By Maxine Dovere, JNS.org NEW YORK—Days before Super Bowl XLVIII in northern New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, a New York City room filled with players, coaches, and supporters of the Israel Football League (IFL)—a group of spanning several generations of Israeli sportsmen—looked forward to an upcoming signature event for American-style footballContinue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, JTNews Two things in life are unavoidable: Death and taxes. And no one wants to talk about either of them. Yet most of us have had to deal with loss, which can come with a menu of grief, shock, confusion, and conflict. This isContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA)—Of the 200,000 wine bottles Yakov Burg produced last year, 16,000 went to Europe. The possibility of a boycott and repeated rumblings that Europe is planning to label goods produced in the settlements could decrease that number, but Burg isn’t worried.Continue Reading
By Yoni Kintzer , Special to JTNews Inspiring and eye-opening — the only way to describe my weekend in Olympia with the Legislative Youth Advisory Council (LYAC), a group of 22 youth from around Washington State who represent youth issues to our state legislature. The council invited members from differentContinue Reading
By Linda Gradstein, The Media Line After several years, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) seems to be gaining strength. From a Norwegian sovereign wealth fund to a Danish bank, to Oxfam, to musician Roger Waters, each day brings news calls to boycott Israel as a response to itsContinue Reading
By Hillel Kuttler , Special to JTNews East Rutherford, N.J. — When Rachel Horvitz took her seat high in the corner of the end zone for Super Bowl XLVIII late Sunday afternoon, her blue Seahawks sweatshirt was rendered invisible in a sea of Denver Broncos orange. By late in theContinue Reading
By JNS.org, JNS.org Jewish-American actress Scarlett Johansson is stepping down as a global ambassador for the human rights group Oxfam International, which had criticized her for serving as pitch woman for Israeli carbonated beverage company SodaStream. Johansson’s decision comes ahead of the airing of her SodaStream commercial on Super BowlContinue Reading
By Ben Harris, JTA World News Service Today began on a sad note with news that Pete Seeger, a man for whom the modifier “legendary” seems hopelessly inadequate, had died in New York City at 94. Unlike some of my friends who were weaned on Seeger’s music, I encountered theContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Activists from both sides of the issue created a line that stretched around the legislative building on Jan. 28 as state lawmakers held a hearing on Initiative 594, which if passed will require background checks on any sale of a firearm in Washington State. TheContinue Reading
By Dmitriy Shapiro, JNS.org Israeli-Palestinian conflict negotiations and the Iran nuclear program are at the top of the Jewish community’s agenda ahead of tonight’s annual State of the Union address. Like presidents before him, President Barack Obama has traditionally used this address before Congress to lay out an ambitious agenda—andContinue Reading
By Hillel Kuttler, JTA World News Service BALTIMORE (JTA)—Rabbi Daniel Alter expects some added fervency during daily prayer services at the Denver Academy of Torah in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. Alter, the academy’s head of school, recalls that when the Colorado Rockies faced the Boston RedContinue Reading
By Danny Danon, JNS.org I am overwhelmed, at Auschwitz, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where I join somberly with fellow Israeli leaders to remember and to learn lessons for the future. The infamous arched sign over the gates to the concentration camp still commands: Arbeit Macht Frei. This was noContinue Reading
By Janis Siegel , JTNews Correspondent Whether they’re roasted, honey-covered, chocolate-dipped, spicy, salted, or just raw and out of the shell, people around the world love peanuts. In the U.S., that’s especially true during heated sports matches. But Israel’s prolific and lucrative peanut crops were turning out more and moreContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA)—The announcement this week that SAR, a modern Orthodox high school in New York, is allowing girls to lay tefillin is helping expose an increasingly sharp fault line within Orthodoxy. For decades, it has been difficult to sort out the preciseContinue Reading
By Paul Goldenberg, JTNews Correspondent NEW YORK (JTA)—The growing risks posed by homegrown terrorism, the rise of European ultranationalist fervor and anti-Israel boycotts, coupled with the likelihood that Mideast tensions may intensify, has given rise to a distinct and unfamiliar threat directly impacting homeland and Jewish communal security. Groups orContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Earlier this month, Andy Stern, the former president of the Service Employees International Union, came through Seattle to talk about jobs and our country’s economic future. On the heels of the inauguration of socialist city councilmember Kshama Sawant and the narrow passage of a $15Continue Reading
By Emily K. Alhadeff , Associate Editor, JTNews This is a year of milestone birthdays: The University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies is celebrating its 40th, JTNews its 90th, and the Caroline Kline Galland Home its 100th. But here’s one you might not know about: The Hebrew FreeContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews We asked, you responded. And respond you did, in record numbers! With our annual reader’s choice poll, we’ve got the skinny on the best of the best of Jewish Washington. We slimmed down and rearranged this year’s survey, and we’ll slim down our comments asContinue Reading
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, JTNews Rather than have us write about them, we thought we’d let our readers tell their stories: | Local educator Beth Huppin, “for her devotion to her students, young and old.” | Cantor David Serkin-Poole of Temple B’nai Torah, “champion of the disabled, fighter for civilContinue Reading
