Philissa Cramer
By Philissa Cramer
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Fast Forward Israel targets Gaza with airstrikes, artillery and tank fire, ushering in a new phase of growing conflict
(JTA) — Israel’s army unleashed a wider military attack on Gaza Thursday night, inaugurating a new phase in a conflict that has claimed dozens of lives in the last several days. The war has already reached several milestones in a region accustomed to conflict. Hamas, the terrorist group that controls Gaza, has sent an unprecedented…
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Fast Forward Billy Crystal and Tiffany Haddish are besties who dance the hora in new film ‘Here Today’
(JTA) — Comedian Billy Crystal and actress Tiffany Haddish are so close that Crystal read a Torah portion at Haddish’s 2019 bat mitzvah ceremony in Los Angeles. Now the two Jewish celebrities are taking their friendship to the big screen in a buddy comedy called “Here Today.” The first trailer for the movie, out May…
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Fast Forward Kentucky becomes first US state to adopt IHRA anti-Semitism definition
(JTA) — For the first time, a U.S. state has officially adopted a definition of anti-Semitism that has ignited debates worldwide over the extent to which criticism of Israel should be considered anti-Semitic. Lawmakers in Kentucky voted to adopt the definition developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Association, known as IHRA, on Wednesday as part…
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Fast Forward Is Bonne Maman an anti-Nazi jam? The internet wants to think so.
(JTA) — The heartwarming story has been hard to miss: A law professor is shopping at his local grocery store when sees an elderly woman struggling to get her favorite jam from a high shelf. Why is it her favorite? “I am a Holocaust survivor,” she says. “During the war, the family that owns the…
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Fast Forward The viral cat lawyer once drew national attention for his prosecution of a Jewish smoke shop owner
(JTA) — Rod Ponton, a small-town attorney from Texas, captured America’s attention this week after he showed up to a virtual courtroom looking like a fluffy white cat, thanks to a Zoom filter he couldn’t figure out how to disable. It wasn’t the first time Ponton has made the national news. In 2014, he drew…
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Fast Forward Karen Lewis, Jewish union chief who made Chicago’s teachers into a national force, is dead at 67
(JTA) — Karen Lewis, the firebrand former president of Chicago’s teachers union, has died at 67 after a long battle with brain cancer. Lewis, a convert to Judaism who said she was attracted to the religion’s embrace of questions, ran the Chicago Teachers Union from 2010 to 2018. Under her leadership, the union became a…
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Fast Forward Jewish man leaves $2M to French mountain town that hid him from Nazis
(JTA) — A man who died in December reportedly left a significant gift for the French town that shielded his family and thousands of others from the Nazis during World War II. Eric Schwam, who died at 90 on Christmas Day, willed his estate to Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, the mountain town where his Jewish family hid…
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News TikTok’s comic ‘Jew Who Loves Trees’ wants you to take Tu b’Shvat very, very seriously
(JTA) — Tobin Mitnick may be a comic actor, but his interest in trees is no joke. Mitnick has been documenting his love affair with trees since September on TikTok, the viral video app, where he goes by the mantle “A Jew Who Loves Trees.” He’s racked up more than 110,000 followers there by posting…
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Fast Forward Romania’s secret police trailed a Jewish photographer. Decades later, their files have become a film.
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