A prominent Israeli rabbi said that non-Jews in Israel should carry identification cards issued by the state’s Jewish religious authority marking them as not Jewish as part of a plan to make commerce in Israel adhere to Jewish law. Yisroel Rosen, the head of the Zomet Institute which creates technology in accordance with Jewish law,…
Thousands of Arabs and Jews waving Israeli and Palestinian flags protested in Tel Aviv on Saturday against home demolitions in Arab villages. Organizers estimated that some 5,000 protesters marched in central Tel Aviv in a demonstration that also referenced President Donald Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven Muslim nations. “No Ban! No Wall! No Demolitions!”…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In the wake of the U.N. anti-settlements resolution, the governor of Illinois warned the European Union that companies complying with boycotts of Israel or of its West Bank settlements face divestment by the governments of Illinois and other states. Gov. Bruce Rauner, in his Jan. 31 letter to Donald Tusk, the president…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Close to 200 Jewish disability activists lobbied against proposed Republican changes to Medicaid and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The activists lobbied in Washington on Thursday under the aegis of the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism and the Jewish Federations of North America. In a summary statement, the groups were careful not…
Chuck Schumer vowed to fight President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee to maintain the judiciary as an “independent check” against executive power after the president’s extraordinary outburst against a federal judge who blocked his anti-Muslim immigration order. The Senate minority leader suggested that Trump’s reaction to the decision showed why Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch needed…
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) – Police raided the offices of the Center for Monitoring Racist and Xenophobic Behavior in Warsaw. The search by police on Friday came at the request of the Bialystok prosecutors’ office, which said it was undertaken in order to “find documentation on activity related to the commission of offenses.” “This is an…
I got on the subway in Manhattan on Saturday night, February 4, only to find a Swastika on every advertisement and every window. The train was silent as everyone stared at each other, uncomfortable and unsure what to do. One guy got up and said, “Hand sanitizer gets rid of Sharpie. We need alcohol.” He…
A woman was attacked Monday night while riding the New York City subway in Manhattan, as a man shoved her, called her a “dirty Jew” and screamed “Heil the Hitler Youth.” The incident was said to have occurred when the woman was on the C Train on West 23rd Street, with the assailant reading aloud…
In a letter sent to President Donald Trump on Tuesday, Congressman Jerry Nadler and 50 other congressional Democrats called on the president to remove his political advisor Steve Bannon from the National Security Council. “Bannon is dangerous,” Nadler said in a statement about the letter. “As we saw with the recent Muslim ban, Bannon’s views…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — In a treatment describing a documentary on a purported Muslim plan to take over America, Stephen Bannon, now President Donald Trump’s top strategic adviser, described the “American Jewish community” as among unwitting “enablers” of jihad. Bannon, a former banker who transitioned into a career as an ultranationalist propagandist, culminating in his becoming…
NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabba Ramie Smith of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale, an Orthodox congregation, says she doesn’t have time to protest the Orthodox Union decision banning its synagogues from hiring women clergy like herself. This weekend, she’s busy organizing a Shabbat conference with Yachad, a group supporting Jews with disabilities. Then she has classes…
