Senator Jon Ossoff denounced recent antisemitic attacks while speaking at Yom Kippur services on Thursday. The freshman senator attended services at Temple Emanuel-El, a Reform congregation in Sandy Springs, a suburban area north of Atlanta. There have been two antisemitic incidents at Cobb County high schools in the past week. First, at Pope High School,…
(JTA) — As his fellow Jews around the world prepared to annul their vows during Yom Kippur, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis got busy making some new ones — by marrying his partner of 18 years. Polis announced his marriage to Marlon Reis, with whom he has two children, in social media posts late Wednesday afternoon,…
During his presidency, Donald Trump referred to Israel as “your country” and described then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman as “your” ambassador when addressing American Jewish audiences — discomfiting many with what sounded like dual loyalty charges. He subjected his Jewish son-in-law to the same, but more explicitly, according to “Peril,” the new book on…
(JTA) — Ephraim Einhorn, a rabbi and businessman who helmed Taiwan’s fledgling Jewish community after a career that included clandestine missions on behalf of oppressed Jews, has died. Einhorn’s death on Wednesday morning in Taipei, just hours before the beginning of Yom Kippur, came after an extended illness and weeks of intermittent hospitalizations. He had…
(JTA) — More than one in five Jewish adults who play online multiplayer games faced antisemitism while playing, according to a new survey from the Anti-Defamation League. The survey, published Wednesday, found that harassment and bigotry are common across the 97 million Americans who play multiplayer games. Among adult gamers surveyed, 83% said they have…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A congressional letter backed by Muslim and Jewish groups is urging the federal government to make kosher and halal meat available to observant Jews and Muslims through an emergency food program. Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., initiated the letter sent Wednesday to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Forty-eight Democrats have signed the letter, which…
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has made Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people, and his Arab-Israeli coalition partner Mansour Abbas thinks he knows why. “It all comes down to courage,” Abbas, the leader of the first Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition, writes in the accompanying blurb…
(JTA) — Ida Nudel, the Russian Jewish refusenik whose 16-year effort to leave the Soviet Union moved figures as diverse as Republican Secretary of State George Schultz and activist actress Jane Fonda, has died. The Jerusalem Post reported that she died Tuesday and was buried the same day in Tel Aviv. Nudel, an accountant, began…
(JTA) — Ryan Braun, the Milwaukee Brewers outfielder who slugged more home runs than any Jewish player in baseball history and won a Most Valuable Player award, announced his retirement on Tuesday, ending a 14-year career that was not without controversy. “While it’s impossible to summarize my emotions right now, what I feel most is…
Eight months after leaving the White House as the architect of Donald Trump’s vision for peace in the Middle East, Jared Kushner reappeared in public on Tuesday to celebrate the first anniversary of the four normalization agreements between Israel and Arab countries in the Gulf region. “Thanks to the agreements, we are watching the Middle…
A New York philanthropist is giving $10 million to New York’s Temple Emanu-El to enhance its outreach to unaffiliated Jewish families and young Jewish professionals. That’s on top of the $15 million John H. Streicker gave to the Reform synagogue in 2016. Together, the gifts approach the level of some of the heftiest gifts ever…
