By Ben Sales, JTA World News TEL AVIV (JTA) — On Sunday, Israel’s Cabinet is set to advance a controversial bill that if passed by the Knesset would enshrine into law Israel’s status as a Jewish state. The nation-state law, as it is being called, has support from much ofContinue Reading
(JNS.org) The undergraduate student government at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) voted to divest from American companies that do business in Israel. According to the Daily Bruin, the Undergraduate Students Association Council (USAC) voted 8-2-2 for the measure that calls for the University of California to divest from AmericanContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — They all lived on the same street. They had all moved there from abroad. They were all rabbis. They all prayed at the same synagogue. And it was at that Jerusalem synagogue that they were all murdered on Tuesday morning. MoshehContinue Reading
(JNS.org) Israeli Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonvitch ordered a probe to examine easing restrictions on gun laws following the gruesome terror attack on a Jerusalem synagogue that left four dead and eight injured on Tuesday. According to a spokesperson for Aharonovitch, the minister would examine easing restrictions for security personnelContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — After a gruesome attack by two Palestinian cousins left four dead at a Jerusalem synagogue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu singled out one person for blame: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. In a statement issued by his office, Abbas denouncedContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Five Israelis were killed in a terror attack during morning prayers at a Jerusalem synagogue, including one Druze policeman who died hours after being injured in a shootout. Two Palestinian assailants entered the synagogue and rabbinical seminary in the Har Nof neighborhood of western Jerusalem and attacked worshippers onContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Knesset committee vote on a law to officially make Israel the nation-state of all Jews was postponed. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, head of the centrist Hatnua party, on Sunday postponed her ministerial committee for legislation’s vote on the bill known as the Nationality Law. “The explosiveContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Jewish man was stabbed with a screwdriver in central Jerusalem. The victim, 32, was treated on the scene for stab wounds to his upper body before being taken to Shaarey Zedek Medical Center in the city. The assailant reportedly was a Palestinian youth who was seenContinue Reading
NEW YORK (JTA) — More than a dozen members of a prominent Satmar Hasidic family in New York were charged with lying to obtain $20 million in mortgages while also receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in public benefits. Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of NewContinue Reading
(JTA) — A murder-suicide in Portland, Ore., has left two Jewish day school students orphaned. Portland police said that Ian Elias, 47, killed his ex-wife, Nicolette Elias, 46, at her home and then fled across town with his two daughters, ages 8 and 9, the Oregonian newspaper reported Tuesday. AfterContinue Reading
VANCOUVER, Canada (JTA) — A youth hockey coach in suburban Vancouver was fired for posting Nazi propaganda on social media. Christopher Maximilian Sandau, 33, was dismissed earlier this month by the North Delta Minor Hockey Association after refusing to remove the posts from his Facebook page, CTV News reported. SandauContinue Reading
By Abraham H. Foxman NEW YORK (JTA) — Each year on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we recall the opening salvo of the violent assault on Jews that foreshadowed the Holocaust and ask ourselves what should have been done at that moment. In thinking about Kristallnacht, we should also consider the outpouringContinue Reading
By Uriel Heilman, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA) – The Anti-Defamation League’s new national director will be social entrepreneur Jonathan Greenblatt — a special assistant to President Obama who earlier in his career co-founded the bottled water brand Ethos. Greenblatt, 43, will succeed Abraham Foxman, who announced inContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Palestinian man suspected of running over three Israeli soldiers with a van turned himself in. Hamam Mesalmeh, of the West Bank village of Beit Awa, near Hebron, surrendered at the West Bank’s Etzion District Coordinating Office, which coordinates activities between Israeli and Palestinian security forces, atContinue Reading
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The International Criminal Court said it will not open a war crimes case against Israel in the Mavi Marmara incident. The Hague court on Thursday reportedly closed a preliminary investigation into the May 2010 incident in which nine Turkish passengers, including one U.S. citizen, were killedContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) – The Israeli government has adopted a major reform expected to ease the path to conversion for hundreds of thousands of Israelis now prohibited from marrying in the Jewish state. In the most significant response in decades to the estimatedContinue Reading
By Batya Ungar-Sargon, JTA World News Service NEW YORK (JTA) — As the last generation of Holocaust survivors ages and dies, efforts to capture their final, untold stories have abounded. But in her new book “Paper Love: Searching for the Girl My Grandfather Left Behind,” Sarah Wildman has turned insteadContinue Reading
By Sean Savage, JNS.org Known primarily for their military prowess and high-tech ingenuity, Israelis are often overlooked when it comes to their global engagement. But IsraAID, an Israeli non-profit and non-governmental organization founded in 2001, has been on the frontline of every major humanitarian crisis of the 21st century —Continue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service TEL AVIV (JTA) — SodaStream, the Israeli at-home seltzer machine company, announced last week that it would be closing its West Bank factory and moving the facility’s operations to southern Israel next year. Here’s what you need to know about SodaStream, the controversy that hasContinue Reading
By Ben Sales, JTA World News Service JERUSALEM (JTA) — An anonymous White House staffer apparently isn’t the only one who thinks Benjamin Netanyahu is shy about taking chances. A piece this week in The Atlantic magazine by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg ignited a firestorm with its revelation that an ObamaContinue Reading
