Basketball star Amar’e Stoudemire, who led the Israeli basketball team Hapoel Jerusalem to victory in national championships, announced that he would not return to play another season. “Although I would have liked to return for another season, the team, coach and I could not find a role that I felt would allow me to meaningfully…
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Jerusalem therapist Miriam Ballin is the kind of person who takes the initiative. Despite resistance from her haredi Orthodox community, she became a medic. Then she launched a pacesetting psychological first aid unit. Clearly she was not just going to stand idly by while Tropical Storm Harvey flooded her native Houston. So…
The Anti-Defamation League has retracted recommendations that police infiltrate and film antifa protests, saying they had been “posted in error.” The group deleted the advice from a primer for law enforcement on antifa, the anti-fascist protest movement that has grown in profile since the white supremacist riot in Charlottesville in mid-August. ADL has received millions…
23andMe has backpedalled from broadcasting the discredited theory that a portion of Ashkenazi Jews are descended from an obscure tribe from the Caucasus. But that hasn’t stopped members of the “alt-right” from jumping on the news that the giant Silicon Valley genomics company had given credibility to the so-called Khazar theory, which undermines Jews’ perception…
As the historic Hurricane Harvey lingered over Houston this week like the biblical flood, Jewish and evangelical leaders found common ground in a moment of national crisis as both beseeched God to intercede on their behalf — literally. Two major Orthodox religious organizations called on followers to support the flood victims in Houston. They could…
The Anti-Defamation League is advising cops to plant undercover agents among antifa activists, and to film protests where the group may clash with neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The recommendation comes at the end of an ADL “primer for law enforcement” on antifa, the radical anti-fascist protest movement that has gained attention in the weeks since…
For Houston’s devastated synagogues, government funds to rebuild after Hurricane Harvey may not come. The historic flooding that has brought death and terror to parts of Texas this week has damaged an untold number of houses of worship, including at least two synagogues. Government rules could bar those holy sites from receiving government rebuilding grants…
Adam Buchsbaum had been preparing for his bar mitzvah for months. But with Hurricane Harvey lashing his hometown of Houston last Saturday, the boy’s temple closed its building and cancelled all services — including his coming-of-age ceremony. The Buchsbaum family was devastated when they found out Congregation Beth Israel had closed — and resigned themselves to…
In many ways, Jewish education has remained unchanged for centuries. Students and teachers read texts together, and then they analyze them. But the 21st century has become an age of an unprecedented amount of information, all downloadable in seconds. In just a few decades, it’s already changed the way we think and absorb the world….
As many Jewish Houstonians leave their homes for the relative safety of emergency facilities, the rabbi of Texas’ oldest Jewish community is staying put. His congregants — and their synagogue — need him. Congregation Beth Israel’s sanctuary is is filled with three feet of murky water, Rabbi David Lyon told the Forward. Founded in 1854,…
In evangelical circles, anything that evokes Jewish roots carry cachet. Donning Hebrew prayer shawls, blowing shofars, avowing love and unwavering support for Israel — all are in vogue, and have been for years. If you can also claim some “ethnic Jewish” heritage? Even better. A number of high-profile evangelical televangelists, authors and speakers tout Jewish…
