By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ibrahim Barzak spent his childhood counting the days to weekends, when he would travel with his father to see friends in Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Ashdod and Jerusalem. For Barzak’s young sons, by contrast, the names of those cities conjure malevolent exotica.Continue Reading
By Dan Aznoff, Jewish Sound Correspondent It’s never too late to finish high school. Henry Friedman had barely become a teenager when he was forced to hide in the confines of a cramped farmhouse attic. To escape the Nazi reign of terror, the young Friedman spent 18 silent months nearContinue Reading
(Israel Hayom/Exclusive to JNS.org) Adolf Hitler used the highly addictive drug crystal meth as part of his medical regimen of 74 medicines, according to a Daily Telegraph report on Saturday. Citing a 47-page document compiled by U.S. military intelligence on World War II, the report said Hitler tookContinue Reading
(JNS.org) The Israel Police and the Shin Bet security agency believe that dozens more Israeli Arabs are planning to join the Islamic State terror group after leaving Israel for Turkey or Jordan. Israeli authorities believe that at least 30 Israeli Arabs are already fighting for Islamic State, the al-Qaeda-affiliatedContinue Reading
(JNS.org) Jerusalem Police units stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound early Monday and prevented dozens of masked assailants from carrying out a planned attack, Israel Hayom reported. The assailants had gathered on the Temple Mount with rocks and fireworks. Overnight, the assailants gathered weapons and prepared Molotov cocktails inside the mosque. They barricaded theContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service (This is part of a special report on conversion in America. Read our other pieces about who’s converting to Judaism, and about the 10 questions about Jewish conversion you want to know but are afraid to ask.) ORTHODOX Number of converts: Unknown. Over the last seven years,Continue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service I understand you’re considering converting to Judaism. Shalom aleichem! What sort of conversion would you like? If Orthodox, the answer is no, no, no. Tradition dictates that prospective converts be rebuffed three times as a test of their true commitment. For a moreContinue Reading
(JTA) — Ralph Goldman, a former leader of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and a central figure in Israel’s establishment, has died at the age of 100.Goldman, who served under David Ben-Gurion as Israel’s envoy to the United States, died Tuesday in Jerusalem, where he had lived forContinue Reading
(JTA) — More than 350 anthropologists from around the world have endorsed a boycott of Israel and its academic institutions.The statement was posted Oct. 1 on the website jadaliyya.com with 231 signatories and a call for others to add their names to the list. By last Friday, the list had reached 360Continue Reading
(JTA) — Religious Jewish teens are far less likely to attempt suicide than their secular Jewish counterparts, a new study finds.The study, led by researchers from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine and Clalit Health Service’s Geha Mental Health Center, and published last week in the journal European Psychology,Continue Reading
(JTA) — Israel’s Health Ministry issued a warning declaring that therapies aimed at changing patients from gay to straight are not supported by medical evidence and could be harmful.Signed by Health Minister Yael German, Sunday’s decision adopts the position of the Council of Psychologists and the Israel Psychological Association.The HealthContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service (This is part of a special JTA report on conversion in America. Read our other pieces about who’s converting to Judaism, and about the denomination-by-denomination breakdown of how the different denominations do conversion.) Must coverts pass a test to become a Jew? Generally, no. Across all the denominations,Continue Reading
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA World News Service THE HAGUE, Netherlands (JTA) — For the tour guides that lead visitors through the Van Ostade Housing Project, Fabrice Schomberg’s sukkah is one of the few signs of the neighborhood’s Jewish roots. Built in the 19th century for impoverished Jews, the enclave todayContinue Reading
(JTA) — A French teenager who wanted to join jihadists in Syria said her handlers instructed her to commit attacks on Jews in France.The testimony of the 15-year-old girl, who was arrested last month after her parents alerted police to her plans, appeared Thursday in Le Nouvel Observateur weekly. TheContinue Reading
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee asked the U.S. Department of Education to insure that college programs receiving federal funds not include an anti-Israel bias.U.S. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) in a letter sent Monday to Education Secretary Arne Duncan requested that standards of accountability beContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, The Jewish Sound The next three years at the Stroum Jewish Community Center look something like this: A lot more arts programming, more experimentation in fitness and outreach programs, small changes in the look and feel of its Mercer Island facility, and more emphasis on maintainingContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, The Jewish Sound They sleep in their cars, they crash with friends and family, they give up their pets. They don’t know where they’re going to stay tonight, or if they’ll be able to stay in the apartment they’re in. The shelters are atContinue Reading
You and Your Genes — genetic screening Sunday, November 16, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. One in four Ashkenazi Jews is a carrier of at least one in 19 genetic diseases; one in three Sephardic or Persian Jews is a carrier of at least one in eight diseases. If you and yourContinue Reading
By Boris Kurbanov, Jewish Sound Correspondent Nearly 50 years after the late Morris Piha opened his commercial real estate company, Morris Piha Real Estate Services, the firm has rebranded, announcing its new name on Sept. 17 as Azose Commercial Properties. Long known for being one of Puget Sound’s top commercialContinue Reading
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent Temple De Hirsch Sinai took a programming risk with Rosh Hashanah this year and it paid off — big time. On the second night of 5775, nearly 100 Jews in their 20s and 30s showed up at Sole Repair Shop, an event space inContinue Reading
