(JTA) — The Hillel at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst was vandalized on Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The red spray-painted Arabic letters translate as “Palestine,” The Massachusetts Daily Collegian student newspaper reported Tuesday. The graffiti was discovered on Tuesday morning. The school has been closed since mid-March due to the coronavirus crisis….
(JTA) — New York City is now distributing kosher food through the meals program launched to keep city residents fed during the current coronavirus-induced upheaval. The city began giving out three meals a day to children and their family members after schools closed in mid-March. In early April, the city began offering the meals to…
Read this article in Yiddish. A principal at United Talmudical Academy, a complex of schools serving the ultra-Orthodox Satmar community, told a teacher to hold classes in person despite coronavirus social distancing orders, according to a school answering machine recording from last week. In the recording, the teacher, a man identified as Mr. Weiss, tells…
An anti-malaria drug touted by both President Trump and a Hasidic doctor in upstate New York as an important tool in the fight against coronavirus was found in a new study to offer no benefit to hospitalized Covid-19 patients. The study, with 368 patients, is the largest done so far on the drug, hydroxychloroquine. The…
(JTA) — Earlier this year, when the coronavirus pandemic began to unfold in Asia and appeared destined to hit the United States, the Jewish agencies that deal with America’s most vulnerable Jewish populations decided they had better get ready. Holocaust survivors, whom many consider to be the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, were of grave…
(JTA) — The New Jersey man arrested for allegedly ordering the vandalism of two synagogues in other states on behalf of a neo-Nazi group was released from jail and sent to house arrest. Richard Tobin was released last week by a federal magistrate in Camden on a $100,000 bond, The Associated Press reported late Monday….
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The worldwide population of Jews stands at 14.7 million, still fall short of the pre-World War II numbers, according to a report by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. The figures, which are similar to the population of world Jewry in 1925, were released ahead of Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. The…
(JTA) — The suspect in a stabbing attack at a rabbi’s home in Monsey, New York, that left an elderly man dead has been deemed not mentally fit to stand trial by a federal judge. The ruling released Monday found that Grafton Thomas currently cannot assist in his own defense because he is suffering from…
NEW YORK (JTA) — More than half of American Jews have either witnessed or directly experienced anti-Semitism during the past five years, according to an Anti-Defamation League survey published Tuesday. The ADL also found that 63% of American Jews say they are less safe than they were a decade ago. The survey was conducted in…
New York City officials have halted an underground yeshiva that was operating in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, despite coronavirus social-distancing restrictions, a spokeswoman from Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office said. “As soon as we found out, we worked with community leaders and this particular school to immediately stop this reckless practice,” said the spokeswoman, Olivia Lapeyrolerie. She…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Katie Rosenberg likely would have made headlines in any case for being elected mayor of Wausau, a small city in central Wisconsin. She’s 36, for one thing, young for an executive, and she’s a Democrat who ousted a GOP incumbent in what turned out to be a surprising blue wave election. But…
