(JTA) In his first public comments since being fired from Park East Synagogue two weeks ago, Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt defended himself against charges of an “insurrection” and illegal activity and raised concerns about his former congregation’s future. Goldschmidt was abruptly fired from Park East, the wealthy Orthodox synagogue on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, by the…
New York State is expected to divest $111 million in actively managed holdings in Unilever, the parent company of Ben & Jerry’s, over the ice cream maker’s decision early this summer to end sales in the occupied West Bank. Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller, said on Thursday that the state’s Common Retirement Fund, the third…
(JTA) — Tyler Herron, a former major league baseball prospect who pitched for Team Israel during their Cinderella run in the 2017 World Baseball Classic, died this week at 35. No cause or exact date of Herron’s death have been reported. Several of the minor league teams he played for posted tributes to Herron on social…
(JTA) — Sen. Ted Cruz said in a Senate hearing with the U.S. attorney general that protesters and civilians angry with local public policies have the right to make Nazi salutes in protest. “My God! A parent did a Nazi salute at a school board because he thought the policies were oppressive,” Cruz shouted at…
An anthology about the experience of women during the Holocaust is among more than 800 titles cited by a Republican lawmaker in Texas who has launched an investigation into books taught in the state’s public schools. “Life, Death and Sacrifice: Women and Family in the Holocaust,” a collection of academic scholarship, was listed among hundreds…
Mike Pompeo, former President Donald Trump’s secretary of state, called on Congress to stop the Biden administration’s plan to reopen the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem to serve Palestinians. “There ought to be members from both sides of the political aisle who will see this as folly and as a dangerous mistake, Pompeo, who is a…
(JTA) — Facing declining membership, a mainline Protestant congregation in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood listed its historic church complex for sale in the summer of last year. Church leaders were told it would take at least a year to complete the deal. But within days, an attractive offer came in, and a few months later the building’s $2.85…
(JTA) — Occult practices and totems are a mainstay of Halloween season, and sage bundles, altars and crystals are an increasingly trendy way to dabble in divination and witchcraft. But the spooky supernatural world also has a long history in Judaism, and modern “Jewitches” are encouraging the connection — though their practices often slightly differ…
(JTA) — One of the happiest nights I ever spent in synagogue was May 16, 2011, when my fellow congregants and I gathered to watch that night’s episode of “Jeopardy!” One of our members, Rabbi Joyce Newmark, was a contestant, but of course she hadn’t been able to tell us the results of a game…
(JTA) — (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — For JoAnn Mason Parker, playing pool comes just as naturally as handling a knife and fork. “You’re not going to drop it, because you know what you’re doing,” the former child prodigy said, explaining the analogy during a recent video chat from Westchester,…
(JTA) — The highest court in Greece has ruled against allowing ritual slaughter, fulfilling fears that some Jewish leaders voiced last year after the European Union’s top court ruled in support of such bans. Last December, the EU’s highest court upheld the bans imposed in regions of Belgium against slaughtering animals for meat without stunning…
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