WASHINGTON (JTA) — Those tuning in this week for just the second day of live Supreme Court broadcasts were treated to a surprise: In a case about NGOs, HIV-AIDS funding and prostitution, the discussion unexpectedly turned toward U.S. support for Israel’s right to exist. The case features a group of NGOs that are resisting the…
A New York Times article published Thursday about the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli military contractors’ efforts to devise a cure for the novel coronavirus attracted criticism on social media for pointing out that many of their prior developments had deadly capabilities. “The Israeli Defense Ministry’s research-and-development arm is best known for pioneering cutting-edge ways…
(JTA) — After several weeks at a London mortuary, the unclaimed body of 95-year-old Herbert Max Fraenkel was slated to be buried in a shared grave at a pauper’s funeral. Fraenkel, who was born in 1924 in Berlin, died alone at his home in January. City workers were unable to locate or identify any of…
(JTA) — At least 1,300 members of France’s Jewish community have died of COVID-19, the country’s Jewish burial service said. The French chevra kadisha, the Jewish term for those who provide Jewish burial services, reported the figure this week after declining to disclose any numbers since the outbreak of the pandemic in France in March,…
(JTA) — Renee Godinez had completed nearly all the steps to becoming Jewish before the coronavirus pandemic descended earlier this spring. She had studied extensively with Rabbi Rick Winer of Temple Beth Israel in Fresno, California, and adopted Jewish practices in her life. All that was missing was a ceremony to mark the end of…
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Police in the Dutch capital arrested a man whom they say had smashed the windows of a kosher restaurant and tried to burn the Israeli flag inside. Officers used pepper spray on the man in the incident, which happened on Friday morning at around 9 a.m. outside HaCarmel restaurant, the Het Parool…
(JTA) — The director of the Health Department in Ohio has taken heat for her stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic, with comparisons to Nazi Germany and protests at her home referencing a New Testament passage about the Jews plotting Jesus’ death. Now the state’s House of Representatives has passed a bill that limits the…
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that it would be possible for people to gather in synagogues for the Jewish High Holidays in the fall if contact tracing is implemented to avoid a second wave of the pandemic. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, made the comments in a conference…
(JTA) — New England Patriots star Julian Edelman is raising money for Holocaust survivors during the pandemic by doing something he does well: working out. As reported by TMZ and the New York Post, Edelman joined other celebrities in teaching online workout classes on Tuesday to raise funds for the UJA Federation of New York,…
(JTA) — Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is back home after being discharged from the hospital following nonsurgical treatment of a gallstone infection. Ginsburg, 87, returned home on Wednesday, after participating in the court’s oral arguments by teleconference from her hospital room. She spent one night at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for…
(JTA) — After Marilee Shapiro Asher was admitted to the hospital in mid-April sick with COVID-19, her daughter got a call from the doctor telling her she ought to get down there right away. Her mother likely had only 12 hours to live. “Well, he doesn’t know my mother, does he?” Joan Shapiro said. What…
