By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA)—Presbyterians who engage in dialogue with Jewish groups are scrambling to undo what they say is the damage caused by a congregational study guide assailing Zionism distributed by a group affiliated with their denomination. The guide, “Zionism Unsettled,” posits that the Israeli-PalestinianContinue Reading
By Cnaan Liphshiz, JTNews Correspondent (JTA)—When Farida Trichine and 11 of her friends burst into a French supermarket in 2009 and began applying stickers with anti-Israel slogans to vegetables imported from the Jewish state, she expected to be escorted from the store by police. What she didn’t expect was toContinue Reading
By Maayan Jaffe, JNS.org Picture a mad science lab with electrical wires, computer chords, ropes, and wheels and you have a pretty good picture of one of the country’s more than 20 CIJE-Tech laboratories. CIJE, the Center for Initiatives in Jewish Education, is a non-profit organization that provides advanced classroomContinue Reading
By JTA News Desk, JTA World News Service Spain’s Jewish community congratulated the government for approving a bill proposing to facilitate the naturalization of Sephardic Jews of Spanish descent. Last Friday, Spain’s government approved the bill, which was filed in January by the ruling Popular Party and proposes to amendContinue Reading
By Alina Dain Sharon, JNS.org With the Winter Olympics gearing up for their Feb. 7 start in Sochi, Russia, the Jewish debate on the games mirrors the discourse taking place in the broader international and athletic communities. While some Jews say they view the games purely as sport—with social orContinue Reading
By Dmitriy Shapiro, JNS.org Efforts to keep a significant collection of artifacts seized from Iraq’s Jewish community by Saddam Hussein from being returned to the Gulf nation by the United States may be picking up steam on Capitol Hill. With just months to go before a June deadline mandates theContinue Reading
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 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 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 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 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 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 Cnaan Liphshiz, JTA World News Service AMSTERDAM (JTA)—She speaks only Japanese and is not entirely sure what country she’s in, but 18-year-old Haruna Matsui is happy to stand in the rain for an hour with two friends to see the home of a person she has never met yetContinue Reading
By Julie Schonfeld , JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA) — The good news is in: Rabbi Avi Weiss’ conversions will be accepted in Israel. I am glad to see that the religious integrity and leadership of Rabbi Weiss has been acknowledged. Undoubtedly, this course correction on the partContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA)—When the Israeli mobile maps start-up Waze accepted a buyout from Google for more than $1 billion in June, each of the company’s 100 employees walked away with an average of $1.2 million from the sale. An even bigger check, though,Continue Reading
By Ron Csillag, JTA World News Service TORONTO (JTA) — It took seven years, but one of Israel’s staunchest allies among world leaders has made his maiden voyage to the Jewish state. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper arrived in Israel on Sunday with his wife, Laureen. On Tuesday, Harper andContinue Reading
