August 12, 2021
By PHILISSA CRAMER
(JTA) — Los Angeles’ Greenblatt’s Deli and Fine Wine Shop shuttered abruptly on Wednesday, ending nearly a century-long run for a fixture of Jewish food on Sunset Boulevard.
Opened in 1926 and run by a single family since the 1940s, Greenblatt’s described itself as a “wine merchant that fronts as a deli.” Eater reported that the restaurant was struggling amid the pandemic-induced labor shortage and that the...
August 06, 2021
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — Dutch police at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport removed 18 Orthodox Jewish girls from a Delta-KLM flight bound for New York on Friday allegedly because they failed to comply with COVID-19 measures about eating at proscribed times.
The girls were part of a group of about 50 people traveling from Kyiv, Ukraine, with a layover in Amsterdam, the NIW Dutch Jewish weekly reported Friday. On the Amsterdam-New...
August 06, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Michael Herzog, a brigadier general who has a longtime relationship with an influential Washington think tank, will be the next ambassador to the United States, according to Israeli media reports.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have settled on Herzog, the brother of President Isaac Herzog, for the role, The Jerusalem Post first reported Thursday. Other Israeli media confirmed the pick.
...
August 06, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
(JTA)— Shontel Brown, a Cuyahoga County councilwoman, came from behind in the polls to win a critical Democratic primary in a Cleveland area district with a substantial Jewish population, with considerable help from a mainstream pro-Israel political action committee.
Dave Wasserman, the political editor of the Cook Political Report, on Tuesday evening called the election in Ohio’s 11th District for Brown, who was facing Nina Turner, a...
August 05, 2021
By AARON BANDLER
(JNS.org via Jewish Journal) Several U.S. Ben & Jerry’s franchisees have sent a letter to the company calling on them to rescind their July 19 decision to stop doing business in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The letter was signed by franchisees in Seattle, Boston, San Francisco and St. Louis, among other major cities, that operate 30 stores and generate $23.3 million in combined revenue.
“There is a...
August 05, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
(JTA) — Ruth Pearl, who dedicated the latter part of her life to preserving the legacy of her son Daniel, a journalist who was murdered in Pakistan, has died at 85.
Pearl, who suffered from a lung ailment, died at her Los Angeles home on July 20, according to reports. On Jan. 23, 2002, Pearl woke up with a premonition that her son, then 38 and a...
August 02, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
(JTA) — The chairman of the Oklahoma Republican party is the latest Republican figure to liken coronavirus restrictions to the Nazi period.
John Bennett on Friday posted on the party’s Facebook page a photo of a yellow star labeled “Unvaccinated.” He listing purported restrictions on the unvaccinated, including not being able to fly or “enter a pub, restaurant club or theater,” as well as limited access to...
July 30, 2021
(JTA) — Carl Levin, the Jewish Michigander who spent 36 years as a fierce inquisitor in the Senate, has died at 87.
The Levin Center at Wayne State University Law School announced Levin’s passing on Thursday. It did not give a date or cause of death, but Levin was diagnosed with lung cancer four years ago. The center, named for Levin, focuses on the passion of his career: government oversight.
...
July 30, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden is set to nominate Deborah Lipstadt, the Emory University Holocaust historian, to be the State Department’s anti-Semitism envoy.
The White House alerted top Biden supporters of the pick, which has been expected for weeks, on Thursday night, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency has learned.
Lipstadt is perhaps best known for defeating Holocaust denier David Irving after he sued her in a British...
July 29, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
(JTA) — Sen. Ted Cruz is blocking the advance of a bill that would promote normalization between Israel and Arab states because it includes language enshrining a two-state solution as the preferred U.S. outcome to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Cruz is proposing amended language that does not remove a reference to a two-state outcome, but makes it clear that it should be Israel’s prerogative.
“Senator Cruz believes that...
