Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted 12-9 on Thursday to approve President Donald Trump’s nominee as ambassador to Israel, outspoken bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, a staunch supporter of expanded settlements. The vote was largely along party lines, a contrast with strong bipartisan support for past ambassadors to Israel. Democratic Senator Robert Menendez joined every committee Republican…
Riding on the coattails of “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a new Harry Potter-themed haggadah is coming out this week. But Jewish spinoffs of all things Harry Potter are nothing new. The author of the new haggadah, Rabbi Moshe Rosenberg, has used Harry Potter to teach Torah for years. While the later books…
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Russia’s contribution to the fight against the Islamic State and Al Qaida during a one-day visit to Moscow. In a statement issued prior to his meeting Thursday in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Netanyahu stressed that it is important to make sure that Iran does not step…
(JTA) — The Union for Reform Judaism criticized Israel’s new law banning entry to boycott supporters as anti-democratic. The URJ, which has the largest membership of any Jewish denomination, said it opposes both the law and boycotts of Israel. “We are frustrated that by passing this law, the Israeli government has in essence posted a giant sign…
The individual phoning in threats to Jewish community centers and institutions nationwide is using devices to make his voice sound feminine and disguise his phone number, according to John Miller, the New York Police Department’s deputy commissioner for counterterrorism. “We have what appears to be one offender behind a large number of these and then…
Rabbi Yigal Levinstein, the head of a prominent pre-army training academy in the occupied West Bank, is standing his ground after his denigrating remarks about women soldiers made waves in the Israel. “They recruit them to the army, where they enter as Jews, but they’re not Jews by the time they leave,” Levinstein said, in…
Police said they are investigating a bomb threat called into the Jewish Children’s Museum early Thursday in Brooklyn, according to DNA Info. The call happened just before opening hours in the Crown Heights neighborhood. It is the latest in more than 130 bomb threats called into JCCs, Jewish schools and other institutions nationwide since the…
(JTA) — A new law that would ban entry to Israel of foreigners who publicly support boycotts of the Jewish state is Israel’s “sovereign decision,” a State Department spokesperson said. In a briefing to reporters on Wednesday, Mark Toner said that while the United States opposes boycotts of Israel, it is up to Israel to make…
Remember the opulent $5.5 million mansion that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump chose for their Washington D.C. home? Turns out they didn’t buy the spread in the tony Kalorama neighborhood, just a stone’s throw away from the place where ex-president Barack Obama and his family are living. The couple is renting it from Andronico Luksic,…
Israel advanced in the World Baseball Classic with a victory over the Netherlands. Israel beat the Netherlands on Thursday by a score of 4-2 to finish first in its pool in the first round of the quadrennial baseball tournament, in which 16 countries are represented. The Netherlands also will advance after finishing the first round…
(JTA) — The platform for a strike to support feminism and women’s rights drew criticism from some over its call “for the decolonization of Palestine.” The statement on Palestine is included in a section on “Antiracist and Anti-imperialist Feminism” in the platform for the U.S. affiliate of the International Women’s Strike. The grassroots feminist movement organized events around the…
