(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…
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — New York’s Jewish community is rallying for victims and first responders after the city’s deadliest fire in 30 years. Nineteen people, including nine children, were killed in the blaze in the Bronx, which raged through a 19-story high rise on East 181st Street, which was home to a…
(JTA) — In his Rosh Hashana call with Jewish leaders last year, President Joe Biden called for a “swift confirmation” for Deborah Lipstadt, his pick to serve as the State Department’s antisemitism envoy. But despite Biden’s formal nomination of Lipstadt last July, Lipstadt has yet to be confirmed by the Senate. According to a New…
(JTA) — Doug Mastriano isn’t Jewish. But that didn’t stop him from announcing his candidacy for Pennsylvania governor at an event where a man donned a tallit, or a Jewish prayer shawl, and blew a shofar.< MAGA Sen. Doug Mastriano announced his candidacy for Gov of PA today. They opened the proceedings the same way…
(JTA) — Jon Stewart thinks we all missed the joke. Following a recent podcast in which he suggested that goblin characters in the “Harry Potter” series resembled antisemitic caricatures, the Jewish comedian posted a follow-up video to Twitter on Wednesday, saying that he did not mean to accuse the series’ author J.K. Rowling of antisemitism….
MANTUA, Italy (JTA) — After years of disagreement, local officials and Italy’s umbrella Jewish group reached an agreement to turn an armory built on top of a centuries-old Jewish cemetery into a “House of Remembrance” museum. The Jewish cemetery of San Nicolò is located in Mantua, a small northern Italian town in the Po Valley…
