(JTA) — When Liron Lavi Turkenich designed a writing system combining Hebrew and Arabic characters as a final project in college, she probably could not have imagined that her script would become the focal point of Israel’s pavilion at the 2020 World Expo in Dubai. But after the Abraham Accords, in which Israel signed diplomatic agreements…
(JTA) — Rabbis in the United States and in Israel called on the leaders of their countries to take the issue of climate change seriously ahead of a gathering of world leaders to address the issue. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet will attend the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, which…
The synagogue is a hazard, charge officials in a Cleveland suburb — with live wires hanging from the ceiling and no fire exits. Earlier this year, the city tried to shut it down. But the Aleksander Shul, an Orthodox congregation in University Heights, is fighting back in court, and last month filed a lawsuit accusing…
(JTA) In his first public comments since being fired from Park East Synagogue two weeks ago, Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt defended himself against charges of an “insurrection” and illegal activity and raised concerns about his former congregation’s future. Goldschmidt was abruptly fired from Park East, the wealthy Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, by the…
New York State is expected to divest $111 million in actively managed holdings in Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, over the ice cream maker’s decision early this summer to end sales in the occupied West Bank. Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller, said on Thursday that the state’s Common Retirement Fund, the third…
(JTA) — Tyler Herron, a former major league baseball prospect who pitched for Team Israel during their Cinderella run in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, died this week at 35. No cause or exact date of Herron’s death have been reported. Several of the minor league teams he played for posted tributes to Herron on social…
(JTA) — Sen. Ted Cruz said in a Senate hearing with the U.S. attorney general that protesters and civilians angry with local public policies have the right to make Nazi salutes in protest. “My God! A parent did a Nazi salute at a school board because he thought the policies were oppressive,” Cruz shouted at…
An anthology about the experience of women during the Holocaust is among more than 800 titles cited by a Republican lawmaker in Texas who has launched an investigation into books taught in the state’s public schools. “Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust,” a collection of academic scholarship, was listed among hundreds…
Mike Pompeo, former President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, called on Congress to stop the Biden administration’s plan to reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem to serve Palestinians. “There ought to be members from both sides of the political aisle who will see this as folly and as a dangerous mistake, Pompeo, who is a…
(JTA) — Facing declining membership, a mainline Protestant congregation in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood listed its historic church complex for sale in the summer of last year. Church leaders were told it would take at least a year to complete the deal. But within days, an attractive offer came in, and a few months later the building’s $2.85…
(JTA) — Occult practices and totems are a mainstay of Halloween season, and sage bundles, altars and crystals are an increasingly trendy way to dabble in divination and witchcraft. But the spooky supernatural world also has a long history in Judaism, and modern “Jewitches” are encouraging the connection — though their practices often slightly differ…
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