(JTA) — A U.S. immigration judge in Memphis ordered the deportation of a longtime Tennessee resident who served as a German concentration camp guard during World War II. Friedrich Karl Berger, 94, served at a subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp system near Hamburg and is still receiving a pension for work that includes his…
A Baltimore-area hotel that asked the basketball team of Yeshiva University, which has one confirmed student infected with coronavirus, to spend the night before their first playoff game at another hotel has Jewish owners, according to a statement from hotel management. The DoubleTree in Pikesville, a heavily Orthodox suburb of Baltimore, called the Yeshiva team…
Editor’s Note: Read an interview with one of the rally participants who encountered the man with the flag here. Updated 2:30 p.m. A protester disrupted Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign rally in Phoenix on Thursday by waving a Nazi flag. “It was absolutely wild,” Brianna Westbrook, a national surrogate for the Sanders campaign, told The Washington…
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Israel held its unprecedented third election in less than a year on Monday and, yet again, the results raised more questions than answers. At first it seemed as if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had finally garnered the votes he needed to break the longstanding impasse and consolidate his power. The final tally,…
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was criticized after saying Wednesday that President Trump’s appointees to the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, would “pay the price” for ruling against abortion rights in a high-profile case currently before the justices. “I want to tell you, Gorsuch; I want to tell you, Kavanaugh: You have released…
(JTA) — Every Purim, Richard Roberts sponsors a party for more than 2,000 people in the heavily Orthodox New Jersey city of Lakewood, where he gives out, by his estimation, some $200,000 in charity. This year, because of the coronavirus, the party is cancelled. Roberts, a philanthropist and former pharmaceutical executive, made the decision Wednesday…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee alerted the thousands of activists who attended its conference this week that a New York group in attendance had been in contact with someone who has the virus. “To our knowledge, no one who attended the conference has tested positive for coronavirus at this time,” said…
Mendl Weinstock followed through with the help of Shocky the llama
(JTA) — Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi asked Jews to stop kissing mezuzahs because of the coronoavirus, while a major European rabbinical group published its own directives to contain the spread of the illness. Rabbi David Lau’s statement on Wednesday said that “as we see the unfortunate spread of a terrible disease, certainly one shouldn’t kiss…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Alan Gross, who was imprisoned in Cuba for five years for trying to connect its Jewish community to the internet, said Bernie Sanders praised Cuba during a prison visit. “He said, quote: ‘I don’t know what’s so wrong with this country,’” Gross, 70, told NPR in a story posted Wednesday. Gross, who…
Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg announced Wednesday that he was dropping out of the Democratic presidential race, endorsing former Vice President Joe Biden. Bloomberg, who spent an estimated $500 million on his campaign, emerged from Super Tuesday having only won the caucus in American Samoa. “Three months ago, I entered the race to…
