Over the weekend, Iran held its first parliamentary election since the nuclear deal and it looks like reformists are coming out on top. The election showed wide support for moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani said in a tweet on Friday, “#IranElections2016 symbol of Iran’s political independence. Govt reassures the safekeeping of nation’s vote &…
A Palestinian human rights activist’s tour of Chicago-area college campuses ended on a sour note this week, after he was heckled and threatened by students and anti-Israel protestors. Bassem Eid, an East Jerusalem Palestinian who is the founder and director the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, cancelled his planned lecture at Northwestern University Hillel after…
Though she’s pregnant with her second child, Chelsea Clinton, the former first daughter, has taken center stage in the current election cycle, campaigning for her mother frequently during this primary season. So has the former president, and would-be first first husband, Bill Clinton. But one member of the Clinton clan has been notably absent, even…
Levi Sanders is so far away from the political limelight that until his father began to gain momentum in his presidential bid, the press couldn’t even figure out the identity of his mother. The only biological son of Jewish presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, Levi (pronounced LEH-vee, as in the biblical tribe name) has recently made…
On Monday, February 29, five women from the ancient Chinese Jewish community of Kaifeng plan to make aliyah with the help of the nonprofit organization Shavei Israel. After studying Hebrew and Judaics over the past few years, the five are excited to assimilate into Jewish culture after moving to Israel. Li Jing, one of the…
After appearing only as an extra in the nine previous engagements, Israel took center stage at the Republican debate Houston on Thursday night. Cast for the first time in a leading role, Israel served as a litmus test to ascertain the devotion of the GOP candidates to cherished conservative principles but mainly as a baseball…
Rabbi Adele Plotkin wants the mayor of Chino Valley, Arizona to stop praying — at town council meetings. Plotkin, 66, of Congregation Beit Torah, contacted the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona about Mayor Chris Marley’s practice of reciting a prayer in the name of Jesus to open the meetings. “It’s where you are that…
A new snag has hit a controversial plan to build a memorial on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto to honor Poles who saved Jews during the Holocaust. In a February 22 email to the New York philanthropist funding the project, sculptor Dani Karavan said he would not accept a commission to create the memorial…
It’s no secret that Bernie Sanders has been a bit reluctant to explicitly discuss his Jewish identity during his presidential campaign. So it jumped out at us when University of Chicago student Chelsea Fine got him to open up a bit on Thursday night at a nationally televised town hall session on MSNBC. To the…
The federal government is charging the Hasidic-owned New York electronics store B&H Photo & Electronics with discriminating against its Hispanic warehouse workers — including separate bathrooms. Hispanic workers at the company’s Brooklyn warehouse are forced to use dirty, often broken restrooms, while white workers have access to “superior” toilets, according to the complaint U.S. Department of…
Reform Rabbis in America scratching their heads over how to handle the Israel debates roiling their synagogues will soon get some guidance. The Central Conference of American Rabbis, the largest American rabbinic organization, is creating a program to aimed to foster civil discourse in Reform congregations. Steven Fox, the chief executive of CCAR, described the…
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