The Orthodox Union and Rabbinical Council of America are mobilizing Orthodox congregations around the country to donate money and say prayers for Houston Orthodox Jews, whose main synagogue was ruined and where many people have been left displaced by Hurricane Harvey. “More than 250 Orthodox families from the area have been displaced. The United Orthodox…
A controversial businessman who once compiled a list of Jewish government employees to give to President Richard Nixon will be nominated by President Trump to chair the board of a Smithsonian think tank, the White House announced Wednesday. Trump intended to nominate Fred Malek to chair the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, one of…
After the Charlottesville crisis, and as worries about racism and anti-Semitism mount, Rev. Al Sharpton is calling on Jews and African-Americans to fight together what he calls the “clear and present danger of now.” “We are currently witnessing a rise in both [racism and anti-Semitism] in the U.S. and in many other places around the…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel will spend nearly $20 million on a new program to improve the English skills of its schoolchildren. At a news conference Wednesday announcing the Give Me Five program, Education Minister Naftali Bennett said that not knowing how to speak English well is hurting Israelis in business and in life. The plan…
(JTA) — Researchers from Israel and Russia discovered the grave of an influential Jewish writer and resistance fighter known as Der Nister who perished in communist purges at a former Soviet camp for political prisoners. The final resting place of Pinchus Kahanovich, an anti-fascist fighter and one of the 20th century’s most influential writers in…
(JTA) — Ukrainian authorities are preparing for a record pilgrimage by tens of thousands of Jews gathering in the city of Uman for Rosh Hashanah. Authorities are expecting up to 40,000 Jewish pilgrims ahead of the Jewish New Year, which this year falls on Sept. 20, the Ukrainian Government Press office told the ZN news…
(JTA) — A Connecticut judge entered pleas of not guilty on behalf of a prominent Connecticut rabbi charged in the alleged sexual assault of a minor. Rabbi Daniel Greer, 77, the founding rabbi of the Yeshiva of New Haven, appeared Tuesday in Superior Court in that city. He is charged with second-degree sexual assault and risk…
Jews helped power an online fundraiser to rebuild a Florida mosque burned in a hateful arson attack last Friday, said the organizer of the donation drive. “I couldn’t understand why people were donating in what seemed like weird amounts to the cause,” Adeel Karim, member of the Islamic Society of New Tampa, wrote on Facebook….
(JTA) — As Hurricane Harvey bore down on Houston Friday, Vicki Samuels Levy dashed over to the offices of the Houston Jewish Herald-Voice, took the proofs of this week’s newspaper and went to her mother Jeanne’s house. Then mother and daughter spent all night editing the paper. And as the waters rose and they had…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Government Press Office said it will defer the revocation of the press card of a senior reporter for the Al Jazeera network based in Jerusalem. The move to revoke the press card of reporter Elias Karram, accused of aiding the Palestinian “resistance” to the State of Israel, was seen as the…
(JTA) — Police have called on the public in the Miami-Dade area to help locate a man who threatened to shoot up a local synagogue. Miami-Dade Police identified the man as Steven H. Brooks. A flyer distributed by police asking the public for information about his whereabouts said he “made verbal threats to shoot with…
