A haredi Orthodox lawmaker in Israel reportedly compared the Reform movement to a mentally ill person. Israel Eichler of the United Torah Judaism party made his remarks Tuesday in the lead-up to a Knesset debate the next day on the Supreme Court’s decision that non-Orthodox converts can immerse in a public mikvah, according to the…
Oscar-nominated celebrities were urged on Wednesday to skip a $55,000 trip to Israel offered as part of an awards gift bag. Two U.S.-based groups campaigning for an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories made the plea in a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times that appeared five days before the Academy Awards…
A 26-year-old Orthodox Jewish man killed himself by driving the wrong way on the Florida Turnpike days after saying on Facebook that he had already tried to do so. Tzvi Yeheskel Ference of Miami Beach was killed on Sunday night when his car driving north collided head-on with a tractor trailer in the southbound lanes…
A French-Jewish teacher who in November told police he had been assaulted by Jihadists was arrested on suspicion that he lied about the attack. Rabbi Tsion Saadon was taken into custody Wednesday following the discovery of inconsistencies in his account of the alleged Nov. 18, 2015 attack, which prompted passionate condemnations by police and even…
Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that increased Israeli settlement building is not helping to ease tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. “I don’t think that the situation is helped by additional settlement construction and building,” Kerry told a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee at a hearing on the State Department’s annual budget request….
Award-winning photographer Brian Hendler, who served for many years as JTA’s staff photographer in Israel, has died. Hendler, a South African immigrant to Jerusalem, died suddenly on Wednesday at 63, according to The Jerusalem Post, one of the many news outlets for which Hendler worked. The report did not offer any information on cause of…
Shaken by the abrupt collapse of one of New York’s largest social service agencies, a consortium of not-for-profit groups is warning that others may also be in jeopardy if government doesn’t radically reform the way it works with outside groups. A report released today by the Human Services Council, an advocacy group for the nonprofit…
Israeli soldiers who opened fire at a knife-wielding Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday accidentally shot dead an Israeli whom he was trying to stab, hospital officials said. The Israeli army described the man who was killed as a civilian, and said the Palestinian assailant was wounded in the incident near the Gush…
Hungarian Jews protested a new government plan to honor a Holocaust-era politician who supported anti-Semitic legislation. The controversy that unfolded Tuesday between the Mazsihisz umbrella group of Jewish communities and the government concerns a statue scheduled to be unveiled in Budapest in the presence of government officials on Wednesday of Gyorgy Donath – a lawmaker…
In a surprising twist, the Embassy of Israel in Canada has stepped in to sponsor a Noa concert after the Jewish National Fund of Canada withdrew its sponsorship for the singer’s supposedly anti-Israel positions. The Israeli Independence Day concert, which will take place on May 11 at the Chan Centre, looked to be threatened by…
A fight over an impressionist painting at the University of Oklahoma that was looted by the Nazis during World War Two came to an end when the university announced a settlement on Tuesday to return it to the Jewish family it was stolen from. Title to the 130-year-old painting, “Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep” by Camille…
