A storied New York Orthodox synagogue, just blocks from the Empire State Building, is looking to its future, but says a report that it may build a gleaming 19-story ‘SynaCondo’ is wrong. The – Congregation Beth Israel was founded by immigrant German Jews in 1890 on Manhattan’s W. 35th Street, around the block from its…
A mom of six was stabbed to death in her West Bank home by a terrorist who escaped capture. Dafna Meir, a gynecology nurse, was set upon in the doorway of her home in the West Bank settlement of Otniel Sunday. Her attacker reportedly fled to the nearby Palestinian village of Khirbet Karameh, and the…
As the families of five Americans held in Iran celebrated the news that their loved ones have been released and are on their way home, relatives of Robert Levinson were faced with a harsh realization. “We are happy for the other families. But once again, Bob Levinson has been left behind,” family of the Jewish…
Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz was hailed as “one of the world’s greatest young philanthropists and businessmen” by broadcaster Larry King after the California nursing home owner won an award in 2012. Rechnitz briefly seemed destined to win even bigger kudos this week when it was reported that a nurse at one of his facilities had scored…
Mr. Hooper was a Yiddish-speaking Jew, but the show's Jewishness hardly ends with him
A 56-year-old nurse at a southern California nursing home thought she scored a slice of the big prize after the facility’s Jewish owner bought thousands of tickets for employees — but it turned out to all be a hoax. The nurse’s son told her she was one of three winners of the giant $1.5 billion…
Daniella Moffson last updated her Facebook cover photo August 26. She chose a group shot of children and adults clapping in front of a lake. They are wearing matching pink baseball t-shirts and releasing white and yellow balloons towards the late afternoon sun. Accompanying the photo are the words “Simcha” – Hebrew for joy and…
After a firestorm of protest about spiritual teacher Marc Gafni’s upcoming workshop at Esalen, a California retreat center, Gafni and co-teacher Sally Kempton have “voluntarily” chosen to withdraw, said Esalen president Gordon Wheeler. The workshop was scheduled for February 5. Asked if Gafni might return someday to Esalen, Wheeler said “it’s very, very complex, so…
UMM AL FAHM — With some 50,000 residents, this northern town, the largest Muslim municipality in Israel, is a densely packed cacophony of blue, pink and white homes perched on a tangled maze of city streets. With no major industries in the city, most of the men work elsewhere in construction. There are no hospitals…
(JTA) — When Rabbi Lila Kagedan spends her first Shabbat at the Mount Freedom Jewish Center in Randolph, New Jersey, later this month, she will be making history. A recent graduate of Yeshivat Maharat, Kagedan, 35, is the first person ordained at the Orthodox women’s clergy training institute in New York to adopt the title…
(JTA) — Only three years ago, the Jews of Marseille were able to congregate without security and in relative safety in their synagogues and community centers. While violence by Muslim extremists rose throughout France, it largely spared the southern port city, where 80,000 Jews and 250,000 Muslims live. When I visited in late 2012, I…
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