(JTA) – Russia’s war on Ukraine was only a week old when Rabbi Jeremy Borovitz tweeted a bold suggestion: He called for a Jewish fast day dedicated to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now, Borovitz is among a growing number of Jews who are planning to dedicate a traditional fast this week to Ukraine, in hopes…
(JTA) — Dave Reilly is a longtime far-right activist with an extensive record of antisemitic, racist and misogynistic statements. So it would be hard to imagine him as a Democratic Party leader. But that’s exactly what a Republican Party leader in Western Idaho tried to make happen in a scheme first reported Thursday by the…
Fifteen-year-old Montrealer Aviya Scheier is not the kind of teen who plays hooky. Yet last week the diligent tenth grade-student skipped class at Hebrew Academy, where I work, to bring comfort to kids on the Polish side of the Ukrainian border. Aviya flew to Poland with her father, the senior rabbi of Congregation Shaar Hashomayim,…
This article originally appeared in Haaretz and was reprinted here with permission. The corridor of Jerusalem’s Caesar Hotel resembled an improvised football field on Wednesday. A few children, which in other circumstances should be in school, ran and played on the long carpet. They’re part of a group of about 60 adults and children that…
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Schools across Jerusalem will hold Purim celebrations on Monday, a day early, due to a light snowfall expected to descend on the capital, in what could be the first Purim-adjacent snowfall in Jerusalem since the 1980s. Tuesday will bring scattered showers across the…
(JTA) — Speaking at a press conference Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Jerusalem could serve as the location for potential negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. “These are not places where we can come to any understandings on ending the war — I’m not talking about technical meetings but meetings between leaders,” Zelenskyy said of Ukraine,…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — An Amnesty International official said that the organization is opposed to Israel continuing to exist as a Jewish state. “We are opposed to the idea — and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate — that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people,” Paul O’Brien,…
(JTA) — Feeling the sand between her toes was Teva Goldstein’s favorite part of her December 2021 bat mitzvah on the island of Maui. She and her family all wore white, accessorized with purple leis. The beach in Hawaii was nearly 4,000 miles from her home in Dallas, another thousand miles from where she had…
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Jewish parents at P.S. 145, the only public school in Manhattan with a Russian dual-language program, are speaking out against the war in Ukraine. PTA co-president Sasha Stashwick said that it was important the school makes it clear that its families do not stand for this war. “We…
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Argentina is home to one of the most high-level amateur Jewish sports leagues in the world. Normally the young Argentine athletes who play in it, representing various Jewish community centers from different cities, are rivals on the field. But this season, 18 of them came together to play on one team…
This story originally appeared in Jweekly.com. Reposted with permission. The national environmental nonprofit Sierra Club, headquartered in Oakland, has canceled its scheduled trips to Israel in response to pressure from progressive and anti-Zionist groups. The decision came after activists alleged the organization was “greenwashing the conflict” and “providing legitimacy to the Israeli state, which is…
