Tagged Orthodox Union

5 Jewish NGOs join appeal to Congress for $60 billion cash infusion
March 19, 2020 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Five Jewish nonprofits are among about 100 that are asking Congress to inject $60 billion into the sector to weather the coronavirus pandemic. The groups in their letter this week say that they are on the frontline of assisting the poor during the crisis and that… Read more »

The Pittsburgh shooting caught the US Jewish community off guard. Can they catch up?

Mourners embrace during a processional outside of Congregation Beth Shalom in Pittsburgh for the funeral of Joyce Fienberg, who was killed at the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, Oct. 31, 2018. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
December 20, 2018 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Eliot Engel, a Democrat who reviles President Donald Trump, and Lee Zeldin, a Republican who eagerly embraces the president, happen to have plenty in common. They are Jewish congressman from New York known for their pro-Israel leadership, and they share a distant relative. They were also… Read more »

Why an Orthodox group says the Supreme Court’s cake shop ruling is good for the Jews

Jack Phillips, owner of the Masterpiece Cakeshop, celebrates in his Colorado store after the U.S. Supreme Court voted 7-2 in his favor in a dispute with a gay couple, June 4, 2018. (Joe Amon/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
June 5, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

(JTA) — Seven Supreme Court justices sided with a Colorado baker in his legal fight with a gay couple. And seven major Jewish groups weighed in on the decision. Six of the Jewish groups disagreed with the decision. But one Jewish organization, the Orthodox Union, dissented from the rest,… Read more »

Why more Orthodox Jews are going to AIPAC

AIPAC President Mort Fridman addresses participants at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, D.C., March 4, 2018. (AIPAC)
March 7, 2018 / Ben Sales, JTA

  WASHINGTON (JTA) — On the second floor of the downtown convention center here, hundreds attending the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee packed a standing-room-only hall. A bouncer stood outside to control the overflow crowd. It wasn’t a session on boycotts, Iran or the… Read more »

Jewish groups seek action from Trump to match his words on anti-Semitism

President Donald Trump delivers remarks after touring the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Feb. 21, 2017. (Kevin Dietsch/Pool/Getty Images)
February 21, 2017 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – He hates it, he really hates it. Now what’s he going to do about it? President Donald Trump on Tuesday culminated three weeks of missed opportunities to condemn anti-Semitism and doubling down on missed opportunities to condemn anti-Semitism with a statement unequivocally condemning anti-Semitism. “The anti-Semitic… Read more »

For Jewish groups, Syrian refugees are a reminder — not a threat

Migrants wait to be processed at the increasingly overwhelmed Moria camp on the island of Lesbos in Greece, Oct. 21, 2015. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
December 3, 2015 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – American Jewish organizations don’t see the Syrian refugees as a threat; they see them as a reminder. With rare unanimity on an issue that has stirred partisan passion, a cross-section of the community has defended the Obama administration’s refugee policy in terms recalling the plight of Jews fleeing… Read more »

European anti-Semitism is focus as Jewish leaders, Democratic senators meet
July 28, 2014 / Ron Kampeas, JTA
(Sean Hayford O’Leary via Creative Commons)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Talk at the annual meeting between Democratic senators and Jewish groups kept coming back to anti-Semitism in Europe. The recurring theme, which the 24 senators who attended and the Jewish leaders both raised, was a measure of the anxiety aroused by recent reports of attacks on… Read more »

In the New Orleans area, a synagogue dedication, community rejuvenation and Orthodox-Reform bonds
August 27, 2012 / Charlotte Anthony, JTA
Members of ZAKA rescuing a Torah from Congregation Beth Israel after Hurricane Katrina hit, August 2005. (Courtesy ZAKA)

(JTA) — Seven years ago an iconic picture for many Jews of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was of men waist deep in a flooded synagogue carrying Torahs to safety. On Sunday, in a celebration of physical and spiritual unity, the Torahs of that congregation were carried into… Read more »

OU’s Nathan Diament bestrides Orthodox, Washington worlds
July 11, 2012 / Ron Kampeas, TJA
President Obama, flanked by Nathan Diament, left, and Dr. Simcha Katz of the Orthodox Union, displays the framed reproduction of President George Washington’s letter to the Jewish community of Newport, R.I., that he was given at the conclusion of his Oval Office meeting with Orthodox Jewish leaders.(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Nathan Diament learned two things 22 years ago while watching Barack Obama play pickup basketball at the Harvard Law School gym. “He was a generous passer,” he said of the school’s Law Review editor and the future U.S. president. “He was competitive, but at an appropriate… Read more »

Jewish groups rethinking vouchers, tax credits to religious schools
May 4, 2012 / Shira Schoenberg, JTA
Students at hte Ben Gamla Kendall charter school in Florida paint durning an artist's visit to the school. (Courtesy of Ben Gamla Kendall)

BOSTON (JTA) — When the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized school vouchers in 2002, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs called it “a devastating blow to one of the foundations of our democracy”: the separation of church and state. Four years earlier, JCPA had conducted a yearlong study that… Read more »

How Jewish groups became involved in the contraception coverage debate
February 14, 2012 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) — What were the Jews doing becoming so involved in a debate over contraception? It was a question that more than one Jewish official asked themselves over recent months as tensions between the Obama administration and leaders of the Catholic Church rose to the boiling point over… Read more »

Birth control fights return to campaign, with Jews in key posts
February 7, 2012 / Ron Kampeas, JTA

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Birth control is rapidly gaining steam as an election-year wedge issue, with Jewish advocates lobbying out front and behind the scenes in what is shaping up as a clash between calls for individual freedom and religious liberty. Several Jewish groups and lawmakers played a behind-the-scenes role… Read more »