World News
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Israel antiwar protests spur intensifying government crackdown
TEL AVIV, Israel — It was a strange sight, even for wartime Israel: A line of police horses descended into the vast public bomb shelter beneath Tel Aviv’s Habima Square — hooves clattering against the concrete as officers led them to safety. While the horses got a police escort, just a few feet away, 17 antiwar…
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This Christian conversion comedy should have left Jews out of it
It’s a classic Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner set-up: A family’s first meeting with their daughter’s beau turns sour when they learn he’s not who they imagined. In Premarital, a new movie starring Jim O’Heir of Parks and Recreation, Sophie (Kelley Jakle), a pastor’s daughter, returns from New York City to her anonymous midwestern town…
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Jewish families and a rabbi ask to join lawsuit to block Oklahoma Jewish charter school
(JTA) — A rabbi, a Jewish mother who invokes her family’s Holocaust history, and a Jewish teenager are among seven Oklahoma residents who have asked a federal court to let them join the fight against a proposed Jewish public charter school in their state. The group filed a motion Wednesday in federal court in Oklahoma…
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Sponsors back out of festival that invited Kanye West to headline despite record of antisemitism
(JTA) — A major London music festival is facing a wave of canceled sponsorships as well as criticism from Prime Minister Keir Starmer after after announcing that Ye, the rapper with a record of antisemitism, would be its headliner. Ye, who recently apologized for a years-long spree of antisemitic and Nazi rhetoric, is slated to…
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Wisconsin mosque leader detained by ICE in latest case tied to US antisemitism concerns
(JTA) — The president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last week, months after the State Department identified him as a threat to the U.S. foreign policy interest of combating antisemitism. Salah Sarsour, 53, the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and a Palestinian legal permanent resident of…
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The original anti-Zionists have been all but forgotten. Molly Crabapple wants to change that.
I first met nationally acclaimed artist and journalist Molly Crabapple in 2020 during the dark days of COVID. After discovering that we had both studied Yiddish at YIVO, albeit in different classes, we did a socially distanced fresh-air visit to Mt. Carmel, the Jewish cemetery in Queens where Sholem Aleichem is buried. Many tombstones there…
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Georgia political candidate apologizes for Passover ad that featured challah
(JTA) — When readers of the Atlanta Jewish Times opened their Passover edition last week, they saw something surprising: a fluffy challah. The leavened bread, forbidden for Jews to consume during the holiday, appeared in an ad placed by Nathalie Kanani, a candidate for state Senate in a Metro Atlanta district. “Have a blessed Passover,”…
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4 killed in Haifa strike as Trump issues ‘you’ll be living in Hell’ ultimatum to Tehran
(JTA) — Four people — including a couple in their 80s — were killed when an Iranian missile crashed into their home in Haifa on Sunday, in the latest direct strike in the month-old U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. The missile was not intercepted because it had broken off from a larger munition, determined Israeli authorities,…
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Two women race to save Persian Jewish music before it fades
In the 1950s, Younes Dardashti, a Jewish man from Tehran’s Jewish ghetto, became one of Iran’s most celebrated singers. As the country underwent rapid secularization under the Shah, Jewish communities that had long been pushed to the margins found new opportunities. Dardashti’s piercing, unmistakable voice filled Iranian airwaves, exclusive concert halls and the Shah’s palace,…
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Passover liberation and US liberty both summon us to remember and renew
At our campus Seder this week, I found myself talking to a student about Passover as a holiday of memory. She seemed puzzled and asked me to explain. The Seder plate, the ritual of reclining, and the talk of freedom, I told her, were all meant as reminders of enslavement in Egypt. Of course, she…
