Two Florida synagogues that were hit by Hurricane Irma are suing the Federal Emergency Management Agency for denying them disaster-relief grants because they are houses of worship. Chabad of Key West and Chabad of the Space Coast argue that FEMA’s regulation against giving aid to religious institutions violates the First Amendment. FEMA gives repair funds…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — One of at least three rockets fired from Gaza on southern Israel landed at the entrance of a kindergarten in the town of Sderot. The rockets were fired on Friday night, when school was not in session. The kindergarten building was damaged by the rocket. A second rocket landed on a residential…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian man stabbed and seriously injured a security guard in Jerusalem near the city’s central bus station. The guard was checking people’s belongings so that they could enter the station, which is routine. He reportedly was checking the Palestinian man’s backpack when the terrorist pulled out a knife and stabbed the…
Fundraising emails are a common sight this time of the year, but this latest, landing even in inboxes of Jewish recipients, stands out as a bit unusual. “Wish the First Family a Merry Christmas,” reads the message, pasted over a photo of Donald and Melania Trump in front of what seems to be the national…
TEL AVIV (Reuters) – Thousands of Israelis protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday for the second consecutive week against government corruption and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is under criminal investigation over allegations of abuse of office. Police estimated the number of demonstrators at about 10,000 and they followed last Saturday’s demonstration, which was by…
(JTA) — Three people were arrested in connection with the firebomb attack on a synagogue in Gothenburg in southern Sweden. The arrests were made early Sunday morning, hours after more than a dozen men hurled firebombs at the synagogue after locals marched in the city against the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital….
(JTA) — Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem “is not something that is going to happen this year, probably not next year.” Tillerson made the remarks Friday in Paris, where he was meeting with his French counterpart, Jean-Yves Le Drian, CNN reported. His statement followed mass protests by…
TOKYO (JTA) — Outside this city’s largest synagogue, a wailing siren drowns out the sounds of traffic. The cacophony alarms a boisterous group of students headed to the nearby United Nations University. Fearing an earthquake, they instinctively run into the middle of the small street in the busy, upscale neighborhood of Shibuya. But they relax…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israel Defense Forces discovered and demolished a terror tunnel that crossed into Israel from central Gaza. The tunnel, which had been monitored for several weeks, was demolished on Saturday, the IDF announced Sunday. The tunnel is believed to have belonged to the Hamas terror organization. The exit of the tunnel had…
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik is well known in Jewish circles. But the scion of the great Soloveichik Orthodox rabbinical lineage who is currently the rabbi of New York’s Congregation Shearith Israel, America’s oldest synagogue, will now be exposed to a much larger audience. In fact, more than 44 million people around the world will get a…
(JTA) — It’s a shame Al Franken has to go, Minnesota Jews say. But he has to go. That’s the feeling Minnesota Jewish leaders expressed a day after the Democratic senator announced he would resign his seat in the coming weeks following a string of sexual harassment allegations against him. Jewish political activists in Minnesota…
