(JTA) — Jewish groups offered varied reactions, including disappointment, tepid congratulations and enthusiasm, to the confirmation of David Friedman as U.S. ambassador to Israel. On Thursday the U.S Senate confirmed Friedman, a longtime lawyer of President Donald Trump who outraged some Jewish groups with his broadsides against liberal Jews, in a 52-46 vote that hewed mostly to party lines. A range of liberal…
The Trump administration can’t seem to kick the habit of marketing its own products. First, it was senior adviser Kellyanne Conway plugging Ivanka Trump’s clothing line in a live TV interview from the White House. Now it’s Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs banker who became a movie underwriter and was executive producer…
You are what you eat. But if you’re lucky, that chicken you pick up for Passover dinner won’t have any chametz in it. According to the London Board of Shechita, a group that oversees kosher slaughter in Britain, poultry that is sold for consumption during the holiday has been fed a non-grain diet in the…
NEW YORK (JTA) — New York’s Jewish federation sent a letter to Congress members in the state opposing the Republican health care bill because of its potential negative impact on poor people. The letter sent Wednesday by Eric Goldstein, the CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, opposes provisions in the bill that would shift…
Arnon Mozes, publisher of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, was taped promising to bash Benjamin Netanuyahu’s political rivals in the paper in exchange for a business advantage, in the latest twist of a police anti-corruption probe into the Israeli prime minister. According to Haaretz, Mozes pledged to attack Economy Minister Naftali Bennett and his Jewish…
A Jewish real-estate investor and prominent donor to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said he exchanged money for favors from public officials, according to the New York Daily News. Jona Rechnitz’s admission came up in court papers quietly unsealed earlier this month during a federal investigation of de Blasio for possible illegal fundraising. De…
(JTA) – Israeli troops shot and killed a Palestinian youth they said was hurling firebombs at Israelis and injured three alleged accomplices. The incident occurred Thursday night in the West Bank, according to the Palestinian news agency Ma’an. An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an that “three suspects exited a vehicle adjacent to the community of…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — After a lengthy session of U.S.-Israel talks, Israeli negotiators said they would take into account Trump administration “concerns” about settlement building, a sign that the issue continues to dog relations between the countries. The joint statement released Thursday night after four days of talks between top officials said the issues are “exceptionally…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly blew off a demand by President Donald Trump to freeze settlement building in isolated areas of the West Bank as a condition for continuing construction in larger blocs and east Jerusalem. “The talks have not been completed, but there is progress and we will hear about it when we…
(JTA) — The Israeli-American suspected of perpetrating more than 100 bomb threats against Jewish institutions used technologies including Google Voice, a call forwarding service, and Bitcoin, a digital currency, to make the threats. According to an article in The Daily Beast, the 19-year-old suspect’s name is Michael Kaydar. Israel’s anti-fraud squad arrested Kaydar at his home in…
Israeli authorities arrested an American-Israeli teen Thursday for calling fake bomb threats into American Jewish institutions, seeming to crack a case that had set Jewish organizations on edge for months. With the possible end to a wave of phone and email bomb threats, the Forward spoke to Don Aviv, COO of the private security company…
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