In 2015, Matthew Teitelbaum left Toronto to head one of Boston’s foremost cultural institutions, the august 150-year-old Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). From the start, he wanted to see a significant culture shift. He was well on his way to accomplishing that when a racial incident threatened to derail his best efforts, and intentions….
President-elect Joe Biden’s nomination of Retired Gen. Lloyd Austin to be defense secretary is raising hackles among Democrats concerned that Austin would erode civilian control of the military. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, praised Austin’s experience in a Tuesday statement, but said that the nomination of a retired general for the traditionally civilian role…
The 2019 shooting that claimed four lives at a kosher supermarket in Jersey City, New Jersey rocked several different communities. The city’s Satmar Hasidic Jews had been directly attacked. The non-Orthodox Jews who worshipped nearby were shaken and distraught. Residents of the largely Black and Hispanic neighborhood saw national media attention descend on their streets….
A lawsuit against the state of California filed by Jewish schools in the Los Angeles area has expanded their legal footing for in-person activities, enabling them to bring more students to campus even as coronavirus cases surge. But the schools have not escaped the record-setting spike in California that has continued apace into December, and…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Some of Rabbi Levi Shemtov’s most prominent congregants are likely to leave his synagogue soon, but the Washington, D.C. rabbi isn’t sweating it. After all, Shemtov has been through decades of presidential transitions as Chabad’s main man in Washington, and even though this one is unfolding unusually, he’s confident he can continue…
This election cycle has become a tale of two Georgias for the state’s Jewish community. In January’s run-off election, Jon Ossoff is poised to become the first Jewish Senator ever elected, not just in Georgia but from any Deep South state since Reconstruction. At the same time, this campaign season has seen the rise of…
The only pilot to have ever foiled the hi-jacking of a plane mid-air is today 89-years-old with a voracious appetite for books and his weekly regimen of Pilates and Chi-Gong, alongside daily walks through the citrus orchards of the Israeli village where he has lived since he was a baby. Uri Bar-Lev has not flown…
As COVID-19 cases hit the 14 million mark nationwide, notable mask skeptics like several Republican governors are being won over. Not Judi Franco, though. The adored New Jersey radio host, who’s also a grandmother and an observant Syrian Jew, still doesn’t “believe” they prevent the virus. That’s why she spent a recent flight to Florida…
When I saw the news that Jeff Zients had been named as President-elect Joe Biden’s COVID-19 “czar” I couldn’t help but wonder what this would mean for my favorite bagel shop in D.C. Zients, who made his fortune in corporate management, served as an economic advisor to President Barack Obama and helped fix the healthcare.gov…
(JTA) — EAST POULTNEY, Vt. (Bennington Banner via JTA) — The autumn leaves crunched underfoot as Netanel Crispe walked uphill toward the northwest corner of the small cemetery. He stopped and examined a toppled headstone. “The last time I was here this was standing up,” he said, regarding the weathered, gray stone. “At least it…
President-elect Joe Biden said Wednesday that he wants to revive the nuclear deal with Iran passed during the Obama administration, when he was vice-president. Yet the same day Biden said he wanted to revive the deal, the Iranian parliament passed a law demanding that he, well, revive the deal. In other words, they demanded angrily…
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