(JTA) — A cabinet minister in Belgium’s Flemish Region announced that a majority of lawmakers have decided to impose new limitations on ritual slaughter of animals in 2019. Ben Weyts, the animal welfare minister of the Flemish Region — one of three autonomous states that make up the federal kingdom of Belgium – on Thursday…
(JTA) — A swastika, and racist and anti-Semitic graffiti, was found on the campus of a high school in a wealthy Connecticut suburb. In an emailed letter to parents and students of Ridgefield High School, Principal Stacey Gross said such acts are a blow to the school’s striving to be inclusive. “I know that you…
(JTA) — A Ukrainian Jewish leader criticized the U.S. embassy’s praise for a writer who allegedly worked for an anti-Semitic newspaper. The embassy celebrated the legacy of Olena Teliha Wednesday in a Facebook post that designated her one of the “women who inspire Ukraine” in connection with Women’s History Month in March. Teliha was an activist…
(JTA) — A 13-year-old boy was arrested and charged with throwing a rock through a stained glass window at a Philadelphia synagogue. The incident that occurred on Sunday was the third time since December that baseball-sized rocks have been thrown through the stained-glass windows of Temple Menorah Keneseth Chai, a nearly century-old Conservative synagogue in…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — David Friedman’s Israel connections, a factor that helped dampen Democratic support for President Donald Trump’s nominee as ambassador to Israel, will be a “tremendous asset” to advancing peace, the White House said on the day of his swearing in. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Wednesday that Trump “is glad…
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has ordered two mohels to stop performing an “unsafe” circumcision rite after they were linked to herpes in babies. But The New York Post reports the city would not reveal the names of the mohels who carry out the rite of metzitzah b’peh, or sucking on the…
(JTA) — A former journalist from St. Louis accused of making at least eight bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers and the Anti-Defamation League appeared in federal court in New York and did not request bail. Juan Thompson, 31, who made some of the threats in the name of a former romantic partner he had…
(JTA) — Radio host and Donald Trump supporter Alex Jones ranted about “the Jewish mafia,” which he said was run by Jewish billionaire George Soros. Jones was responding to a caller to his radio show who claimed that “the Jewish mafia” was supporting efforts by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to “derail the Trump presidency.”…
(JTA) — Ivanka Trump will become an official government employee acting as a special adviser to her father, President Donald Trump. Last week, it was reported that the president’s Jewish daughter was working out of a West Wing office and was in the process of receiving a government security clearance. But in statement Wednesday, Ivanka Trump acknowledged concerns that…
Ivanka Trump will become an unpaid special assistant in her father’s White House, the Trump administration announced late Wednesday, ending months of speculation about whether the first daughter would have a formal role in the government. “I will … serve as an unpaid employee in the White House office, subject to all of the same…
A former journalist charged with making a wave of bomb threats to Jewish organizations by telephone while posing as his ex-girlfriend appeared in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday afternoon. Juan Thompson, 31, was arrested in St. Louis earlier this month and arrived in New York on Wednesday morning. He appeared wearing beige prison garb and…
