(JTA) — A Wisconsin couple filed a discrimination charge against an Illinois hotel owner who allegedly refused to host their interfaith wedding because it was not religious. Alexandra Katzman and Jonathan Webber of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, filed the charge against the owner, Dave Anderson, with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, The Associated Press Wednesday….
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Feeling the heat over her clashes with Bernie Sanders, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is at the center of a debate among Democratic lawmakers over whether to push for her ouster as party chair. The Hill Tuesday that about 12 senators have been discussing what to do about Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman and one of the most prominent…
An employee of a Rockland County Hasidic grand rebbe has been arrested and charged with secretly taking photos of couples having sex in a New Jersey motel. Nachman Breier, a driver and former chef for Skverer rebbe David Twersky, was arrested Monday night in Fort Lee, New Jersey, on a charge of third-degree invasion of…
(JTA) — Avigdor Liberman’s appointment as Israel’s defense minister was quickly condemned by opposition lawmakers, who warned of a severe fallout at home and abroad. “The citizens of Israel should be worried about a rightist coalition that will bring Israel to very dangerous places,” said opposition leader Isaac Herzog at an event Wednesday hosted by the Israel Democracy…
TEL AVIV — An organization advocating Jewish-Arab coexistence has raised more than $18,500 in a crowdfunding drive for a Bedouin Israeli who was beaten by off-duty police officers. The Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality began after Maisam Abu Alqian, 19, a Bedouin student from southern Israel, was beaten outside a Tel Aviv Burger King,…
A senior officer in the Israeli police’s media department on Wednesday appeared to call for a boycott of a Tel Aviv grocery chain whose employee was brutally beaten by cops earlier in the week. Chief Inspector Sharon Yamincha, the head of Israel Police’s new media department, used his personal Facebook account to post an image…
In first remarks as Israel’s designated defense minister, right-wing settler Avigdor Lieberman joked about his fiery reputation: “I have undergone surgery to lengthen my fuse.” In a more serious vein, the Soviet-born 57-year-old struck a conciliatory note, emphasizing “a strong commitment, to the peace, to the final status agreement (with the Palestinians).” After Wednesday’s signing…
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunni Muslim countries are ready to normalize ties with Israel should Israel negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinian Authority on the basis of the Arab Peace Initiative. The Arab Peace Initiative, first proposed in 2002 and reaffirmed in recent years, calls for full…
B’Tselem, one of Israel’s leading human rights groups, said on Wednesday it would no longer refer complaints of abuse carried out by Israeli soldiers to Israeli military courts because the system was biased and set up to whitewash cases. The group, which has monitored Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and incidents of violence and…
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his choice for defense minister, ultranationalist Avigdor Lieberman, signed a coalition agreement on Wednesday and issued assurances that the most right wing government in Israel’s history would act responsibly. Once Lieberman is sworn in, Netanyahu will have a government of 66 legislators, widening his current one-seat majority in the 120-member…
(JTA) — A British media mogul who headed the BBC has accused the United Kingdom’s golf scene of being “full” of anti-Semitism, saying a prominent club banned him in the 1980s because he is Jewish. Michael Grade, 73, who served as BBC chairman from 2004 to 2006, UK’s Telegraph that he learned to “steer clear of any clubs…
