The city of Toledo in central Spain is launching a two-day cultural festival themed around the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. The festival, which ends on Oct. 12, will feature Sephardic music; workshops on how to build a sukkah – a flimsy hut where Jews eat during the holiday in memory of their ancestors’ nomadic existence…
British fashion designer John Galliano is returning to work in the fashion industry two years after he was fired from Christian Dior for an anti-Semitic rant caught on video. Galliano has been hired as the creative director of the Paris-based fashion house Maison Martin Margiela, the company announced Monday. Dior fired Galliano in March 2011…
A highway expansion project in Israel has led to the discovery of a nearly 2,000-year-old mikvah. The ritual bath was discovered at Ha-Ela Junction, near the city of Beit Shemesh, during archaeological excavations conducted prior to widening Highway 38, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in a news release. In addition to the 1,900-year-old mikvah, archaeologists…
(JTA) — Jewish and Arab residents of the Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan disagree on whether the neighborhood is historically Jewish or Arab. They disagree about whether Israeli Jews should be living there. They even disagree on what to call one of the main streets in the neighborhood, a predominantly Arab area just outside the walls of…
SodaStream stock tumbled by more than a fifth of its market value on Tuesday, with earnings and a revenue warning to blame for the slide. SodaStream estimated third-quarter revenue below market expectations, citing weak demand in the United States, and its shares fell as much as 21.6 percent. They were last trading down 20.9 percent…
(JTA) — A high school diploma may not be worth as much nowadays as it once was. But for one Holocaust survivor, it’s still extremely valuable. The Holocaust interrupted the high school education of Henry Friedman, a Poland native who now lives on Mercer Island. But this week, at 86, he will get an honorary…
Norma Spungen, the former archivist at the Chicago Jewish Archives at Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership, has died. Spungen died Sunday at the age of 87. As the archivist at Spertus from 1986 to 1996, Spungen curated and assisted with several major exhibits mounted at the institute dealing with many important themes in…
Religious Jewish teens are far less likely to attempt suicide than their secular Jewish counterparts, a new study finds. The study, led by researchers from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler School of Medicine and Clalit Health Service’s Geha Mental Health Center, and published last week in the journal European Psychology, bolsters previous research that religious faith…
Ralph Goldman, who as a young man helped shepherd the State of Israel into existence and later devoted his professional life to bringing humanitarian relief to Jews across the globe, has died at 100. Goldman, who worked with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee since 1968 – he served twice as its chief executive and…
Hobby Lobby’s Steve Green hopes his planned $800 million Museum of the Bible in Washington and its priceless collection can satisfy both scholars and casual visitors. But with Hobby Lobby a household word after the craft store chain’s contentious victory in a Supreme Court ruling over contraception, scholars and analysts worry that despite its vast…
Israel’s health ministry issued a warning declaring that therapies aimed at changing patients from gay to straight are not supported by medical evidence and could be harmful. Signed by Health Minister Yael German, Sunday’s decision adopts the position of the Council of Psychologists and the Israel Psychological Association. The health ministry statement warns that gay…
