(JTA) This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA) — The home of a Brooklyn rabbi erupted in fire early Friday in what investigators suspect was an arson attack by a man who has accused the rabbi of sexual misconduct. Thirteen people, including a 6-week-old baby, were injured. None of the injuries were life-threatening, although…
NEW YORK (JTA) — New York state has banned religious exemptions to vaccinations, meaning that parents must vaccinate their children unless there is a medical reason not to. The state Senate passed the bill Thursday amid an ongoing measles outbreak in New York City and the state largely involving members of the Orthodox Jewish community….
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A major spending bill in the Senate includes a veiled warning to Israel not to allow China to run one of its ports. The National Defense Authorization Act is in its final stages of passage and is likely to be approved by the Republican-led Senate. It includes a “sense of the Senate”…
(JTA) — Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai led about 250,000 revelers participating in his city’s annual gay Pride Parade procession, which is the largest in the Middle East. “I promise you we will not relent and continue to fight until we see full equality in the State of Israel,” said Huladi, a reserves fighter pilot…
(JTA) — Langer’s Deli, a well-known kosher-style restaurant in Los Angeles, has denied kicking out a couple for sharing a same-sex kiss. A woman posted on social media this week that the restaurant’s owner, Norm Langer, kicked her and her partner out during their meal on Saturday after they kissed. The woman wrote in a…
(JTA) — A Jewish candidate in Canada’s federal election and a Jewish voter have filed a lawsuit asking to change the voting day because it falls on a Jewish holiday. Shemini Atzeret comes out this year on Election Day, Oct. 21, which would prevent observant Jews from casting their ballots. Of the four advance polling days,…
Billionaire Jennifer Pritzker never saw eye-to-eye with her family when it came to politics. The ultra-wealthy Pritzker clan are almost all socially liberal Democrats, but Pritzker was a staunch Republican donor and supporter of President Trump — until she came out as a transgender woman. A Vanity Fair feature delved into Pritzker’s history, following her shift…
A new town in the Golan Heights will be called “Ramat Trump” — literally, “Trump Heights” — in honor of the American president’s recognition of Israeli control over the area, the Times of Israel reported Thursday. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in April that a town would be named after Trump to honor his…
A New Jersey-based gay conversion therapy organization was ordered to shut down after its founders went around a previous ruling and started operating under a new name, NJ.com reported. Arthur Goldberg and Elaine Berk, founders of Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (JONAH), were forbidden from running their gay-to-straight program in 2015 after a lawsuit…
(JTA) — A cadet in the Army Reserve Officers Training Corps was kicked out of her unit at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte after posting neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic content online. Martha Gerdes also tweeted tacit support for the attack on the Tree of Life synagogue building in a Pittsburgh suburb which left 11 Jewish worshippers…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The U.S. Embassy branch office in Tel Aviv decorated its building with rainbow flag banners for the city’s Pride parade, ignoring a Trump administration ban on flying the Pride flag at diplomatic missions. A photo of the building decked out in two rainbow banners and rainbow streamers was published on the U.S….
