(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — An arsonist with a tattoo reading “KILL Rabbi Max” was sentenced to decades in prison for setting fire to a rabbi’s home in 2019.
Matthew Karelefsky, 46, was convicted last month of charges including attempted murder, arson and assault for the crime in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Midwood. On Monday, he received a sentence in Brooklyn Supreme Court of 25...
(JTA) — Israel has killed Hamas’ third-in-command in the Gaza Strip, the United States confirmed on Monday.
The killing earlier this month of Marwan Issa, alleged to be a mastermind of Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of Israel, is a significant achievement for Israel in its war on the terror group in Gaza, which is approaching the six-month mark. Issa served under Hamas militant leader Mohammed Deif and...
(JTA) — A Jewish executive producer of the Oscar-winning Holocaust drama “The Zone of Interest” said he disagreed with director Jonathan Glazer’s speech at the Academy Awards ceremony criticizing Israel, while the Auschwitz Memorial issued a statement in its defense.
They were the latest reactions in what has become a prolonged firestorm over Glazer’s remarks Sunday. While accepting the best international feature award, the British Jewish filmmaker...
(JNS.org) –Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the Israel Defense Forces operational plans for Rafah, Mako reported on Friday, citing the Prime Minister’s Bureau. The IDF is preparing operationally for this next stage of the war while also readying for the evacuation of Gazan civilians from Rafah, the report added.
The prime minister described, for the second day in a row, Hamas’s latest conditions for facilitating a hostage...
(JTA) – This week, police in Cambridge, England, announced they were opening an investigation into a protest act focused on a British lord who has been dead for nearly a century.
Last week pro-Palestinian protesters at Trinity College — part of the University of Cambridge — sprayed red paint onto a 1914 portrait of Lord Arthur James Balfour and then slashed through it. Balfour, when he served...
(JTA) – More than 80 bands and several scheduled panelists have pulled out of the ongoing South by Southwest festival, citing Israel defense ties among its organizers.
Organizers of the Austin, Texas, event that draws attendees from around the world have threatened legal action against the boycott’s leaders. But they also said on Tuesday that they “fully respect” the boycott.
(JTA) — Israel’s military announced the death of an American-Israeli soldier who had been missing since Oct. 7, ending months of uncertainty during which his parents emerged as two of the most visible advocates for the more than 100 people still being held hostage by Hamas.
Itay Chen, 19, from Netanya, was killed and his body abducted following a battle with terrorists during the Hamas onslaught, the...
(JTA) — A U.S. government delegation tasked with monitoring religious freedom around the world cut a visit to Saudi Arabia short after Saudi officials demanded that a prominent rabbi on the trip remove his kippah.
Saudi officials told Rabbi Abraham Cooper, co-chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, to remove his kippah while in public, the commission said in a statement on Monday.
(JTA) — Protesters opposed to Israel’s war in Gaza demonstrated outside a ceremony to mark the opening of the Netherlands’ first Holocaust museum on Sunday, citing the presence of the Israeli president.
More than 1,000 people joined in the protest over the ceremony, which took place in Amsterdam’s historic Portuguese Synagogue. The protesters came from the Dutch Palestinian community, Socialists International and Erev Rav, a local...
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden used his State of the Union speech to call on Israel to allow more humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, saying that it must not be used as leverage.
“Israel must do its part. Israel must allow more aid into Gaza and ensure humanitarian workers aren’t caught in the crossfire,” Biden said Thursday night. “To the leadership of Israel I say...
