WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump named Stephen Schwarzman, a leading money manager and a contributor to Jewish and Catholic causes, as chairman of a group of leading businessmen who will advise him on economic policy. Schwarzman, a billionaire who founded the Blackstone Group, an equity management firm, will lead a 16-person “strategic and policy…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump condemned bigotry while speaking at a victory rally. “We condemn bigotry and prejudice in all its forms,” Trump said Thursday in Cincinnati in a rare address since defeating Hillary Clinton several weeks ago. “We denounce all of the hatred and we forcefully reject the language of exclusion and separation….
Western democracies are more under threat than one might think, according to a new study done by German Jewish scholar Yascha Mounk, reported The New York Times. “The warning signs are flashing red,” he told the newspaper, speaking about his research into the durability of democracy in the United States and Europe. “That’s only one…
CNN’s Jeff Zucker became a punching bag at a Harvard post-election confab, where Republican operatives accused him of aiding Trump’s rise in the primary with ample free press and favorable treatment. “You showed empty podiums!” senior Marco Rubio adviser Todd Harris screamed at Zucker, as the network president took the stage at the Kennedy School…
General James Mattis, President-elect Trump’s choice to be the next Secretary of Defense, once warned that Israel’s policy of expanding West Bank settlements could lead to an apartheid state. But Jewish Republicans see no problem with this comment. In a statement issued Friday morning, the Republican Jewish Coalition welcomed Mattis’ appointment as a “smart and…
(JTA) — An Iranian state-owned firm has substantial shares in the German shipping giant that is supplying the Israeli Navy with submarines, a newspaper in Israel reported. The Iranian investments in ThyssenKrupp began in the 1970s and were inherited by the Islamic regime when it took over Iran in the 1979 revolution, Yediot Acharonot reported…
Donald Trump’s transition team is examining proposals for new non-nuclear sanctions on Iran, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing congressional sources who have been in contact with the president-elect’s team. Officials with Trump’s team have been in touch with fellow Republicans in Congress, where they hold the majority, to discuss possible sanctions separate from…
Andrew Sachs, a British comedy actor best known for his role as the hapless Spanish waiter on the ’70s television sitcom ‘Fawlty Towers, has died at 86. His family told the Jewish Chronicle that Sachs passed away on November 23 and was buried on Thursday. The actor had reportedly been ill with vascular dementia for…
A prominent advocate of the boycott Israel movement reportedly has a “definite chance of winning” election as head of Britain’s national Jewish student group. Eran Cohen, an Israeli student at the University of York, is one of three contenders to lead the Union of Jewish Students and has a committed base of support that makes…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate as defense secretary Gen. James Mattis, a pick that has already stirred controversy among right-wing pro-Israel groups, with some lamenting the choice and others praising it. “We are going to appoint ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis as our secretary of defense,” Trump said Thursday at his first…
(JTA) – Eyal Karim, the rabbi whose appointment as the chief chaplain of the Israeli army was suspended over his remarks on raping women, was sworn in to the position. Karim’s appointment as the chief rabbi of the Israel Defense Forces follows a Supreme Court review of his suitability last month. The court found no…
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