Ultra-Orthodox women in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, want to experience the joys of summer like everyone else. But that may not be possible this year, due to a lack of female lifeguards at the local Metropolitan Recreation Center pool. With all the clothing restrictions Hasidic women face in the sweltering heat, shedding the layers for a dip…
Dianne Feinstein and Ron Wyden have a lot in common. Both are longtime U.S. senators, Democrats, Jewish and fiercely independent West coasters. They’ve also both been members of the Senate Intelligence Committee since before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and privy to classified materials that describe how the government systematized radical changes in intelligence gathering…
Parents of teenagers from the Bnei Akiva youth movement are up in arms over the movement’s plan to hold an annual event at the Superland amusement park in Rishon Letzion, citing the park’s policy of segregation. “I don’t want my daughter to get the message from going to Superland that Bnei Akiva supports racist segregation,”…
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, the scion of a revered rabbinic family, is the new spiritual leader of the country’s oldest Sephardic synagogue, Congregation Shearith Israel. The synagogue, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, announced the hire in a news release June 10. Soloveichik is the grandson of Ahron Soloveichik and the great-nephew of Joseph…
A French appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling which ordered Twitter to divulge details of users who posted anti-Semitic content. In a decision handed down Wednesday, the Paris Court of Appeals upheld a January 24 ruling that said Twitter must provide data on some users to France’s Union of Jewish students and four…
The Palestinian Authority objects to changing the configuration of the Temple Mount plaza in order to accommodate an egalitarian prayer area, a PA official said. “Any change in the Temple Mount is unacceptable to the Palestinians or Arabs. It’s a change of our heritage site and I believe that such a change will push us…
In a first of its kind ruling on human genes, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday decided that synthetically produced genetic material can be patented but naturally occurring DNA extracted from the human body cannot. The nine justices handed a partial victory to Salt Lake City, Utah-based biotechnology company Myriad Genetics Inc , which…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened a new permanent exhibit titled “Shoah” at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum. The ceremony took place Thursday in what used to be the Nazi extermination camp at the former Prison Block 27, which has been designed as an exhibit showing the death camp in the larger context of genocide in…
Israel is pressing on with plans for more than 1,000 new homes in two West Bank settlements, officials said on Thursday, moves that could complicate U.S. efforts to persuade Palestinians, seeking a construction freeze, to return to peace talks. An Israeli setttlers’ council has asked Israeli zoning authorities in the occupied territory to approve the…
Israeli beauty queen Yityish “Titi” Aynaw seemed completely at ease as she mingled with the assembled guests on Tuesday evening on the penthouse balcony with breathtaking views of south Manhattan. Dozens of handsome and stylish Jewish twenty to forty somethings hovered around her, trying to get her attention, whisper in her ear, take a photo…
Pope Francis greeted about 30 Jews and Catholics from Italy and the Americas who took part a symposium on Christian-Jewish dialogue. Among the Jewish participants was the pope’s old friend from Buenos Aires, Rabbi Abraham Skorka. The four-day seminar, which concluded Thursday, was organized by the Focolare Movement, an international Christian organization promoting brotherhood, and…
דער באַגריף, ייִדישע אױטאָנאָמיע אין גלות — הײַנט פּאָפּולער בײַ קריטיקער פֿון ציוניזם — איז היסטאָריש ניט געװען קײן דערפֿאָלג.
