President Trump has granted pardons to a group of high-profile allies including Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner. The elder Kushner pleaded guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion in 2004, as well as additional counts of lying to the Federal Election Commission and retaliating against a federal witness. He…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A letter backing President-elect Joe Biden’s plan to reenter the Iran nuclear deal without any new conditions has garnered 150 signatures from House Democrats — enough to block any congressional bid to prevent the move. The sentiments in the letter are in direct contradiction to the urgings of the Israel lobby group…
(JTA) — The Department of Veterans Affairs removed two gravestones bearing swastikas from a military cemetery in Texas. With little fanfare, the VA removed the headstones on Monday morning from Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a group that advocates for troops and veterans who report discrimination in…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Among the last-minute rush of presidential appointments ahead of Donald Trump’s departure from office is Richard Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany and outspoken Israel advocate, to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council. Grenell, who also has been outspoken in his efforts to isolate Iran, was among three people Trump named to…
Over the weekend, vandals claiming to belong to Antifa Bulgaria painted a synagogue in the country with graffiti reading “free Palestine” and equated the Israeli government with the Nazi regime. The target of the vandals was Bulgaria’s oldest synagogue, the Zion Synagogue in Plovdiv, a city on Bulgaria’s border with Turkey. Shalom, an organization that…
A group of Brooklyn Jews went on an extended dumpster dive Monday night in a hunt for a sacred object: a pair of tefillin that had been accidentally discarded. The leather straps and boxes that Orthodox Jewish men wear to prayer, which contain holy scriptures, were noticed missing on Thursday according to NBC New York….
(JTA) — Lawmakers in Ohio have launched a Holocaust education commission for the state amid increased concern about Holocaust awareness in the United States. The Holocaust and Genocide Memorial and Education Commission would “help cultivate knowledge and understanding of one of the most tragic occurrences in the world’s history,” the state Senate said in nearly…
(JTA) — Israel’s Knesset, or parliament, dissolved Tuesday night after failing to pass the 2020 budget, triggering an election that will take place on March 23. The exact date could change through a government vote. The election will be Israel’s fourth in two years. A coalition formed earlier this year by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…
(JTA) — A top Trump administration official wants to leverage development aid to have Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, recognize Israel. Adam Boehler, CEO of the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., told Bloomberg that Indonesia could get $1 billion to $2 billion more in development aid if it joins the rush being organized by…
The White House responded to President-elect Joe Biden’s trip to Georgia to campaign for Democratic Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock with a headliner of their own. The president’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, arrived in the state on Monday, where she spoke at a rally for Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue ahead…
In what may be one of the last opportunities for members of the Israeli Rabbinate to offer accolades to senior Trump administration officials while they are still in power, Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, chief rabbi of the Western Wall, honored Jared Kushner in a ceremony on Monday. The rabbi thanked the president’s Jewish son-in-law and senior…
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