Confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, a charter schools advocate favored by the Orthodox Jewish community, have been put off a week as federal ethics watchdogs struggle to complete their review of the billionaire’s massive holdings. Betsy DeVos, a philanthropist and a prominent supporter of the so-called “school choice” agenda, is…
As the President-elect Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House next week, he might be putting legal precedent to its first test, with his effort to appoint Jared Kushner to a senior administration role. “I see this as Trump’s first attempt to ignore the law, act in violation of the law, and he’s going…
The Women’s March on Washington, planned for January 21, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of protesters and create numerous logistical difficulties. There’s the challenge of mapping a route when lots of areas are off-limits because of security concerns around the inauguration. The marchers themselves have security concerns….
NEW YORK (JTA) — On Election Day 2008, Marcella White Campbell remembers her 4-year-old son playing in front of the TV, repeating the name of the man who would soon become the first African-American president of the United States. “He was running around and rolling the name Barack Obama on his tongue,” said Campbell, managing…
It might seem odd for a Modern Orthodox Jewish family to join a Chabad synagogue. But Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner are already quite invested in the ultra-Orthodox outreach movement – or to be more precise, their parents are. A Haaretz examination has revealed that Charles and Seryl Kushner have been major benefactors…
An Upper East Side Manhattan synagogue is in turmoil as an outside foundation seeks to oust its longtime rabbi. The New York Jewish Week reported last week that the philanthropic foundation that controls the Edmond J. Safra Synagogue is feuding with Rabbi Elie Abadie, a prominent Sephardic figure who has led the congregation since its…
The largest American Jewish religious organization has “significant concerns” about Donald Trump’s nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General. In a statement Monday morning, the central institutions of Reform Judaism, which represent roughly 1.5 million American Jews, called on Sessions to “enforce and interpret the law to promote justice and equality for all.” The…
After Sonya and Michael Franklin hung up a “Black Lives Matter” sign outside their Rockville, Maryland, home, the Jewish couple received an anti-Semitic threat letter and saw their property vandalized. “It has come to our attention that you support the black terror group that is ant-white and anti-police,” the letter pinned to their windshield read….
Sheldon Adelson made headlines in early January when he flew non-stop to Hawaii from Israel in his private jet. The 18-hour flight broke the record for the longest haul from Israel’s Ben Gurion airport. And that’s about all the public has heard about Adelson in recent months. The Republican kingmaker, who outsmarted nearly all his…
(JTA) — Long before he moved here to become the spokesman for the Auschwitz museum and lead its social media effort, Pawel Sawicki’s life was intricately connected to this sleepy town near Krakow. A Warsaw-area journalist for Polish Radio 2, Sawicki used to visit Oswiecim as a boy on holidays to stay with his grandparents…
The Canadian branch of the Jewish Defense League is prepared to mobilize in Whitefish, Montana, where neo-Nazis are planning an anti-Jewish march on Martin Luther King Jr. Day — and do whatever it takes to “smash the Nazis.” “We would be more than wiling to help in any way,” said Meir Weinstein, national director of…
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