MANTUA, Italy (JTA) — A new initiative aims to digitize some 35,000 Jewish texts sitting in the hands of 14 different Jewish community organizations and 25 state institutions across Italy. Around 10,000 volumes have already been digitized as part of the Italya Books project, an initiative of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, the National…
(JTA) — Two decades after she graduated from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Ayelet Cohen is going back to school — this time, as the first-ever woman to serve full-time as dean of the rabbinical school. As dean, Cohen will be responsible for the “vision and setting the tone and direction for training clergy for…
Jared Kushner pressed Pfizer for vaccines already slated for other countries to go to the U.S., Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla writes in his new book, “Moonshot: Inside Pfizer’s Nine-Month Race to Make the Impossible Possible.” Bourla refused, and wrote that the disagreement became “heated” with Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and was a…
(JTA) — When Rabbi Danny Fink saw that the lieutenant governor of his state had just spoken to a white nationalist group helmed by a Holocaust denier, he was shocked. After all, he had just gotten a letter from Janet McGeachin, Idaho’s Republican lieutenant governor, asking him to join her in working on a task…
(JTA) — The most prominent Jewish figure in Ukraine right now is the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The runner-up may well be another country’s famous Jewish leader. Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel and a native of Kyiv whose family fled amid antisemitic violence, has loomed large ever since Russia launched its war…
(JTA) — In response to the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, Israel is ready to take in 5,000 new non-Jewish Ukrainian refugees and to allow 20,000 non-Jewish Ukrainians who are already in the country, many illegally, to remain. Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked made the announcement Tuesday. Israel’s Law of Return normally offers citizenship only to people…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — After months of maneuvering over $1 billion to replace Iron Dome batteries Israel lost in last year’s Gaza conflict, the money is to be included in a bipartisan spending bill Congress will consider this week as it looks to avoid a government shutdown. Also included in the $1.5 trillion Omnibus Appropriations Agreement…
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Nothing seemed so Jewish as a box of Entenmann’s cake or cookies. “All of the Jews I know bought Entenmann’s,” wrote Nancy Kalikow Maxwell, in her 2019 book “Typically Jewish.” The bakery earned a place in Tablet magazine’s list of “100 Most Jewish Foods,” with an essay by…
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. With planeloads of Jewish refugees from Ukraine landing at Ben-Gurion International Airport this week, Israel is also starting to gear up for a big jump in aliyah from the very country responsible for putting these new immigrants on the run: Russia. “We anticipate…
(JTA) — After being condemned by his party, the Republican nominee for a Michigan state House seat said he is “not antisemitic” despite sharing several Facebook posts that promote antisemitic conspiracy theories. Robert Regan, a Grand Rapids resident who recently won his party’s nomination for an upcoming special election in the heavily conservative 74th district,…
BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — The Anne Frank statue stolen in Buenos Aires was recovered less than a day after the robbery, Mayor Horacio Rodriguez Larreta announced on Friday night. Police found the statue, a replica of one in Amsterdam, in a squatter shanty town near the center of the city. Rodriguez Larreta said that he…
