High Holiday appeals for money are nothing new to North American synagogue-goers. But for sheer chutzpah, few could compare with the Yom Kippur video appeal from Paula White, Donald Trump’s most visible evangelical supporter. White stares into the camera, with cascading blond hair and Botox-swollen lips. She tells those on her ministry email list that…
Jewish students at the University of Virginia were horrified this weekend after discovering graffiti at a nearby apartment complex. A large Star of David was painted, with the word “Juden” underneath it — German for “Jewry.” For students, the graffiti evoked Nazi imagery. “It’s direct Holocaust imagery and that’s what’s problematic about it,” third-year college…
Reports of anti-Semitic assaults rose dramatically in the past year, particularly on college campuses. And while there may be a tendency to view all critique of Israel as anti-Semitic, a new study finds that at three major universities, politics are not to blame. “The anti-Semitism that is felt on campus isn’t necessarily attached to Israel,…
At a burial shrine set in the rolling farmland of Pennsylvania, a group of Sufi devotees swayed in prayer, chanting the many names of God. The women, heads covered in loose shawls, sat on one side; the men, some clutching prayer beads, on the other. One woman, overcome with emotion, wept openly. At the center…
In 1971 a mysterious Sufi mystic arrived in America from Sri Lanka to spread a message of religious and racial unity. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen was his name and he amassed a following — in a country reeling from the social, political and religious upheaval of the 1970s, his message resonated. All along, Bawa’s inner circle of…
You’ve heard of Jewish Buddhists — “Jewbus” — and secular Jews. You likely know Jews who favor yoga over synagogue — there are even Jews for Jesus. But Jewish Muslims? With a grim deadlock between the Israelis and Palestinians, which often takes on a religious dimension — and a rise in both Islamophobia and anti-Semitism…
A small New York synagogue is launching a legal assault on Kars4Kids, claiming that the controversial Orthodox charity bought its building in secret in order to become a tax-exempt religious organization and avoid public scrutiny of its dealings. Young Israel of Eltingville, an Orthodox synagogue in central Staten Island, claims that its former president made…
Howard Stern, the radio shock jock who is synonymous with talking dirty, said on his program that Donald Trump’s “locker room talk” about sexually assaulting women was too much even for him. “When I’m around guys, 85% of the times you’re talking about pussy – but I have never been in the room when someone…
As the government ignores the question of opening the Western Wall to non-Orthodox denominations dozens of Orthodox Jewish worshippers are establishing facts on the ground by holding festive holiday prayer services everyday in the section of the Western Wall, or Kotel, that had been intended for non-Orthodox prayer. Demonstrative Orthodox services are being held at…
Just prior to quelling the great Jewish revolt in the year 70 C.E., the army of Roman Emperor Titus was faced with a rebelling in Jerusalem and had to break through three walls that surrounded the city. As described by historian Flavius Josephus, the final battle against the Jewish rebels began with the Romans firing…
At the third presidential debate, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump interrupted each other, slung insults and raised their voices. But the most notable shout fest might have come as campaign surrogates Mark Cuban and Rudy Giuliani battled it out in the CNN spin room before the main event in Las Vegas. The Dallas Mavericks owner…
