Newton, Massachusetts is one of the most Jewish cities in the United States, with Jews making up between 20-30% of the Boston suburb’s population. Newton is so Jewish that there’s a part of town with three synagogues in a one-block radius. Newton is so Jewish that its Jewish population is not only mentioned on its…
A “takeover.” An “underhanded effort.” An “elaborate and deceptive scheme” that was “more in keeping with a mini-dictatorship than a religious organization founded upon democratic principles.” This is how a judge described the clandestine cooperation of the board members of a small Massachusetts synagogue, Adath Sharon, with the leadership of a local Chabad chapter. In…
The principal of a Massachusetts high school wrote a letter apologizing for the publication of a quote generally attributed to Nazi leaders in the school’s yearbook. Hundreds of copies of the yearbook had been printed and distributed to students at Andover High School in Massachusetts before the school became aware that a senior captioned his…
A Republican candidate who won enough support at the party’s Massachusetts convention to advance the primary for governor is a pastor who once wrote a book claiming that the Holocaust was caused by a conspiracy of gay men within the Nazi party. Scott Lively, an attorney and pastor who has advocated for anti-LGBT laws around…
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (JTA) — A campaign calling on the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts to not renew its contract with Hewlett Packard because of its business ties with Israel was dealt a setback when a group behind the proposed boycott failed to get its resolution placed on the City Council’s agenda for its next scheduled meeting….
BOSTON (JTA) — Campus police at a Massachusetts college are investigating an incident of harassment against a Jewish student. The incident took place last week at Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in Amherst, about 90 miles west of Boston. The college’s president, Jonathan Lash, condemned the incident, but no further details have been…
BOSTON (JTA) — Massachusetts and Rhode Island have changed their primary dates this year to avoid a conflict with the Jewish High Holidays. In Massachusetts, the secretary of state, William Galvin, announced Tuesday that the voting would be moved up to Sept. 4, the day after Labor Day and two weeks earlier than the original…
(JTA) — Massachusetts’ secretary of state is wrestling with when to schedule the state’s primary ahead of the November 2018 general election. The primary is usually held seven weeks before the general election. But for 2018 that would fall on September 18, or erev Yom Kippur. According to Massachusetts state law, a primary must be…
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