September 19, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Lee Zeldin, the prominent Jewish Republican congressman who is running for New York governor, announced that he is in remission from leukemia but will continue his campaign.
“Through early detection, last November, I was diagnosed with early-stage chronic myeloid leukemia (CML),” Zeldin’s congressional office said in a statement Saturday. “I then began treatment with an immediately positive response and no side effects. Over the...
September 17, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
(JTA) — Israel will not oppose the Biden administration’s efforts to reenter the Iran nuclear deal but wants to see a credible “Plan B” to rally international support for Iran’s isolation, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said.
“The current U.S. approach of putting the Iran nuclear program back in a box, I’d accept that,” Gantz said in an interview posted Tuesday by Foreign Policy magazine.
That represents...
September 17, 2021
By JANE KAUFMAN
(Cleveland Jewish News via JTA) — An Ohio city hired a private investigator to observe Jews entering and exiting a local synagogue on the first day of Rosh Hashanah as evidence for an ongoing lawsuit, outraging Orthodox Jews there and further inflaming tensions in a local dispute over worship protocols.
University Heights officials said the investigator, who had been hired by the mayor at an undisclosed cost,...
September 15, 2021
Six-time Emmy and Tony Award-nominated actress Tovah Feldshuh will reprise her role as Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as part of a celebration of the first yarhzeit (anniversary) of her passing “orchestrated” by the Friends of the Israel Philharmonic.
Feldshuh played Ginsburg in the film “Sisters in Law,” which depicted the relationship between her and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first female justice appointed to the nation’s highest...
September 15, 2021
By PHILISSA CRAMER
(JTA) — Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom easily survived a recall election Tuesday, putting to end the possibility that a right-wing Republican could take over as the state’s top executive. But one effect of the bruising political fight appears likely to endure: scrutiny over whether America’s first Jewish woman senator is still fit to serve.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s name was not on the ballot, but in some...
September 15, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON (JTA) — A congressional letter backed by Muslim and Jewish groups is urging the federal government to make kosher and halal meat available to observant Jews and Muslims through an emergency food program.
Rep. Grace Meng, D-N.Y., initiated the letter sent Wednesday to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. Forty-eight Democrats have signed the letter, which was obtained exclusively by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
“As the United States...
September 15, 2021
By BEN SALES
(JTA) — More than one in five Jewish adults who play online multiplayer games faced anti-Semitism while playing, according to a new survey from the Anti-Defamation League.
The survey, published Wednesday, found that harassment and bigotry are common across the 97 million Americans who play multiplayer games. Among adult gamers surveyed, 83% said they have been harassed while playing. Sixty percent of gamers aged 13-17 who were...
September 10, 2021
By ELISHA GECHTER
( JTA via Kveller) – My father, Michael Horen, was an artist by training and a graphic designer by profession. But the word I most often use to describe him is “humanitarian.”
That’s not because he ever did any international aid work, but because throughout his life, he really sought to make connections with others — with an ear to how he could help.
When families from...
September 10, 2021
By BEN SALES
(JTA) — The latest politician to compare government vaccination efforts to Nazi Germany is Josh Mandel, a Jewish Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Ohio.
In a video Thursday protesting President Joe Biden’s upcoming requirement that a large portion of private sector employees either get vaccinated against COVID or get tested weekly, Mandel instructed his social media viewers not to comply with the requirement. In doing so,...
September 09, 2021
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — The world population of those who self-identify as Jews stands at about 15.2 million — an increase of 100,000 over last year — with the number in the U.S. differing measurably from this year’s Pew survey.
Israel has 6.9 million Jews and the United States has “about 6 million,” according to the estimate by the Jewish Agency for Israel based on work by Sergio Della...
