stairs and front door of a synagogue in Lincoln, Nebraska, then took a picture of his vandalism. The graffiti discovered on Wednesday morning on the South Street Temple was drawn in orange spray-paint, KOLN’s 1011 NOW news… Read more »