Israeli and American Reform Jews will boycott Israeli Tourism Minister Yariv Levin, after Levin made disparaging comments about the Reform Movement. During a cabinet meeting last month on a proposed expansion to the non-Orthodox section of the Western Wall, Levin called Reform Judaism a “dying world” that has succumbed to assimilation. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…
A haredi Orthodox man burned a Reform prayer book while protesting a women’s prayer service at the Western Wall. The man, Itamar Gadassi, set the book on fire during the monthly service Wednesday of Women of the Wall, which meets at the wall’s women’s section. Protesters regularly shout epithets at the group and have thrown…
An Orthodox man was stabbed on a sidewalk in the Brooklyn neighborhood that is home to the Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s world headquarters. Yehuda Lib Brikman, 25, who according to JPUpdates is newly married, was stabbed Wednesday morning in the upper back on a residential street in Crown Heights. He was rushed to Kings County Hospital in…
(JTA) — Her husband was assassinated and her grandson is in prison. But Libby Kahane, widow of the late far-right Rabbi Meir Kahane, has remained faithful to her husband’s ideology. She repeats his call for Israel to expel its Arab population. She believes the Israeli left, Jewish media and some American Jews – particularly college students…
Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders courted the African-American vote on Wednesday after thrashing former secretary of state Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire primary election and giving his anti-establishment campaign a major lift. Sanders, a democratic socialist and U.S. senator from Vermont, met civil rights leader Rev. Al Sharpton for breakfast at a restaurant in…
Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara insulted and raged at household staff, creating an abusive working environment at the Israeli prime minister’s official residence, a labor court ruled on Wednesday. Allegations of mistreatment leveled by Meni Naftali, a former chief caretaker at the Jerusalem home, were dismissed by the Prime Minister’s Office as “evil, skewed gossip” when…
Among goodies like a year’s worth of Audi rentals, a walking tour of Japan, a $250 vape, and a very strange cosmetic procedure called the “vampire breast lift”, one of the gifts in this year’s Oscar “Swag Bag” is a $55,000 VIP trip to Israel. Jennifer Lawrence, Sylvester Stallone, Kate Winslet, Christian Bale and Leonardo…
The chair of a Knesset subcommittee said “We must treat the international media arena as a hostile arena” in the wake of a controversial headline on the killing of an Israeli policewoman. Tzipi Livni of the Zionist Union party made the remark at a session Tuesday convened by the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s subcommittee…
The Central Synagogue of Aleppo sustained minor damage in fighting, according to photos provided by locals to an Israeli-American activist for peace in the war-torn country. The damage affected a corner of the building and was probably caused by shelling, according to Moti Kahana, the founder of the Amaliah not-for-profit group, which aims to relieve…
Israel and the European Union are engaging in secret talks on repairing their relationship following the European Union’s decision to label products made in Israeli settlements. According to a report in Haaretz, Helga Schmid, a senior adviser to E.U. chief diplomat Federica Mogherini, came to Israel last week for a secret meeting with Dore Gold,…
Women of the Wall drew 100 women to its monthly service a week and a half after the adoption of a compromise over the future of prayer at the Western Wall. Haredi Orthodox protesters shouted insults at the worshippers Wednesday, according to a press release from the group, which conducts monthly services in the wall’s…
