World News
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Israelis pause for a different kind of siren: the one marking Holocaust memorial day
(JTA) — For the last six weeks, whenever Israelis have heard a siren, they were instructed to run to their nearest bomb shelter. On Tuesday, a siren instead brought them to a halt. The two-minute siren was the one sounded annually on Yom HaShoah, Holocaust memorial day. In keeping with a national tradition, Israelis stopped…
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Many children killed in the Holocaust had no one to say Kaddish for them. These Jews have stepped up.
(JTA) — As each week’s Shabbat morning service comes to a close at Temple Beth El in West Palm Beach, Florida, an unusual tradition unfolds as the congregation prepares to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish. Rabbi Alan Bell asks to stand all those reciting the prayer on the anniversary of the death of a loved one.…
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VIDEO: ’Love was there too:’ A Yom Hashoah commemoration in Yiddish
די פֿאַרגאַנגענע וואָך האָט דער „ייִדישפּיל“־טעאַטער אין תּל־אָבֿיבֿ אַרויסגעשטעלט אַ ווידעאָ פֿון אַ „יום־השואה“־אַקאַדעמיע וואָס די טרופּע האָט דורכגעפֿירט אין 2022. די טעמע פֿון דער פּראָגראַם איז געווען מאָמענטן פֿון ליבע בײַ ייִדן אין די געטאָס און קאָנצענטראַציע־לאַגערן. אינעם ווידעאָ לייענען די אַקטיאָרן פֿאָר זכרונות פֿון לעבן געבליבענע ווי אויך ייִדישע לידער אָנגעשריבן בשעת דעם…
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In Elie Wiesel’s latter years, he and I discussed the effects of the Holocaust. Those conversations are now an opera.
Back in 2012, while on assignment as the Chicago Tribune’s longtime music critic, I received a phone call from my editor that would change my life. Elie Wiesel had just accepted the newspaper’s annual Literary Prize. Would I be interested in interviewing him for the paper? Would I?! There was only one minor problem: I…
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J Street says Israel should fund its own defense
J Street, the progressive pro-Israel, pro-peace political advocacy, is shifting its stance on defensive U.S. military aid to Israel as a growing number of Democrats, including some of the congressional candidates it endorsed this year, call for ending such assistance. Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s longtime president, said in a lengthy post on Monday that the…
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Deni Avdija might not win Most Improved Player. But he can achieve something greater.
In any other year Deni Avdija, the NBA’s reigning Israeli superstar and its most talented Jewish player in at least half a century, might be a shoo-in for the league’s Most Improved Player award. The 6-foot-8 forward inflated his scoring average from 16.9 to 24.2 — good for 14th in the NBA — as he…
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Israelis have no idea where the Iran war is going. But they know it’s part of Netanyahu’s campaign
Israelis are not used to uncertainty. This is a country where, on most questions, people hold strong opinions with remarkable confidence — about security, politics, even identity. Yet in the aftermath of the recent war with Iran, they find themselves on unfamiliar ground: confused and in suspense. With the suspense comes a sense of strategic…
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US funding for Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system used to enjoy bipartisan support. Not anymore.
(JTA) — A growing number of leading progressives, including the leading liberal pro-Israel lobby, have come out against continued American funding for Israel’s Iron Dome defense system. J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami on Sunday joined Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ro Khanna, along with Jewish Democratic congressional challenger Brad Lander, in opposing future budget earmarks for…
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Dublin’s National Concert Hall scraps fundraiser for Israeli emergency service, igniting outcry
(JTA) — The National Concert Hall in Dublin has drawn condemnation from the head of Israel’s emergency medical service, Magen David Adom, after it canceled a planned fundraiser for the organization. The event, which was slated for May 11, was set to include a play featuring testimonies from survivors and first responders of the Oct.…
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Trump administration fires 2 judges who blocked deportations of pro-Palestinian activists
(JTA) — The Trump administration on Friday fired two judges who blocked the deportations of international students involved in pro-Palestinian activism. One of the judges, Roopal Patel, a Boston immigration court judge, oversaw the Trump administration’s immigration case against Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Tufts University doctoral student who was detained by ICE agents on the…
