December 16, 2016
By JAY SHOFET
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Three weeks ago, more than 1,700 brush fires across Israel destroyed homes, vehicles and countless irreplaceable personal possessions. As a nation, we have also suffered severe damage to more than 32,000 acres of precious natural resources – woodlands, grasslands and protected parklands, as well as the planted forests and the flora and ground-dwelling fauna that once thrived there.
As the smoke clears, organizations and...
December 12, 2016
By RABBI YAAKOV MENKEN
(JNS.org) — When students at Toronto’s Ryerson University Hillel proposed to their Student Union that the university participate in the broader Canadian Holocaust Awareness Week, they did not anticipate the jeers, snickers, and eventual walkout to prevent a quorum from approving the motion. Nor did they anticipate that this hateful behavior would be led by members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
In this respect,...
December 03, 2016
By RABBI ANDREW SACKS
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Like many of my friends, I grew up in the United States with a strong affinity for Israel. As a child we saved money to buy trees, learned Israeli songs, studied Hebrew, visited Israel and marched in Israeli Independence Day parades. I recall well that my parents encouraged me to give part of my bar mitzvah gifts to Israel. Ultimately I made aliyah.
...
November 29, 2016
By RABBIS ADINA LEWITTES and AMICHAI LAU-LAVIE
(JTA) — Newsflash: “A rabbi under the chuppah may boost Jewish engagement in intermarried homes,” according to a study released this past month by the Brandeis University Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies.
That’s welcome new data but no news for us, two New York-area rabbis trained at the Jewish Theological Seminary who have each made personal and professional sacrifices in seeking to find alternatives...
November 24, 2016
By RABBIS MARC ANGEL AND AVI WEISS (JTA) — Let us begin with the facts: Converts whose conversions were conducted according to halachah, or Jewish law, are 100 percent Jewish. In the eyes of God and Torah, they are full Jews, just as Jewish as any born Jews. Their Jewishness is not contingent on the Israeli Chief Rabbinate or anyone else. Halachic converts are Jewish, their children are Jewish, they...
November 21, 2016
(JTA) — The upset victory by Donald Trump in the 2016 elections stunned a Jewish activist and leadership class that is at times as divided as the electorate at large. JTA asked some of those leaders to describe their concerns and expectations in a series of brief essays, “Worst fears, best hopes.”
Rabbi Jill Jacobs T’ruah
Imagine the sense of dread that Abraham felt in hearing God’s prophecy, “Your seed...
November 15, 2016
By MORTON A. KLEIN
(JNS.org) — The Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) recent statements essentially criticizing the election victory by Donald Trump and Mike Pence are inappropriate and harmful.
The front page of the ADL’s website features a blurb and link to an ADL blog post entitled “White Supremacists Celebrate Trump’s Victory” (Nov. 10) that deceptively seems to tie President-elect Trump to former KKK leader David Duke and Jew-hating neo-Nazis—while never mentioning...
November 08, 2016
By ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL
(JTA) — On Monday, one day before Election Day, I received a call from a reader. She identified herself as a Reform Jew, 46, from Chicago. She had praise for JTA and our daily newsletter, but also a complaint: Our emphasis on the Trump campaign, including charges over the weekend that a campaign ad of his was reminiscent of anti-Jewish propaganda, led readers like her to believe that...
November 08, 2016
By STEPHEN M. FLATOW
(JNS.org) – Professors at a number of American universities have found a new cause: demanding the release of a terrorist who murdered two college students.
This disturbing story begins on Feb. 21, 1969. That was the day a powerful bomb exploded in a Jerusalem supermarket. Two Hebrew University students (and roommates), Edward Jaffe and Leon Kanner, were killed. “They had been buying canned food for a...
November 04, 2016
By BEN SALES
(JTA) — For years, I’ve told anyone who would listen that the Cubs were the team of the Jews. I’ve written two blog posts about it during the past month alone.
Long suffering. Faithful. Bound to tradition. Hoping for redemption, to no avail. It was all there.
Until now. For the first time since my great-grandfather’s bar mitzvah, the Cubs are World Series champions.
So as I...
