NEW YORK — Nearly one quarter of intermarried couples were wed exclusively by a Jewish clergy member, a new study has found. The study on rabbinic officiation in intermarriages published this week by Brandeis University found that a majority of intermarriages including a Jewish spouse were conducted by a nonreligious officiant. Twenty-four percent were conducted by a…
JERUSALEM — Israel is recalling its ambassador to UNESCO to Jerusalem for consultations in the wake of the adoption of a second resolution that denies Jewish ties to Jerusalem holy sites. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a public announcement on Wednesday night. “The theater of the absurd continues, and so I decided to recall our…
— Four Torah scrolls valued at approximately $240,000 were stolen from a Brooklyn synagogue during a holiday that honors the sacred texts. Surveillance video showed a man in his 20s wearing a kippah entering the Avenue O Synagogue in the Midwood section and leaving with the scrolls during Simchat Torah, according to local news reports….
— The board of trustees of the Jewish Federations of North America reportedly will be asked to decide whether to allow its missions to Israel to visit Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The board will discuss changing its policy during a conference call meeting scheduled for Wednesday, the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles reported…
A row over Israel on campus is as predictable as the fall of autumn leaves, and it’s no different this season. Fliers accusing pro-Palestinian students of being anti-Semitic have cropped at numerous colleges in October — including the University of Chicago, Tufts University, Brooklyn College and Berkeley — and have been claimed by the David…
The Sabbath is supposed to be a day of quiet relaxation. But according to residents near one Hasidic synagogue in Brooklyn, the noise from the schul’s Friday afternoon siren is anything but restful. “It leaves me with a ringing in my ears and headaches that have continued for two days,” Aaron Graubart, who lives next…
Israeli archaeologists have made public a fragment of an ancient text which they say is the earliest Hebrew reference to Jerusalem outside the Bible – a discovery the government swiftly enlisted as evidence of the Jewish connection to the holy city. The 4.3 by one inch piece of papyrus, dated by the Israel Antiquities Authority…
JERUSALEM — Thirteen Jewish Israelis who celebrated the death of a Palestinian baby in a firebombing during a wedding, including the groom, have been indicted on charges of incitement. Five of the people charged on Wednesday at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s court are minors between the ages of 14 and 17. The wedding took place in…
JERUSALEM — Three Israelis, including a doctor, were arrested for allegedly running an organ trafficking network, selling the kidneys of poor Israelis. Several operations had already been carried out at private clinics in Turkey and other transactions were in process, the Israel Police said Tuesday following the arrests. The poor Israelis received tens of thousands…
— The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO, the United Nations’ cultural agency, adopted a resolution which ignores Jewish ties to the Temple Mount. The resolution passed Wednesday with less than a majority of the committee’s 21 members with 10 states voting in favor, two opposed, eight abstentions and one absent. The 21 voting countries were: Finland,…
The Israeli military said an Israeli soldier was wounded on Wednesday by shots fired from a vehicle traveling in Lebanon along a border fence, and troops returned fire. A Lebanese army spokesman said in a statement there was no truth to reports shots had been fired from a car at a soldier from Lebanese territory….
