(JTA) — The North Carolina state legislature passed a bill that would bar the state from doing business with companies that boycott Israel. The bill passed last week by both houses of the General Assembly has been sent to state Gov. Roy Cooper for his signature. The bill, titled “Divestment from Companies That Boycott Israel,” passed…
JERUSALEM (JTA) – American pop icon Britney Spears was mobbed by fans during a visit to the Western Wall. Spears arrived in Israel Sunday, ahead of her concert scheduled for Monday evening at Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv. It is her first visit to Israel. Excited fans mobbed Spears, including jumping on her, during her…
Amy Schumer’s manager, Guy Oseary, took a moment out of celebrating America to defend his buddy, Jay-Z, on Instagram Saturday. In the midst of his new album’s resounding critical success, Jay-Z has found himself at the center of accusations of anti-semitism for the lyrics “You wanna know what’s more important than throwin’ away money at…
A leading philanthropist for Israeli and American Jewish causes announced early Sunday that he will no longer fund Israeli projects in protest of the country’s recent decisions regarding the Western Wall and the status of non-Orthodox conversions. He then clarified later that day that he was only considering “suspending” his philanthropy. Florida real estate magnate…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert left prison on early release and then submitted a request to have his parole restrictions completely removed. Olmert left prison early Sunday morning after serving 16 months of a 27-month sentence. The prison parole board on Thursday granted him early release for good behavior. Later Sunday…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli lawmakers will be allowed to visit the Temple Mount for a trial period. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lift the ban later this month for five days, during which time the government will determine whether the visits cause violence at the site that is holy to both Jews and Muslims. The…
BERLIN (JTA) — The German parliament passed a new law Friday designed to curb hate speech and libel on social networks. The law requires Internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to remove material with obviously illegal content and fake defamatory “news” within 24 hours of its having been reported. Previously, illegal material was reported but did not have to be…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Hundreds of people gathered in front of the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem to protest government moves seen as targeting liberal streams of Judaism. The protesters who gathered in Jerusalem on Saturday night carried signs including “Judaism without coercion,” and “We are all Women of the Wall.” The demonstration was organized by…
(JTA) — Sixty-five percent of Latin American Jewish leaders fear that their community could suffer a terrorist attack, a new survey found. That figure climbs to 90 percent of Argentinean Jewish leaders, whose community already has suffered two terrorist attacks: in 1992 on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 and injured 242;…
(JTA) — A local teenager has been arrested and charged with vandalizing a Jewish camp in upstate New York. Camp Shomria in Liberty, New York, run by the Hashomer Hatzair movement, was broken into on June 12. The interior and exterior of several of the buildings was damaged and covered in anti-Semitic graffiti. Christopher Santoro,…
NEW YORK (JTA) — When Megan Corbin was in school, she learned about the Holocaust as an optimistic story. Her grade school, she said, “highlighted Anne Frank as the voice of hope, and that really wasn’t the reality.” Now, as an eighth-grade language arts teacher outside of Seattle, she teaches about victims, perpetrators and civilians…
