JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet has rescinded a government decision to create an official egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall. The decision announced on Sunday comes after the haredi Orthdox United Torah Judaism party and the Sephardi Orthodox Shas party, both members of the current government, put pressure on Netanyahu…
(JTA) — North Korea has denied torturing Otto Warmbier, the American college student who was detained in the country for over a year and died shortly after returning home in a coma. A North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman on Friday called itself the “biggest victim” of the incident, insisting that Warmbier’s death was a mystery. “The…
ROME (JTA) – The Reconstructionist movement has formally approved the affiliation of an independent congregation in southern Italy. The Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud in Serrastretta, a small town in Calabria, becomes the movement’s third congregation outside North America. In a statement on its website, the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College said the board of governors of…
A Jewish lawyer appointed to the Trump administration posted a slew of denigrating tweets -— calling former president Barack Obama a “Kenyan creampuff” and Mark Zuckerberg an “arrogant self-hating Jew.” William C. Bradford was recently appointed by the Trump administration to run the Energy Department’s Office of Indian Energy. The tweets were sent from his…
(JTA) — President Evo Morales of Bolivia called Chile the “Israel of South America” in condemning the expulsion of nine Bolivian officials on Wednesday. The officials were detained in Chile after being accused of smuggling, theft and illegal possession of weapons. They are to be expelled from the country within the next 30 days. Lashing out…
(JTA) — Poland’s human rights commissioner is being urged to resign after saying the “Polish nation” took part in carrying out the Holocaust — a controversial statement in a country whose government increasingly emphasizes that Poland never collaborated with the Nazis. Speaking Wednesday on the state-run TVP Info, Adam Bodnar said, “There is no doubt that the Germans were responsible…
(JTA) — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is calling on President Donald Trump to appoint a White House liaison to the Jewish community. Reps. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., and Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., are asking members of Congress to sign a letter to the president. Rosen and Zeldin are Jewish. “While it…
The Reconstructionist movement is adding another affiliate abroad this week, as it welcomes into its ranks a fledging synagogue in the Italian region of Calabria – where before the synagogue’s foudning, there hadn’t been a schul in centuries. “We are thrilled to welcome our first Italian affiliate to our movement,” Rabbi Deborah Waxman, head of…
More than 100 rabbis and rabbinical students have signed a letter calling on Hillel to sever ties with a right-wing Israeli funder and drop its guidelines on discourse about Israel. In the letter, the religious leaders – many of them identified as LGBT – denounce Hillel’s links with Mosaic United, an initiative sponsored by Israel’s…
NEW YORK (JTA) — A historic synagogue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side ravaged by a fire last month may soon be demolished. NY 1 reported that the local community board approved a proposal to tear down the Beth Hamedrash Hagadol synagogue on Norfolk Street. The committee urged the synagogue’s owners to determine whether pieces of the building can be…
(JTA) – Otto Warmbier, the American college student who was detained in North Korea for over a year and died shortly after returning home in a coma, was remembered by friends and loved ones at a public memorial officiated by his college Hillel rabbi. Rabbi Jake Rubin, executive director of the Brody Jewish Center at the…
