(JTA) — Ukraine has banned the American action movie star Steven Seagal, who last year received Russian citizenship in a ceremony from President Vladimir Putin. A spokesman for the Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, confirmed the blacklisting of Seagal, a martial arts expert whose father was a Jew of Russian descent, in a statement…
Until this year, Rod Rosenstein was an unassuming U.S. attorney with a reputation for fairness. Now he’s at the center of the controversy over President Donald Trump’s snap firing of James Comey, the FBI director. Rosenstein, 52, whose appointment by Trump as deputy attorney general was confirmed only two weeks ago, wrote the memo outlining…
Howard Lorber, a businessman and longtime friend of Donald Trump, has been tapped to serve as chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. The White House said Wednesday that President Trump intended to appoint Lorber, the president and CEO of the Vector Group, a New York holding company, and chairman of the real estate giant Douglas…
A little-known rabbi has launched a media assault against the venerable 92nd Street Y for serving a “kosher style” meal at its May fundraising gala. In a full-page ad in the latest issue of the New York Jewish Week, Rabbi Sholtiel Lebovic issued a “COMMUNITY ALERT AND PROTEST!!!” against the major Manhattan Jewish community center,…
Milo Yiannopoulos will headline a protest this month against Linda Sarsour and the City University of New York’s invitation for her to give the commencement address at a graduation ceremony for public health graduate students. Organized by far-right provocateur Pamela Geller, the demonstration is targeting the Muslim civil rights activist for her previous hostility toward…
Boise, Idaho’s Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial was vandalized this week. On memorial Tuesday afternoon, a tour group discovered “racist and anti-Semitic slurs” written on two different marble tablets, the Idaho Statesman reported. Representative Dan Prinzing said he would not repeat the words reading the phrase written “because it was so offensive.” The graffiti was…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — More than half of Jewish Israelis are interested in having alternative weddings that do not involve the Chief Rabbinate, a new survey has found. Some 55 percent of Jewish Israelis are interested or quite interested in an egalitarian Jewish marriage alternative, according to a survey conducted for Hiddush, an organization that promotes…
WASHINGTON (JTA) – Congress maintained funding levels for a poverty assistance program favored by Jewish groups in the face of proposed Trump administration cuts. A Jewish Federations of North America memo sent Wednesday to JTA and first circulated among member federations May 5 noted that the massive spending bill approved last week includes $120 million…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The FIFA Congress voted to accept the proposal of the governing body of international soccer’s council and not hold a vote on a Palestinian proposal questioning the status of Israeli teams in the West Bank. The vote passed Thursday with the approval of 73 percent of the member FIFA nations. It comes…
The New York Times pleaded with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to “save your honor” and appoint a special counsel to investigate President Trump’s ties to Russia. In a rare open letter, the Grey Lady’s editorial board warned Rosenstein that he has an outsized responsibility to “safeguard American democracy” after the firing of FBI Director…
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — American Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson met with Brazilian President Michel Temer and several government officials to pitch an $8 billion casino project in Rio de Janeiro. Adelson’s visit this week raises rumors of imminent gambling law approval in Latin America’s largest nation, where it has been outlawed for the last…
