(JTA) — Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas criticized President Barack Obama’s relationship with Israel while announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. “Instead of a president who boycotts Prime Minister Netanyahu, imagine a president who stands unapologetically with Israel,” Cruz said during his announcement Monday at LibertyContinue Reading
By Anthony Weiss, JTA World News Service PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) — For Tim and Sonia Marie Leikam, the dream is nearly complete. Behind the couple’s tidy Victorian house on a tree-lined street in southeast Portland is a pitched-roof building that vaguely resembles a garage with too small a door. ButContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — Hillel International said its president, Eric Fingerhut, was pulling out of J Street’s upcoming annual conference because of the scheduled appearance there of Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator. But J Street isn’t buying it. In a statement Monday, theContinue Reading
By Sarah Wildman, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — At the AIPAC conference, a sea of 16,000 Israel supporters spent their time talking Iran policy amid the swirling controversy over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress. To the sidelines fell discussion of the Israeli elections, the peace processContinue Reading
By Anthony Weiss, JTA World News Service PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) – Until recently, Jo Borkan was thinking about leaving Portland. She had lived in the city almost her whole life and owns a house on the city’s east side. But Borkan craved a connection to Judaism, and she couldn’t seem toContinue Reading
By Anthony Weiss, JTA World News Service PORTLAND, Ore. (JTA) – Until recently, Jo Borkan was thinking about leaving Portland. She had lived in the city almost her whole life and owns a house on the city’s east side. But Borkan craved a connection to Judaism, and she couldn’t seem toContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — As clearly as Jeb Bush has stated that he does not want his foreign policy chops assessed against that of his brother — or his father — his choice in advisers has only made things murkier. Of 21 advisers to theContinue Reading
By Suzanne Pollak and Geoffrey W. Melada, JTA/Washington Jewish Week Rabbi Barry Freundel, the former spiritual leader at a prominent Washington synagogue, pleaded guilty to 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism. The plea Thursday means that Freundel could be sentenced to a maximum penalty of 52 years in prison and orderedContinue Reading
(JTA) — A woman in Boise, Idaho, allegedly harassed and physically attacked her Jewish neighbor in order to convince her to convert to Christianity. Marguerite Haragan, 58, was charged last week with two counts of malicious harassment in the attack, which police have labeled a hate crime, the KTVB televisionContinue Reading
(JTA) – A neighbor was charged with first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of three Muslims near the University of North Carolina. The victims in the Tuesday night shooting included a newlywed couple — UNC dental student Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23, and Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha, 21. Abu-Salha’s sister, Razan MohammadContinue Reading
(JTA) — The Stanford University student senate defeated an Israel divestment resolution. On Tuesday night, the Associated Students of Stanford University had nine votes for the measure and five against, with one abstention. But to pass, the measure required 66 percent of the senators to approve and finished with 64Continue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) – The controversy over whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s planned speech to Congress next month is worrying pro-Israel Democrats about its possible impact on the 2016 elections. Even more worrisome, some Democrats say, are the voter trends underpinning the currentContinue Reading
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — The University of California Student Association passed two resolutions urging the university to divest from several countries, including Israel, the United States and Mexico. On Sunday, the association’s board of directors cited human rights violations in several countries in backing measures that urged the University ofContinue Reading
(JTA) — James Foley and Steven Sotloff, American journalists who were killed by ISIS, were honored with an award in memory of the murdered Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl. The ADL Daniel Pearl Award was presented to the parents of Foley and Sotloff last Friday during the organization’s National Executive CommitteeContinue Reading
NEW YORK (JTA) – Ellen Schaeffer Brody, a Jewish mother of three from Scarsdale, was identified as the driver of the SUV that caused a deadly Metro-North train accident in suburban New York. Brody, 49, and five passengers aboard the train were killed during rush hour on Tuesday evening whenContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service WASHINGTON (JTA) — After the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris last month, Kari Alterman heard from every one of her Detroit-area Muslim dialogue partners, all of them calling to express their sadness and concern. They just didn’t do so publicly. Statements condemning violenceContinue Reading
(JTA) — Two swastikas were spray-painted on a Jewish fraternity’s house at the University of California, Davis, two days after the student senate passed a divestment resolution targeting Israel. The swastikas were painted on the off-campus house of Alpha Epsilon Pi sometime early Saturday morning. “I don’t think that it’sContinue Reading
(JTA) — An upcoming Republican National Committee trip to Israel is being fully funded by a hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, an American civil rights organization. The trip, which will take 60 RNC members to Israel for nine days beginning Saturday, is being paid for byContinue Reading
NEW YORK (JTA) — Streit’s said it will close the company’s 90-year-old matzah factory on New York’s Lower East Side. Aron Streit, Inc., a family-owned business, said it will leave the facility at 148-154 Rivington St. following the Passover baking season in April. “The economics just finally caught up withContinue Reading
By Ron Kampeas, JTA World News Service CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (JTA) – Jewish campus groups were ready for the painful national dialogue that took place in the wake of murky rape allegations at the University of Virginia. That’s because organizations like Hillel and historically Jewish Greek houses such as Alpha Epsilon Pi, ZetaContinue Reading
