The neighborhood of Ghent in Norfolk, Virginia takes its name from a city in Belgium, and is now a chic historic district where restaurant menus highlight gluten-free dishes next to the fried green tomatoes. But 70 years ago, Ghent was a place where struggling Jewish immigrants, buoyed by a war-fueled economy, were able to buy…
1) 95,520 Jews live in Virginia. 2) Congregation Beth Israel, built in 1882 in Charlottesville, is the oldest synagogue in the state. 3) Late Minnesota senator Paul Wellstone, who died in an airplane crash in 2002, was raised Jewish in Arlington. The Wellstone family name was originally Wexelstein. 4) Much of Steven Spielberg’s film “Lincoln”…
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington and B’nai B’rith International condemned the Virginia State Bar for canceling its legal seminar in Jerusalem. “It’s a reprehensible decision,” the JCRC’s executive director, Ron Halber, told the Washington Jewish Week on Monday. “It’s based on politics. It’s not based on logic. And it contravenes the spirit…
The Virginia State Bar canceled its plans to hold a legal seminar in Jerusalem, citing “unacceptable discriminatory policies and practices pertaining to border security.” The Midyear Legal Seminar trip to Jerusalem had been scheduled for November, according to the state agency’s website. The agency is looking into other venues. In a letter sent late Friday…
(JTA) — Jewish campus groups were ready for the painful national dialogue that took place in the wake of murky rape allegations at the University of Virginia. That’s because organizations like Hillel and historically Jewish Greek houses such as Alpha Epsilon Pi, Zeta Beta Tau and Sigma Delta Tau had been having the conversations for…
Rep. Eric Cantor, the majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives and the highest-ranking Jew in congressional history, lost his Republican primary in Virginia to a Tea Party challenger in a major upset. Cantor, 51, who rode the Tea Party wave to majority leader after the 2010 elections, was trailing Dave Brat, 56 to…
The organized Jewish community is known for its impressive bipartisan clout when advocating issues relating to Israel. But when it comes to domestic affairs, the community suffers from a lopsided lack of leverage on the Republican side. Some Jewish activists believe that they may have found a pathway to the GOP side of the aisle….
Jewish groups called on the Republican candidate for Virginia’s lieutenant governor to explain a sermon in which he said non-Christians are engaged in a “false religion.” E.W. Jackson, a pastor, on Sunday preached at the Restoration Fellowship Church in Strasburg, Va. “Any time you say, ‘There is no other means of salvation but through Jesus…
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