Avodah, a New York-based Jewish social justice organization, was hearing the same thing from Jewish group after Jewish group: They wanted to start social action projects, or see more concrete progress on ones already in place — but didn’t know how. In response, Avodah launched the Avodah Institute for Social Change, a program that will…
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — In a boon for scholars and amateur researchers, records from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust authority, are now publicly available through JewishGen, the largest online Jewish genealogy resource of its kind. The agreement announced Tuesday by Yad Vashem and New York’s Museum of Jewish Heritage/A Living Memorial to…
ANN ARBOR, Michigan (JTA) — The University of Michigan’s Frankel Center for Judaic Studies announced that it had received a new gift in excess of $1 million from local benefactors. The money will primarily be used to create a new full-time endowed professorship on the faculty. The gift comes from the estate of Stuart and…
(JTA) — This article originally appeared on Alma. There’s a new siddur on the block that uses all nonbinary Hebrew forms and neopronouns for G-d* in English. “Siddur Davar Ḥadash” is designed for accessibility, with full transliteration and full translation, via searchable PDF — or open-source text, which allows users to customize it. The siddur was…
Update: New York City Council Member Vicki Paladino apologized Tuesday saying that she regretted the comparison as soon as she said it and had and asked the television reporter interviewing her “to strike it from the record.” The apology came a day after the interview aired. She said: “It is never okay to compare anything…
(JTA) – Charitable foundations with ties to Jewish federations and Jewish families feature prominently in a new report about the flow of tax-deductible donations to organizations that a leading Muslim civil rights lobby has identified as “anti-Muslim groups.” Titled “Islamophobia in the Mainstream,” the report was published Tuesday by CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil…
(JTA) — Less than six months ago, the Polish government appointed an envoy to improve relations with Polish Jews, after recent years of tensions spurred by a series of laws involving Holocaust rhetoric and restitution. On Saturday, the envoy was fired. Jaroslaw Marek Nowak had criticized one of Poland’s Holocaust laws in an interview with…
(JTA) — A marketing firm that has worked extensively with Jewish nonprofits has declined to work with one because of growing concerns among its staff members about groups with “significant programming in Israel.” The Shalom Hartman Institute, a leading Jewish educational think tank, reached out to Big Duck, a Brooklyn-based worker-owned cooperative, because of Big…
(JTA) – The Simon Wiesenthal Center, named for the famed Nazi hunter who died in 2005, defines itself as “a Jewish global human rights organization researching the Holocaust and hate in a historic and contemporary context.” The center’s associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, has helped to defuse antisemitism controversies involving celebrities for decades, such as…
At a hearing on his bill to ban teaching on “divisive ideologies,” an Indiana state senator last week said teachers should be impartial in the classroom — even when teaching about Nazism or fascism. “I have no problem with the education system providing instruction on the existence of those isms,” said Republican Scott Baldwin. “I…
(JTA) — Golden Globes fans may have noticed something different this year: The annual entertainment awards were not announced on TV, and not for COVID-19 reasons. NBC dropped the broadcast over the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s diversity problem — none of the 87 members of the Globes’ awards body are Black. (The one celebrity to…
