In a speech to the parliament of the nation that birthed Nazism, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invoked the Holocaust on Thursday, criticizing Germany for failing to step the Russian assault on Ukraine. “After 80 years, something like this happens and I am telling you: Every year politicians repeat the words ‘never again’ and now we…
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. A week before Russia invaded Ukraine, hi-tech entrepreneur and artist Arsen Revzov decided to pack his bags and leave Russia for Israel before it was too late. He landed here over a week ago, but he was not alone. He came with Constantin…
New York Jewish Week — The joyous and, yes, slightly drunken holidays of St. Patrick’s Day and Purim both fall on March 17 this year. The last time these Jewish and Irish festivals collided was in 1984 — and of course the funny folks over at “Saturday Night Live” had a sketch to mark the…
(JTA) — Barb Berkowitz became a bat mitzvah at 42 years old. Berkowitz and 11 other women in the adult bat mitzvah class at Temple Emanuel in New Haven, Connecticut, had been studying with Rabbi Jerry Brieger for months. Some had only just learned how to read Hebrew, while others had watched their sons prepare…
With Purim approaching last week, a number of Jewish organizations collaborated on a flyer that encouraged people to exercise sensitivity in their costumes. But one Orthodox high school didn’t get the memo. In a video that circulated on social media Tuesday, boys from Yeshiva University High School of Los Angeles, or YULA, dressed up for…
(New York Jewish Week) — The 87-year-old Broadway vocal coach who died after being pushed to the ground Tuesday by an unknown assailant in Manhattan was mourned by cantorial students she had taught at various Jewish seminaries. Barbara Maier Gustern worked in musical theater for decades, most recently for the 2019 Broadway revival of the musical…
(JTA) — A Jewish Google employee who has tried to pressure the company to end a contract to build cloud-based data centers for the Israeli government says the tech giant has retaliated against her activism — by asking her to relocate to Brazil. Ariel Koren told the Los Angeles Times that after she criticized and…
(JTA) — There aren’t many Jewish players in Division I men’s college basketball, and even fewer get to play for Jewish coaches. But that’s the case at Auburn University, the Alabama school that went 27-5 this year and held the No. 1 ranking in the country for a time. They head into March Madness as…
(JTA) — Sam Massell was Atlanta’s first Jewish mayor, serving from 1970-1974. Also, he was the city’s last white mayor. But he was remembered as more than a single-term bookend: Massell was the first mayor to prove that the city’s Blacks had clout enough to elevate their chosen candidate to office, and he embedded Black…
(JTA) — In response to scrutiny over the naturalization of Russian-Jewish billionaire Roman Abramovich, Portugal’s government is tightening its law that allows the descendants of Sephardic Jews to become citizens. Applicants must now demonstrate “an effective connection with Portugal,” Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva said Wednesday, according to the Publico newspaper. That involves proof of…
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. A representative of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Kahol Lavan party raised an initiative last week to purchase islands in Greece using money from the Jewish National Fund “for the good of the Jewish people.” Avri Steiner – the representative of party Kahol Lavan…
