In an unlikely pairing, Jon Ossoff, the Jewish Democratic senator from Georgia, introduced bipartisan legislation with Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to investigate unsolved racially-motivated murders from the Civil Rights era. Building on a 2018 law, the legislation would extend the term of the Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board to 2027 and…
(JTA) — The way Adam Fox describes it, he was brought up like any other not-very-religious Jewish kid on Long Island. “I’m from a pretty normal family,” he explained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “[I have] two Jewish parents and I went to temple like a normal kid, got bar mitzvahed and, you know, nothing…
(JTA) — (Jewish News of Greater Phoenix via JTA) — Leaders of Arizona’s Jewish community are suing the state to prevent it from using hydrogen cyanide, the same lethal gas that was deployed at Auschwitz, to carry out capital punishment. During the Holocaust, the Nazis used pellets of Zyklon B, a hydrogen cyanide formulation, in…
(JTA) — When it came to babka, actress Kathryn Kates, who died last month at 73, preferred chocolate, according to The New York Times. But when Jerry and Elaine finally got to her bakery counter on “Seinfeld,” the only babka Kates had to offer was cinnamon. And that was a problem. “There’s chocolate and there’s…
A virtual lecture by an Israeli scientist was interrupted last week by an antisemitic Zoom-bombing, or a flood of unwanted comments and sounds made by users trying to distract from the event. Sason Shaik, a chemistry professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was giving a virtual talk for students at the University of Houston…
(JTA) — David Perdue, a one-term U.S. senator ousted by a Jewish Democrat a year ago, is now running for governor of his state as the Trump-backed candidate, and like others in that camp, he has taken to comparing aspects of contemporary life to life under Nazi rule. Perdue was decrying Twitter’s removal of former…
A New York Jewish progressive group on Wednesday will endorse candidates in two Congressional districts which include significant Jewish constituencies and where incumbents could be vulnerable. The Jewish Vote is backing Democrats Brittany Ramos DeBarros, a former army officer, for the 11th Congressional District, and Rana Abdelhamid, a community organizer, for the 12th, the group…
(JTA) — A parent of a child at a Jewish day school in North Miami Beach was arrested after saying he wanted to “burn this school to the f***|ing ground” in a group chat for parents opposed to the school’s mask policy, according to CBS Miami. Mark Polyakov’s son was a student at Scheck Hillel…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Julie Platt is a one-time banker who has become a leader in promoting Jewish education and helping to rescue Jewish camping from the ravages of the pandemic. Now, she’s about to make history as the second woman to chair one of the largest Jewish fundraising powerhouses in the United States, the Jewish…
(JTA) — Felice Jacobs and Alan Feldstein could have tied the knot in Phoenix, where they met and where his mother worked at the local Reform synagogue. Or they could have held their wedding on the Austrian Army base where Alan was stationed at the time. Instead, they chose the Eagle’s Nest, the Nazis’ former…
(JTA) — On Sue Fishkoff’s first day as editor of J. The Jewish News of Northern California in 2011, she knew she needed to do something about the archives. At the time, the newspaper’s archives — which stretch all the way back to 1900 — were still housed in bound volumes stacked carelessly in the…
