(JTA) — A record 2,500 people signed up for this year’s Limmud conference on Jewish learning in Moscow. Attendance this year at the main event organized by Limmud FSU – an international organization putting together Jewish events in the former Soviet Union — exceeded last year’s tally by 25 percent, organizers said in a statement…
NEW YORK (JTA) — Two Democratic congressmen and Samantha Power, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, have called on President Donald Trump to fill a State Department position tasked with fighting anti-Semitism worldwide. On Thursday, JTA reported that the office of the U.S. Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism could be left…
“Alt-right” leader Richard Spencer, scheduled to speak at Auburn University in Alabama next week, is paying for a venue and security out of his own pocket, The Tuscaloosa News reported Thursday. The university administration said in a statement on Wednesday that while they “strongly deplore his views,” Auburn also “supports the constitutional right to free…
Palestinian activists at Canada’s Concordia University are facing charges of cultural appropriation after organizing a “Passover Against Apartheid” event that included a discussion about an anti-Zionist revision to the holiday’s traditional “next year in Jerusalem” blessing. “This is more than Israel bashing. It’s an antisemitic slap in the face to every Jew and I think…
Outspoken radio host Howard Stern has some choice words for Sean Spicer, slicing and dicing the White House press secretary for his comments earlier this week about the Holocaust. “The guy’s just not informed, and it’s kind of embarrassing — it’s just embarrassing. But it’s entertaining as hell,” Stern said Wednesday on his SiriusXM program,…
While historians are still debating whether the Last Supper was a Passover Seder or a normal dinner, researchers are coming closer to uncovering one key element: What type of wine would have been served at the meal. Wine has been produced in the Middle East for at least 6,000 years, according to research conducted by…
Allan Lichtman, the American University political scientist who predicted President Donald Trump’s upset victory in November, is dropping a book with an even more daring prophecy: The new leader will be impeached before his term is up. “Taking time out of preparing to become the world’s most powerful leader, he wrote me a personal note,…
Kendrick Lamar became the first rapper to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music on Monday. Lamar also has a fascinating connection to the Hebrew Israelites, a mostly black group that claims Jewish roots. On the latest album from Grammy Award winning rapper Kendrick Lamar, the artist appears to declare himself a Hebrew Israelite — or,…
Marine Le Pen, the National Front’s president, follows a lot of white extremist activists on Twitter, many of whom are part of the “facistsphere,” a collection of influential far-right blogs and websites, according to an article in Vice. 180 of these accounts openly support the “grand remplacement” conspiracy theory, according to which the original European…
Aly Raisman was ready for critics who questioned her decision to pose topless in Sports Illustrated’s latest swimsuit issue. “I knew people were going to say that I wasn’t a good role model and all of this stuff,” the Olympic gymnast told Motto on Tuesday. “I did the issue because I love my body. I…
A fire broke out at the Kneses Israel of Sea-Gate synagogue in Brooklyn on Thursday morning, causing minor injuries to one community member. More than 100 firefighters were sent on site to extinguish the fire, which erupted shortly after midnight. The nine historical Torah scrolls were rescued. On a Twitter video posted by the New…
