(JTA) — The Zionist Organization of America elected as its national chairman David Schoen, the Jewish lawyer whose Orthodox observance drew media attention as he defended former President Donald Trump at Trump’s second impeachment trial. Schoen, a constitutional lawyer who lives in Atlanta, has for years served on ZOA’s board and has represented the organization,…
(JTA) — When Rivka Taub Rivera decided to apply for a religious exemption to New York City’s vaccine mandate for teachers, she didn’t turn to the rabbis of Borough Park, the Orthodox neighborhood in Brooklyn where she lives. Instead, she asked Michoel Green, a Chabad rabbi who has openly opposed vaccination, to submit the required…
(JTA) — Madison Cawthorn wants his constituents to push government leaders to “uphold Christian principles.” For an example, Cawthorn says, look no further than the Hebrew bible. “Look at David, look at Daniel, look at Esther — look at all the people who influenced the government of their day to uphold Christian principles,” the House…
(JTA) — David Julius, a professor of physiology at the University of California, San Francisco, whose grandparents fled antisemitism in Czarist Russia, was awarded this year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine on Monday. He shared the award with Ardem Patapoutian, a molecular biologist and neuroscientist at the Scripps Research center. The Nobel Prize committee…
(JTA) — David Lee Roth is done running with the devil. The Jewish rock star, best known for fronting Van Halen during the influential band’s heyday in the 1970s and ’80s, announced Friday that he is retiring from music. “I am throwing in the shoes. I’m retiring,” he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “This is…
(JTA) — A professor at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom was fired Friday over his past comments about Jews and Israel. In remarks during a lecture in February, David Miller, a professor of political sociology, called Israel “a violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing” and referred to Jewish students who…
The CEO of the National Council of Jewish Women has been telling people for months that Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion nationally, would likely be overturned within the year. “They would say ‘that’s not going to happen,’” said Sheila Katz, whose group has long made access to abortion one of its…
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene sparked outrage when she called on “rational” Jewish people to back her claim that mask mandates are comparable to the Holocaust. The Georgia Republican later apologized and visited the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Then there’s Rep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican from North Carolina, who made a similar comparison…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Vice President Kamala Harris “strongly disagrees” with a university student who told her that Israel was carrying out “ethnic genocide,” her office said, pushing back against claims that she encouraged the student’s view. “Throughout her career, the Vice President has been unwavering in her commitment to Israel and to Israel’s security,” Harris’s…
(JTA) — The man who opened fire at a synagogue in Poway, California, in 2019 will spend the rest of his life in prison. The shooter, who attacked the Chabad of Poway with an automatic rifle on the last day of Passover, killed one person, Lori Gilbert Kaye, and injured three, including the synagogue rabbi…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — When Andy Levin was elected to Congress in 2018, he was known, at least in Washington, mostly for his lineage: His father and uncle were giants among congressional Democrats. Levin’s father, Rep. Sander Levin, whose seat Levin inherited, and his uncle, the late Sen. Carl Levin, were establishment Democrats who reliably supported…
