Natalie Portman is being courted for an upcoming Ridley Scott drama. The actress, hot off an Oscar nod for her starring role in “Jackie,” is up for a role in “All The Money In The World,” a retelling of John Paul Getty III’s kidnapping, Deadline reports. Portman would play Gail Harris, mother of Getty III,…
(JTA) — The Trump administration is threatening to withdraw from the U.N. Human Rights Council, citing among other things the intergovernmental body’s “biased agenda against Israel.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter this week to nine nonprofit groups opposed to withdrawal — including one affiliated with the American Jewish Committee — in which…
(JTA) — A senior rabbi from Budapest stirred controversy in his community by granting an interview to a news website that is widely identified with the far-right Jobbik party. Zoltan Radnoti, the chairman of the rabbinical council of the Mazsihisz Jewish umbrella group in Hungary, spoke with a reporter for the Alfahir news website in…
The nonprofit run by white nationalist Richard Spencer has lost its tax-exempt status for failing to file tax returns with the federal government, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to make a comment because I don’t understand this stuff,” Spencer told the Los Angeles Times….
(JTA) — The St. Louis man accused of making at least eight bomb threats against Jewish community centers and the Anti-Defamation League must remain in jail until his trial, a federal judge in that city ruled. The allegations against Juan Thompson, 32, are “very serious,” U.S. District Court Judge David Noce said Monday, the St….
MONTREAL (JTA) — The McGill University student who tweeted “punch a Zionist today” gave up his last remaining student government title, citing “personal reasons related to mental health.” Igor Sadikov, 22, a political science major at the Montreal school, resigned last week from the Student Society legislative council. Sadikov, who had described his Feb. 6 Twitter…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Knesset committee vote on a bill that would annex the large West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim was postponed to avoid a conflict with a visiting Trump administration official. The Ministerial Committee on Legislation was scheduled to take up the bill, which would subject the settlement to Israeli law, on Tuesday, but delayed…
Activists calling themselves “Jewish Animal Liberationists” wore funereal clothes and infiltrated a Purim party at a Berkeley Jewish farm to protest their killing of chickens. “We are concerned about the violence against animals on this farm,” said Zach Groff, as he held a sign reading “I wanted to live,” in Hebrew. The Saturday demonstration was…
Ultra-Orthodox protesters have threatened to disrupt the Jerusalem marathon on Friday unless the police release a Haredi army defector. According to the Israeli news site Ynet, the defector is a follower of Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, a leader of the Lithuanian Haredi Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem who opposes enlistment in the Israeli Defense Forces. A Haredi…
Reza Aslan, the popular religion scholar and Iranian-American Muslim, has a Hebrew tattoo. If you watch Aslan’s CNN series “Believer,” chances are you’ll catch a glimpse of his inked upper arm, which says “hillel,” during various rituals with the religions he explores, such as when he dunks under a waterfall with Voodoo practitioners in Haiti….
The mayor of Tel Aviv rushed to help the German travel blogger lift her luggage away from the incoming tide as she made her way into the city’s newest beachfront digs — a wooden lifeguard tower refurbished as a pop-up luxury suite. As part of an effort to market Israel as a winter tourist destination…
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