(JTA) — Lithuania’s government is reconsidering plans to build a convention center atop what used to be a Jewish cemetery in Vilnius, rabbis said after meeting with the country’s ambassador to the United States. The seven-member delegation of American haredi Orthodox rabbis and activists met Rolandas Kriščiūnas last week to discuss the controversial plan to build…
Israel invited 26 Hollywood stars on all-expense paid trips to the Holy Land around the 2016 Academy Awards, but a year later none of them have visited, Agence France-Presse reported. Activists with the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel are calling it a victory that Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and two dozen other…
Firebrand commentator Milo Yiannopoulos quit the right-wing Breitbart News website amid a firestorm over comments that condoned sex between men and young teenage boys. Yiannopoulos, who lost a book deal and was dumped by a conservative conference, said he did not want his “poor choice of words” to hurt Breitbart. “This is my decision alone,”…
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull offered a staunch defense of Israel on Wednesday, criticizing the United Nations and vowing never to support “one-sided resolutions” calling for an end to Israeli settlement building on occupied land. Turnbull welcomed Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday as the first Israeli prime minister to visit Australia, and reiterated Australia’s support for…
Steven Spielberg’s mother, Leah Adler, known for operating The Milky Way restaurant in Los Angeles, died Tuesday at her Los Angeles home surrounded by her children. She was 97. Adler, known as Lee Lee to her family and friends, was born in Cincinnati. She developed a love of music when she learned piano at the…
Ben and Jerry’s added three vegan ice cream flavors to their lineup this month, increasing the options available to those who keep kosher or who can’t eat dairy. The new flavors, Cherry Garcia, Caramel Almond Brittle, and Coconut Seven Layer Bar, join the original lineup of four flavors introduced last year. All seven of the…
WASHINGTON (JTA) – He hates it, he really hates it. Now what’s he going to do about it? President Donald Trump on Tuesday culminated three weeks of missed opportunities to condemn anti-Semitism and doubling down on missed opportunities to condemn anti-Semitism with a statement unequivocally condemning anti-Semitism. “The anti-Semitic threats targeting our Jewish community at…
(JTA) — Finding a Jewish roommate at college can be a challenge, given that Jews make up only about 2 percent of the American population. A new free app hopes to make the matching process easier. Joomie (yep), launched over the weekend at the BBYO International Convention in Dallas, asks incoming first-year students questions about…
(JTA) — An annual neo-Nazi rally was held in the capital of Bulgaria despite a municipal ban. The Lukov March, which celebrates the Bulgarian alliance with Nazi Germany, went off as scheduled on Saturday night in Sofia despite the ban issued by Mayor Yordanka Fandakova. The rally honoring the then-Bulgarian war minister Hristo Lukov, who…
Philip Roth, Stephen Sondheim, Art Spiegelman and a number of other Jewish luminaries have lent their names to an open letter beseeching President Trump to reconsider restricting entry to the country for refugees from around the world and immigrants from a group of Muslim-majority countries. The letter, signed by 65 writers and artists and written…
Who’s to blame for rising anti-Semitism in America? Nazis? White nationalists? No, says the former mayor of a settlement in the West Bank — it’s leftists and Muslims. “We need to be talking about the Islamo-Nazis and the far left Nazis,” said David Rubin, onetime mayor of the Shiloh settlement north of Jerusalem. He spoke…
