President Joe Biden is closely watching the volatile political situation in Israel as the government led by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett lost its majority in the Knesset on Wednesday. “We are certainly watching that very, very closely,” Yael Lempert, acting assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs, said in a pre-Passover Zoom call…
(JTA) — After two pandemic-altered seasons, a three-month lockout and a truncated free agent frenzy, the 2022 Major League Baseball season has finally arrived. For Jewish fans of America’s Pastime, there is plenty to look forward to this season, from Atlanta Braves ace Max Fried starting on Opening Day to the fashionable Joc Pederson playing…
(JTA) – In the wake of last year’s round of deadly fighting in Gaza, a group of prominent rabbis in the New York area came to believe that a major American Jewish charity had indirectly fueled the violence. In a letter to the charity, the 19 rabbis, including ones with national renown such as Angela Buchdahl, Sharon…
(JTA) – Rabbi Jonathan Blake has fond memories of his time at Hebrew Union College’s Cincinnati campus. Not only was Cincinnati where he was ordained, but it was also where he met his wife, actress and singer Kelly McCormick — who converted to Judaism after spending time in the community’s Shabbat musical ensemble. Today, Blake…
(New York Jewish Week) — Joshua Kushner, younger brother to Jared Kushner, the advisor to former President Donald Trump, has made it onto Forbes’ annual World’s Billionaires List. Josh Kushner is the first member of the Kushner family land a spot on Forbes’ list of the richest people in the world. Neither his more famous…
(JTA) — It’s Jew vs. Santa Claus — and 48 others — in Alaska’s carnivalesque special House election. Al Gross, a physician who was raised in the Last Frontier’s close-knit Jewish community, is one of 50 candidates who will be vying for the state’s lone House seat in a special election to replace Don Young,…
(JTA) — The fact that Sarah Knafo rose quickly to the top echelon of French politics came as no surprise to people who know this 28-year-old Jewish woman from the Paris region. A studious, charming and well connected law graduate of the prestigious Sciences Po university who works as a public funds auditor, Knafo was…
(JTA) – Germany’s infamous “Nazi Grandma,” 93-year-old German Holocaust denier Ursula Haverbeck, has been sentenced a year in jail, after failing in her appeal to overturn guilty verdicts in two separate cases. The Berlin district court upheld verdicts against Haverbeck – who was given her nickname by some German media outlets – on Friday, and…
(JTA) — A young Jewish man was hit and killed by a tram car in a suburb of Paris in February, and his family believes his death may have followed an antisemitic attack. The family of Jérémie Cohen, who was 31 when he died Feb. 16 in the northeastern suburb of Bobigny, is looking for…
(JTA) — Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s Jewish president, said his country will look more like Israel, a democracy on constant military alert, than like their more relaxed European neighbors, given the prospect of long-term tensions with Russia. “We will become a ‘big Israel’ with its own face,” Zelenskyy said Tuesday at a briefing for Ukrainian media,…
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Idit Silman, the chairwoman of the Israeli government, abruptly announced her resignation from the coalition Wednesday morning, leaving it with 60 lawmakers and effectively ending its majority in the Knesset. The announcement caught Prime Minister Naftali Bennett by surprise, who was unable to…
