Efforts to combat the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement are rapidly shifting from college campuses to statehouses, where a growing number of legislatures is considering laws to ban any company that boycotts Israel from winning government contracts or investments. Even New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo is planning to order all New York State agencies to…
Israel will spend 8.1 million shekels, or about $2 million, to bring more than 712 members of India’s Bnei Menashe community to Israel this year, the Israeli news site Walla reported May 22. In the past, the Ministry of Absorption and the Jewish Agency have handled group immigration to Israel. But in the case of…
The developer of the Google Chrome extension Coincidence Detector, which identifies Jewish individuals and organizations by putting triple parentheses around their names, pulled the application last night after several news reports exposed it to the general public. A Forward reporter was exploring the extension on her laptop in order to better write about it at…
Police believe that the murder of Florida Jewish law professor Dan Markel was sparked by a bitter divorce battle with his ex-wife. Authorities arrested a man with a long criminal history, Sigfredo Garcia, 34, in connection with Markel’s 2014 killing. Garcia’s attorney had said that his client is innocent. Now, new details released in court…
Neo-Nazis have developed a way to surreptitiously mark the presence of Jews on social media in order to alert others to their identity, coordinated attacks, anti-Semitic vitriol, threats and images of concentration camps and Hitler. Known as the “echo,” the symbol consists of three parenthesis around a Jewish person’s name, for example, (((Efrem))). According to…
TZEELIM VALLEY, Israel – The disposable paper face masks offer little protection from the clouds of dust that fill the cliffside cave where Israeli archaeologists are wrapping up the largest excavation in the Judean desert of the past half-century. Clipped into safety harnesses, volunteers stand at the cave opening, 250 meters (820 feet) above a…
The latest collision between the religious laws that govern Hasidic Jewish life and the laws of the City of New York is happening in an unlikely place: A public swimming pool in Brooklyn. Following a string of stories in local media last week, the New York Times editorial page inveighed on Wednesday against a decision…
For six years, the Jews of the Hamptons have gone head-to-head over a piece of wire they can barely see. The Orthodox finally won the right to erect the eruv, a wire that allows Orthodox Jews to travel on the Sabbath because they consider it as an extension of the home, in the tony towns…
In March, the United Nations compiled a “black list” of Israeli companies doing business in the West Bank. In some pro-Israel circles, it appeared part of a larger trend: the UN singling out Israel for condemnation. But on May 31, Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and the World Jewish Congress hosted what they…
The clock is ticking toward midnight, and dimming hopes now seem to rest with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for a bill that would enable thousands of child sex abuse victims to seek justice from their abusers. Victim advocates had considered twin bills introduced this year to be their best chance yet to extend the…
In July of 2014, a young Jewish law professor named Dan Markel was pulling into the driveway of his brick house on Trescott Drive in Tallahassee, Florida, when someone pointed a gun through the window of his Honda Accord and shot him in the head. Markel died within hours, leaving behind two young sons, a…
