Barnard College told observant Jewish students that the school’s COVID-19 protocols required them to use technology on Rosh Hashanah before quickly reversing course, according to emails obtained by the Forward. Hours before the holiday began Monday evening, an email arrived in Jewish students’ inboxes: “We recognize that how you have practiced religious traditions in the…
(JTA) — Six Palestinian men who were imprisoned in Israel on terrorism charges escaped from their high-security jail, apparently through a crawl space. The men, five Islamic Jihad militants and the Fatah operative Zakaria Zubeidi, who is one of the best-known Palestinians convicted in Israel for terrorism, are the subject of a massive manhunt that…
(JTA) — The world population of those who self-identify as Jews stands at about 15.2 million — an increase of 100,000 over last year. Israel has 6.9 million Jews and the United States has “about 6 million,” according to an estimate by the Jewish Agency for Israel based on work by Sergio Della Pergola, a…
(JTA) — Zebulon Simantov, the last remaining Jew in Afghanistan, has finally left the country for fear of persecution by the Taliban, an Israeli television channel reported. Simantov, the 62-year-old former keeper of Kabul’s lone remaining synagogue, left the country for the United States in recent days with several other exiles, the Kan broadcaster in…
(JTA) — Meryl Jaffe says she’s like any Jewish parent keeping track of her kids on social media, except it can be terrifying. When she heard President Joe Biden deployed 3,000 Marines to Afghanistan, she had a gut feeling that her son Matt — she calls him Matthew — was among them. Her family was…
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told Jewish American leaders on Friday that “restoring a good atmosphere” between the U.S. and Israel and strengthening bipartisan support for the Jewish state is one of the three main objectives of the new Israeli government. (The others are keeping the pandemic under control and brokering a budget deal.) “My…
(JTA) — Rabbi Raziel Cohen doesn’t want you to have to draw a gun in synagogue. But if you must, he doesn’t want you to waste precious time unbuttoning your kapota, a type of jacket worn by men in the Chabad Hasidic community on Shabbat and Jewish holidays. So Cohen, a firearms instructor who goes…
(JTA) — Al-Qaida had planned to carry out a massive terrorist attack on Israeli dance clubs in 2002 but was thwarted with the help of U.S. intelligence operatives, a former FBI researcher said. Ali Soufan, who with other agents had monitored al-Qaida for the FBI both before the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center…
(JTA) — The National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia will come out of bankruptcy in the coming weeks after a former trustee stepped in to buy the museum building and lease it back for a nominal monthly rent of $1,000. Mitchell Morgan, a local real estate CEO, will pay the museum about $10…
(JTA) — Israeli swimmers Iyad Shalabi and Ami Dadaon each won gold medals at the Paralympics on Thursday, adding to Israel’s historic medal showing. So far, Israel has won nine medals — six of which are gold, and eight of which come from swimming events. On the first day of competition, Shalabi had already made…
Rabbi Shmuel David Weissmandl, a 69-year-old resident of the village of Mount Kisco in upstate New York, was one of the more than a dozen people who died from flooding that swept the New York region on Wednesday night. Weissmandl was driving home from Rockland County when his car was caught in high water near…
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