Op-Ed: Centralizing authority on conversions hurts converts
By Avi Weiss and Marc Angel NEW YORK (JTA) — The Israeli government recently moved to decentralize the conversion system by allowing local courts to convert individuals on their own. Ironically, as Israel moves away from centralization, here in America the Rabbinical Council of America is enthusiastically embracing it. TheContinue Reading
Hasidic family charged in $20 million fraud case
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
Closing the circle: Seattle’s Sephardic liturgy is complete
By Emily K. Alhadeff, Associate Editor, The Jewish Sound Looking back on the past 84 years, Isaac Azose is most proud of the family he built. Next, he’s proudest of his books — the five prayer books in the Sephardic tradition of the Isle of Rhodes that he edited andContinue Reading
What do students learn when a curriculum is based on politics?
By Joel Magalnick, Editor, The Jewish Sound Whether it’s seen as a way to teach students about an under-examined side of a conflict or as an irresponsible attempt at indoctrination, the next battleground in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict appears to be coming to high school social studies classrooms. Three years inContinue Reading
Portland Jewish community shaken by murder-suicide
(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
Youth hockey coach fired for posting Nazi propaganda on Facebook
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
Op-Ed: Kristallnacht’s lessons for today
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
Israeli aid organization sets up shop in Seattle
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent Because of the Israeli international development group TAG, honeybees in Myanmar are busily producing their beloved sweet syrup for more than 5,000 people in 25 villages to sell. Thanks to TAG’s Israeli agricultural experts and a grant from Google, more than 200 people inContinue Reading
White House aide Jonathan Greenblatt to succeed Abe Foxman as ADL chief
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
When the bombs fall, this Israeli hospital will be prepared
By Janis Siegel, Jewish Sound Correspondent The babies in the neo-natal unit of the Hadassah University Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, will be the first, followed by the children, and then the terminally ill who will be prioritized for evacuation if rockets fall and terrorists strike inside of Israel.Continue Reading
Palestinian driver suspected of running over soldiers turns himself in
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
ICC won’t prosecute Israel for war crimes in Mavi Marmara incident
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
Writing the best moment of her life
By Masada Siegel, Special to the Jewish Sound “Israel had a big effect on me,” says Ruchama King Feuerman. “It’s the kind of place where outrageous stories are handed to you on a platter, and then you have to tone them down to make them believable.” Much like the charactersContinue Reading
A different kind of sukkah
By Neve Levinson A sukkah is a temporary dwelling that modern Jews create to reconstruct the shelters our ancestors used while wandering in the desert. The only restrictions on how they should stand are that they must have a complete open wall, and its visitors must be able to seeContinue Reading
We have nothing to fear from fear itself
By Rabbi Adam Rubin, Congregation Beth Shalom While most Americans are religious — the great majority of our fellow citizens continue to assert a belief in the Divine (though this has declined in recent years, according to most surveys) — it’s how we’re religious that I find interesting. In orderContinue Reading
Israel moves to ease path to conversion for those not considered Jewish
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
‘Paper Love’: Paving the way for post-survivor storytelling
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
Scramble a little spice into your pasta
By Michael Natkin, Jewish Sound Columnist Spaghetti alla carbonara is one of those great Italian dishes that comes with multiple-choice apocryphal explanations for the name. Possibly it is in the style favored by a group of charcoal makers, or coal miners, or maybe it was named after the charcoal burnerContinue Reading
From Ebola to Iraqi refugees, Israeli aid group tackles world’s most difficult crises
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