President Barack Obama has nominated Gen. David Goldfein to serve as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, the Pentagon announced Tuesday. Goldfein, who is Jewish and currently serves as the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, was picked to succeed Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, who has served in the position since 2012,…
Jewish leaders and rabbis from a range of denominations have come out in support of legislation that would give New York State child sex abuse victims more time to sue those they hold responsible for their abuse. Over the last few days, more than 50 leaders and activists, including some 30 rabbis, signed a letter…
Jewish activists close to Marine Le Pen said they have formed an organization designed to market her far-right National Front party to France’s Jewish community ahead of the 2017 presidential elections. Michel Thooris, a French Jew who once worked as Le Pen’s consultant on police issues, told the Le Lab news website that he will…
The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday unanimously voiced alarm over Israeli statements about the Golan Heights on Syria’s border with Israel, a declaration that elicited a sharp response from Israel. Earlier this month Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would never relinquish the Golan Heights, in a signal to Russia and the United States…
Lord Alf Dubs is not giving up after an amendment he proposed, which would bring 3,000 child refugees from Syria and neighboring countries to the United Kingdom, was rejected by the government. Dubs was a child refugee himself. The House of Lords member arrived in London as a six-year-old, fleeing a Nazi-invaded Czechoslovakia, with the…
A former Florida college professor who was fired after he suggested the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax has sued the school for violation of his right to free speech, his attorney said on Tuesday. James Tracy was dismissed in January by Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, where he had taught since…
A letter written by former President William Howard Taft opposing the nomination of Louis Brandeis to become a Supreme Court justice and called anti-Semitic is on the auction block. The four-page letter, which Taft wrote to the Washington-based Jewish journalist Gus Karger and making reference to Brandeis’ Jewishness, is part of an online auction Thursday…
[Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch compared Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s plan to register all Muslims in the United States to Nazi Germany. In a wide-ranging interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Koch called Trump’s reported idea of creating a database of all Muslims in the United States “reminiscent of Nazi Germany. I mean that’s monstrous,…
Rome’s Jewish catacombs will open to the public for the first time on Sunday as part of a campaign to highlight diverse cultural sites throughout Italy. While Rome’s many Christian underground burial grounds are a tourist highlight, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, Jewish catacombs have only up to now been open only…
(JTA) — There are 14 candidates — including nine Democrats — running to replace Rep. Chris Van Hollen in Maryland’s 8th District, which encompasses suburbs of Washington, D.C. Two of the Democrats are Jewish, as are two of the five Republicans. The district includes a big chunk of Montgomery County, which is estimated to be…
Amid a legal fight over the legality of the campaign to boycott Israel in Spain, motions supporting the boycott failed in four Spanish municipalities and passed in four. The council of the eastern city of Santa Coloma de Gramenet near Barcelona on Monday voted down a proposed motion to boycott Israel, according to ACOM, a…
