(JTA) — Berlin’s mayor, many local Jewish leaders agree, could do more to counter the city’s vocal BDS movement. But does that make him an anti-Semite? A report that the California-based Simon Wiesenthal Center may include Mayor Michael Müller on its annual list of the world’s 10 worst cases of anti-Semitic activity has perplexed prominent…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Supreme Court has ordered the government to either reinstate the Western Wall agreement with non-Orthodox groups or explain why it should not force the state to honor the deal. “One can’t help but ask ‘What exactly happened here?’” Chief Justice Miriam Naor said at a hearing Thursday. “There was an agreement,…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has proposed an amendment that would allow illegal immigrants to be deported without their consent, contradicting the Supreme Court. The proposal, which reportedly is backed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, comes days after the court ruled Monday that the government cannot hold…
(JTA) — A movie about Megan Phelps-Roper, who left the viciously anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church after a Twitter correspondence with a prominent Jewish blogger, is in the works. The screenplay for the film, with the working title “This Above All,” will be written by Oscar nominee Nick Hornby. Reese Witherspoon is reportedly one of the…
ROME (JTA) – Meeting at the Vatican, an international delegation of rabbis sought the pope’s cooperation in combating Islamic extremism. At the audience Thursday with Pope Francis, the rabbis presented a document calling for the two faiths to work together on Islamic extremism and other issues. The document was drafted last year by the Conference of European…
Once upon a time, a man named Juan Catalan was arrested for the murder of a 16-year-old girl. The alleged crime took place on May 12, 2003. Also once upon a time (specifically the exact same time!!!), Larry David filmed an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” in which he attended a Dodgers game with a…
As Hurricane Harvey leaves the country’s fourth largest metro area underwater, many Jews in Houston and the surrounding area have seen their homes and synagogues inundated and their sense of security shattered. In addition to helping out with the general relief effort, here are some organizations that are specifically helping Jews impacted by the epic…
Eighty years after he missed the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony, 93-year-old Holocaust survivor Shalom Shtamberg celebrated his bar mitzvah on Thursday with his family and friends in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. Shtamberg was born in Warsaw, Poland, and should have celebrated his bar mitzvah when he turned 13, but instead he was taken to…
(JTA) — The University of Pretoria in South Africa condemned hate speech after “Gas All Jews” and swastikas were found drawn on campus message boards. The South African Jewish Board of Deputies umbrella organization contacted the university’s vice chancellor to express its concern about the graffiti on message boards in the humanities building. “The University…
The country’s largest Muslim civil liberties organization is rallying to support a controversial Jewish religious boundary known as an eruv, which officials in two New Jersey towns have demanded be removed. The New Jersey branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said local resistance to the boundary amounted to religious intolerance, NewJersey.com reported. The eruv…
Could adding an emoji to that text message make you idolatrous? Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, a France-born Israeli cleric, said that the popular praying hands digital emoji is not kosher — and that Jews should beware, as they may be committing avodah zarah, or “foreign worship,” one of the worst sins in Judaism. “The source is…
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