Don’t call Bob Dylan a hippy. Ever. Longtime country music bad boy Merle Haggard, who died Wednesday on his 79th birthday, found that out the hard way last year. In February, 2015, as the Jewish folk singing legend accepted the MusicCares lifetime achievement award, Dylan, 74, said something about the born again Haggard that many…
Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of France’s far-right National Front party, was fined for repeating his view that the Nazi gas chambers were a “detail” of World War II. A court in Paris fined Le Pen some $34,000 after finding him guilty of denying crimes against humanity, the French news agency AFP reported. One year…
In a talk to hundreds of philanthropists and foundation representatives, former Facebook spokesperson and marketing director Randi Zuckerberg credited Shabbat and other Jewish concepts for some of her main pieces of business advice. Zuckerberg told the crowd that she was bemused by those who viewed her emphasis on life balance as an innovative idea. “People…
The number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in Austria increased more than 80 percent last year, with reported internet postings denouncing Jews more than doubling, an Austrian group said on Wednesday. Jews across Europe have warned of a rising tide of anti-Semitism, fueled by anger at Israeli policy in the Middle East, while far-right movements have…
A far-right Israeli politician has been admonished by his party and roundly condemned by commentators after suggesting Jewish and Arab women should be separated in maternity wards in apartheid-style segregation. Betzalel Smotrich, a 36-year-old member of parliament from the Jewish Home party, which is part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, is an ultra-nationalist settler…
To Israel’s military prosecutors, a soldier who fired a bullet into the head of a wounded and motionless Palestinian assailant may be guilty of homicide. To many Israelis, he is a hero. That has fueled an unprecedented debate over the role and ethics of Israel’s conscript armed forces, long the symbol of national unity among…
Israel’s parliament has effectively capped salaries for bankers at $655,000, raising fears that the best minds in the money business will flee the sector for industries with no such limits. The new Knesset law was designed to soothe public anger over income inequality but has sparked fears of a mass exodus at a time when…
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is crowdsourcing research on how local U.S. newspapers reported the Holocaust. The museum said in a statement issued Tuesday it had already received more than 900 submissions from researchers, including newspapers as far afield as the Bangor (Maine) Daily News and the Santa Cruz (California) Sentinel. “While scholars have extensively…
The literary writers’ group PEN American Center is refusing to drop Israeli government sponsorship from its annual festival, despite calls by dozens of members to do so. According to a news release issued Tuesday by Adalah-NY, a group that supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel, more than 100 writers signed onto a…
(JTA) — Here’s a riddle: If a transgender Jew shows up at an Orthodox synagogue, on which side of the mechitzah barrier separating the sexes should the person be seated? That’s an easy one compared to more complex Jewish legal questions raised by people who don’t identify as the gender suggested by their physical anatomy…
Bernie Sanders says he is an ardent supporter of Israel but if he becomes President of the United States, he would demand the Jewish state stop the expansion of settlements in the West Bank, halt “indiscriminate” attacks on Palestinian civilians — and strive for peace. Sanders’ remarks came in a wide-ranging talk with the pro-Israel…
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