(JTA) — It sounds like a teenager’s dream: Could watching superhero movies have actual health benefits? Two Israeli researchers think so. They found that exposing people to short clips of “Spider-Man” and “Ant-Man” films reduced their phobias of spiders and ants. Menachem Ben-Ezra from the School of Social Work at Ariel University and Yaakov Hoffman…
A lifestyle brand-cum-real-estate-developer in Chicago has finished its renovation of an abandoned synagogue into a building of micro-apartments, Forbes reported. The building is the former Agudas Achim North Shore Synagogue, home to an Orthodox congregation in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood for a century. In 2016, developers bought the abandoned building, which had been vacant for ten…
NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York City has issued civil summonses to 12 people it said were not complying with a mandatory measles vaccination order as the number of recorded cases in the city’s worst outbreak since 1991 rose to 390, according to data released on Wednesday. The city’s outbreak of the highly contagious and…
(JTA) — The University of Maryland “regrets” that a student government vote on an Israel divestment resolution will be held on Passover — but the student government said the date could not be changed. On Wednesday, the Student Government Association is set to vote on a bill that calls on the university to divest from…
(JTA) — A federal appeals court has ruled that separate swimming hours at a condominium complex in Lakewood, New Jersey is illegal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in a decision on Monday said that the separate swimming hours in the outdoor pool of the A Country Place over-55 community were a…
After receiving congressional criticism for making white nationalist comments, Representative Steve King said he found common ground with Jesus Christ. The Iowa Republican said the situation has given him a new understanding of Jesus’ suffering, The Washington Post reported. At a town hall in Cherokee, Iowa, an elderly pastor told King that “Christianity is really…
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said there wasn’t much to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — so CNN’s Anderson Cooper called him out on it. Cooper said Kushner, who also is President Trump’s son-in-law, was “gaslighting” Americans when he broke down the Russian election interference at the heart of the 448-page inquiry into “a couple…
Update, May 16: The combined bill was passed by the state legislature and signed into law on Wednesday, May 15 by Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey. (JTA) — Alabama state lawmakers drew comparisons between the Holocaust and abortion in bills introduced earlier this month. Sen. Greg Albritton and Rep. Terri Collins, both Republicans, introduced matching bills…
The mayor of Winnipeg, Canada has called on a local not-for-profit to disinvite Women’s March co-leader Linda Sarsour from a panel event scheduled for Friday over the allegations of anti-Semitism against her. Flanked by representatives from local Jewish organization, mayor Brian Bowman said in a press conference on Tuesday that Sarsour’s history of “racialized identity…
A chemistry professor at Middlebury College in Vermont has taken a leave of absence after asking students in a test to calculate the lethal dose of poison gas used by the Nazis in the Holocaust. The test, issued at the beginning of the month, described hydrogen cyanide as “a poisonous gas, which Nazi Germany used…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The American Israel Public Affairs Committee pushed back against Bernie Sanders for calling Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “racist.” The pro-Israel lobby, in a tweet that did not mention the Democratic presidential hopeful by name, said it was counterproductive when American leaders used “name-calling” against their Israeli counterparts. “The U.S.-Israel alliance serves America’s interests,”…
