WASHINGTON (JTA) — Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is the longest-serving member of his party in the U.S. Senate, announced on Monday that he will not run for reelection next year, setting the stage for Dianne Feinstein of California to be the first woman and first Jew to be the Senate’s president pro tempore,…
This article originally appeared in Ha’aretz and was reprinted here with permission. Education officials in the Canadian province of Alberta on Friday repudiated official diversity guidelines that call for highlighting the Nazis’ economic achievements and “positive qualities” of European settlers who oppressed of the country’s indigenous population, following uproar by Jewish organizations. The document, which…
(JTA) — The FBI has charged a suspect already arrested on local charges relating to a fire set at a synagogue in Austin, Texas. Franklin Barrett Sechriest, 18, was transferred to federal custody on Monday, the Austin American-Statesman reported. Investigators with the Austin fire department arrested him last week on an arson charge related to…
(JTA) — Helene Fortunoff, who helped turn her husband’s mom-and-pop housewares business into a major jewelry company, died Nov. 8 at age 88 in Miami Beach, Florida. Fortunoff became a powerful player in the jewelry industry long before many women had entered the workplace. Speaking to The New York Times in 2001, a year after…
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Analogies to the Holocaust have become commonplace at anti-vaccine protests around the U.S. and the world. But protesters displaying swastikas and a yellow star especially stung on Sunday, when they deployed the symbols outside the office of a Jewish politician, Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, whose district…
(JTA) — David Schoen, the Atlanta lawyer who represented Donald Trump in his impeachment proceedings and the current chair of the Zionist Organization of America, will represent Steve Bannon as he appears in court on Monday on charges of contempt of Congress. The news was first reported on Twitter by Insider reporter Ryan Barber. Just…
(JTA) — Danny Fenster, a Jewish American journalist who has been imprisoned in Myanmar since May and was sentenced to 11 years in prison Friday has been released. Former New Mexico governor and former diplomat Bill Richardson, who was in the country on a humanitarian visit, told reporters Monday that Fenster would travel back to the…
(JTA) — South Africa’s government is urging its national pageant winner to boycott this year’s Miss Universe contest due to its location in Israel. The contest will be held in Eilat on Dec. 12. Government officials said they would not support the decision by Lalela Mswane, the winner of the country’s beauty contest, and the…
(JTA) — A watercolor painting by Vincent Van Gogh that was stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owner during the Holocaust was sold at auction for $35,855,000 Thursday, breaking the record for the largest sum ever paid for a Van Gogh painting on paper at auction. The painting had been purchased by Max Meirowsky,…
(JTA) — (New York Jewish Week via JTA) — Marty Markowitz, the former borough president of Brooklyn, has never listened to the popular podcast called “The Shrink Next Door.” He’s only vaguely aware that it’s now a TV series with an A-list cast. He does know, however, that he and the main character share the…
(JTA) — An impression of Adolf Hitler at Cambridge University has touched off a fight over the limits of free speech and has drawn Monty Python comedian John Cleese into the fray. The impersonation was delivered at a debate recently on whether there’s such a thing as “good taste.” Andrew Graham-Dixon, an art historian, impersonated…
