Tagged HEADLINES

(JTA) — The United States’ withdrawal of some 2,000 ground troops from Syria does not signal the end of the U.S. commitment to Israel’s security, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said. Pompeo made the statement Tuesday at the start of a meeting in Brazil with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin… Read more »

(JTA) — A New York rabbi says he has been asked by the Muslim country Qatar for advice on how to host Jewish soccer fans at the 2022 World Cup. Rabbi Marc Schneier told Bloomberg News that he was asked by Hassan Al-Thawadi, the secretary-general of the organizing committee… Read more »

(JTA) — Facebook founder Marc Zuckerberg insists that the massive social network is a force for good, but the company keeps getting called out for being slow or unable to curb the worst tendencies of users and abusers. In the latest probe of its practices, The New York Times scrutinizes… Read more »

(JTA) — Louise Deser Siskel, a high school senior who presideD over the New Year’s Day Tournament of Roses Parade, says she is the first Jewish Rose queen in the parade’s 101-year history. Siskel, 18, also told the local media that she is the first LGBTQ queen and the first… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish Home party head Naftali Bennett and party leader Ayelet Shaked announced that they would leave the pro-settler party and form a new alliance ahead of national elections. Bennett, who serves as education minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, and Ayelet Shaked, the justice minister, at… Read more »

(JTA) — A medical resident at the Cleveland Clinic who wrote scores of anti-Semitic social media posts no longer works at the medical center. Dr. Lara Kollab worked at the Clinic from July 2018 – September 2018.  The Clinic on Monday in a statement confirmed that Kollab no longer works… Read more »

(JTA) — The Pittsburgh Steelers’ Stronger Than Hate campaign inspired the city and the world to rally around the Jewish community in the wake of the shooting attack on a local synagogue building that left 11 dead. On Sunday, the Steelers donated $70,000 to help the Jewish community and… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s withdrawal from UNESCO has gone into effect a year after it officially notified the international body that it would leave. Israel announced at the end of 2017 that it would leave the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in solidarity with the United States,… Read more »

(JTA) — Jewish leaders from Dothan, Alabama, say their non-Jewish neighbors were unfairly smeared as intolerant in an article about a Jewish couple’s dilemma over staying in the town. A Washington Post article published last week profiled Lisa and Kenny Priddle, who took an offer of up to $50,000… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Veterans of Bernie Sanders insurgent 2016 campaign for the presidency want the Vermont senator to meet with them to discuss “sexual violence and harassment” on the campaign as he contemplates whether to run in 2020. “In recent weeks there has been an ongoing conversation on social… Read more »

(JTA) — The New York Times devoted much of its front page and three inside pages Sunday to a reconstruction of the circumstances surrounding the June death of a Palestinian medic during riots at the Israeli fence with Gaza. The newspaper concludes that the shooting of 20-year-old Rouzan al-Najjar by an Israeli soldier “appears… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An unnamed Israeli official confirmed that Israel carried out airstrikes in Syria, hitting several Iranian targets. The airstrikes late on Tuesday night hit Iranian arms storage facilities and arms depots, used to ship weapons to the terrorist Hezbollah organization in neighboring Lebanon. The Israeli official also… Read more »

(JTA) — A University of Massachusetts student was asked to remove a sign from her dorm window saying “F*** Nazis, you are not welcome”  because it did not foster a sense of inclusion. Nicole Parsons, a junior, said she put up the sign following an incident in which a… Read more »

(JTA) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released from the hospital after cancer surgery and will continue to recuperate at home. Ginsburg, 85, who was released on Tuesday, had surgery to remove a cancerous growth from her left lung. The growth was discovered during tests after she… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s attorney general likely will wait until after national elections to announce whether or not he will indict Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in three corruption investigations, but the allegations could be central to the early elections. Sources reported to be close to Avichai Mandelblit told Hebrew… Read more »

(JTA) — A U.S. court ordered North Korea to pay $501 million to the family of Otto Warmbier, a Jewish student who died in 2016 after being imprisoned there. A District Court judge in Washington, D.C., on Monday awarded the Warmbiers approximately half the $1.05 billion they requested in… Read more »

(JTA) — Jewish groups are offering assistance in the wake of a tsunami in Indonesia that has left more than 400 dead and thousands homeless. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is providing emergency relief and assessing emerging needs in the Kalianda and Rajabasa subdistricts of Lampung, a province… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Bipartisan legislation named for the late Elie Wiesel that aims to improve the U.S. response to emerging or potential genocides is expected to be signed into law by President Donald Trump. The Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act passed final votes last week in the… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel will hold new elections in April after the heads of all six coalition parties announced Monday that they were dissolving the government. The current government’s term was set to end in November. “Out of national and budgetary responsibility, the leaders of the coalition parties decided,… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — James Mattis is quitting as defense secretary and his extraordinary resignation letter has brought into the open an argument among conservatives on whether to cut and run in the Middle East or whether to stay with no clear outcome. The argument also touches on two subjects… Read more »