(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…
Norm Macdonald, the former Saturday Night Live news anchor and stand-up comic, wasn’t Jewish. But the Canadian-born comedian, who died Tuesday from cancer at the age of 61, left behind two of the greatest Jewish humor moments in recent memory. Macdonald’s stand up made him famous, but his talk show appearances with Howard Stern, Conan…
(JTA) — (J. The Jewish News of Northern California via JTA) — Jewish lawmakers critical of early drafts of an ethnic studies curriculum said they were satisfied with a version of the curriculum that cleared both houses of the California Legislature last week. The bill mandating ethnic studies would make the state the first in…
(JTA) — A federal court sentenced an Ohio man to 20 years in prison for planning deadly attacks on a Toledo synagogue. Damon Joseph of Holland had pleaded guilty in May to providing material support to a terrorist organization and attempting to commit a hate crime. Along with the prison term, the U.S. District Court…
(JTA) — If there’s one thing Rabbi Sholom Lipskar wants to remember from the aftermath of the Surfside condo collapse in June, it’s the small cards that he distributed to the first responders and search-and-rescue teams working at the site. Inscribed with Psalm 23, a psalm often recited in times of trouble that begins with…
This article originally appeared in Haaretz and was reprinted here with permission. For the first time since taking office, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with President Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi in Sinai on Monday, and praised Egypt for its stabilizing role in the region. Bennett described the first formal, public meeting between leaders of both countries in…
This article originally appeared in Haaretz and was reprinted here with permission. Last month, as calls to poison call centers spiked and animal supply stores began reporting shortages of animal deworming drugs, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a rather unusual plea. “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all….
