By JNS, JNS.org (JNS.org) The Norwegian Cruise Line announced Tuesday that it is canceling all of its remaining port calls to Tunisia and ceasing all future port calls there in response to the Tunisian government’s refusal to allow a group of Israelis to disembark the Norwegian Jade ship in theContinue Reading
By Jacob Kamaras, JNS.org More than five months after the Pew Research Center’s “A Portrait of Jewish Americans” survey drew widespread pessimism over rising intermarriage and assimilation, as well as declining connection with synagogues and other institutions, proponents of a newly released study believe they may have the antidote forContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Bernie Glassman is widely known within Zen Buddhist communities as one of its masters. However, he takes facets of his Jewish upbringing into his Zen practice, and among his inspirations are many Jewish teachers, including Reb Zalman Schachter Shalomi, a leader in the Jewish RenewalContinue Reading
By , JNS.org We all recognize the taste of poppy seed or jam when we bite into hamantaschen on Purim. But given the right filling, or dough, the traditional pastry has a lot more to offer. Jamie Geller, founder of the Kosher Media Network and publisher of “Joy of KosherContinue Reading
By Ruti Cohenca, Special to JTNews As part of the celebration of Purim, Jews in Persia sent gifts of food to their friends — shalach manot. We have continued this tradition. This is a fun and easy mitzvah because you do some cooking and/or shopping, and then deliver treats toContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, JTNews Seventy-two hours after an earthquake devastated Haiti in 2010, Israel was the only country to have a mobile field hospital up and running in Port-au-Prince. From his home in New York, William Recant watched the relief effort take shape on TV. Recant, theContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews In honor of the 90th birthday of The Jewish Transcript/JTNews, we will be hosting a number of initiatives over the next several months to celebrate this banner year, starting with the launch of our online archives. Fire up your web browser and head on overContinue Reading
By Rachel Allen and Aviva Prizont, Special to JTNews A tall man in a fancy blue uniform fiddled around with his laptop at the front of the classroom, trying to open his presentation. He turned to his audience, a group of girls waiting at their desks, and imparted his firstContinue Reading
By , JTA World News Service Cheryl Jacobs, Columbus, Ohio Camper at Camp Kinder Ring in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., in the mid-’70s My two grandmothers were summer residents of a bungalow colony euphemistically named “The Forest Lake Country Club.” A country club it wasn’t! My grandmothers walked along the shoresContinue Reading
By , JTA World News Service Cheryl Jacobs, Columbus, Ohio Camper at Camp Kinder Ring in Hopewell Junction, N.Y., in the mid-’70s My two grandmothers were summer residents of a bungalow colony euphemistically named “The Forest Lake Country Club.” A country club it wasn’t! My grandmothers walked along the shoresContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington determined to hold the line on Iran, but he also brought something new: An expansive vision of Middle East peace. The Israeli prime minister remained firm, after meeting with President Obama on Monday, in insistingContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu came to Washington determined to hold the line on Iran, but he also brought something new: An expansive vision of Middle East peace. The Israeli prime minister remained firm, after meeting with President Obama on Monday, in insistingContinue Reading
By Rabbi Fred Grossman, Special to JTNews That’s the question I’m always coming up against in my work as a hospice chaplain. It’s my job to help people get ready to die. But the trouble with this, as you can imagine, is that people don’t want to die. In fact,Continue Reading
By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent Tradition will always reign at Sephardic Bikur Holim Congregation in Seattle. Its new rabbi, English-born Ben Hassan, whose family hails from Gibraltar and Morocco, hopes to start some new ones this year. SBH’s hazzan of 20 years, Rabbi Frank Varon, will still chant the prayersContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA)—If it wasn’t clear before, it should be abundantly clear now: The Orthodox establishment will not sanction so-called partnership minyans, and it’s willing to go to the mat to fight them. In recent weeks, a flurry of articles by leading OrthodoxContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA)—If it wasn’t clear before, it should be abundantly clear now: The Orthodox establishment will not sanction so-called partnership minyans, and it’s willing to go to the mat to fight them. In recent weeks, a flurry of articles by leading OrthodoxContinue Reading
By Julie Wiener, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA)—A Religion News Service article about the PJ Library is headlined “Free books — 10 million of them — help keep Jewish kids Jewish.” Now the foundation behind the widely lauded nine-year-old program—which distributes free books to more than 130,000 JewishContinue Reading
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA World News Service (JTA)—He calls his troops “the Blue Helmets of Maidan,” but brown is the color of the headgear worn by Delta—the nom de guerre of the commander of a Jewish-led militia force that participated in the Ukrainian revolution. Under his helmet, he also wearsContinue Reading
By Amelia Katzen, JNS.org “The most difficult thing to overcome is their terror,” the young doctor said softly. “All their lives they have been told that Israelis are evil, they are the devil. They come to us because they have no choice. But they are terrified.” Dr. Sasha S., aContinue Reading
As many already know, not only is the Vulcan salute (“live long and prosper”) based in Jewish prayer, the notorious Star Trek Enterprise science officer, Spock (Jewish actor Leonard Nimoy) made it famous on the 1960s science fiction classic television show, Star Trek: The Original Series. Nimoy, who discussed theContinue Reading
