World News
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Trade war meets tradition: Canadian Jews confront a Manischewitz-free Passover
(JTA) — TORONTO — Max Kirschner pondered the kosher wine section at an uptown Toronto liquor store, two days before the start of Passover. As he mulled over which six bottles to purchase for his two seders, he had plenty of options: Wines from Israel, Italy, Chile, Argentina and New Zealand lined the shelves. The…
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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear criticizes Gaza ‘genocide’ discourse ‘litmus test’ for Democrats
(JTA) — Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear declined to label Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” in an interview with Politico published Sunday, instead critiquing the question as a litmus test among Democrats. “That’s becoming one of those new litmus tests that we said we would never do as a party again,” Beshear told Politico’s Dasha…
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Passover’s 4 cups of meaning
What if the answer to the ‘Meaning Crisis’ is sitting right in front of us, around our Passover tables? The Meaning Crisis is a term coined by philosopher John Vervaeke to discuss the constellation of mental health, political and cultural crises that, in his words, derive from people “feeling very disconnected from themselves, from each…
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Tensions flare at Passover Seder over Mamdani’s inclusion
(JTA) — New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani was briefly interrupted by a heckler during an appearance at a Passover Seder in Manhattan Monday night, marking a tense moment that highlighted ongoing strains between the mayor and segments of the Jewish community. “The rising tide of antisemitism has caused enormous pain for so many Jewish…
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NY candidate criticizes Israel on Hasan Piker’s show, sparking backlash in heavily Jewish swing district
(JTA) — Democratic officials in four suburban New York counties are decrying a local congressional candidate who criticized Israel during an appearance this weekend with Hasan Piker, the leftist streamer who has divided Democrats and drawn allegations of antisemitism. Effie Phillips-Staley is running for Congress in a heavily Jewish district just outside New York City…
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FBI confirms that Temple Israel attacker was ‘Hezbollah-inspired’ and sought to kill Israelis
(JTA) — The man who attacked Temple Israel in suburban Detroit last month was inspired by Hezbollah, the FBI confirmed on Monday. Ayman Ghazali sent a video to his sister in Lebanon shortly before driving a fireworks-laden truck into the West Bloomfield, Michigan, Reform synagogue on March 12, the FBI revealed during a press conference…
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How New York Jews made pickles a big dill
The Pickled City: The Story of New York Pickles By Paul van Ravestein and Monique Mulder Chronicle Books, 224 pages, $27 “Pickles are a favorite food in Jewtown,” muckraker Jacob Riis, referring to the Lower East Side, wrote in How the Other Half Lives, his seminal exposé on poverty. “They are filling and keep the children…
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Israeli-American soldier Moshe Katz, killed in Lebanon rocket strike, laid to rest on Mt. Herzl
(JTA) — Hundreds gathered on Sunday night at Israel’s military cemetery on Mt. Herzl for the funeral of Moshe Yitzchak Hacohen Katz, an American-born Israeli soldier who was killed by a rocket strike on Saturday in southern Lebanon. Katz, 22, from New Haven, Connecticut, is the fifth Israeli soldier killed in Lebanon since Hezbollah, an…
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A second poll of US Jews finds the same result: Most oppose the war in Iran
(JTA) — For the second time in a day, a nonpartisan poll has found that most American Jews oppose the U.S. military campaign against Iran — even as 90% of them say they oppose the Iranian regime. The new poll, conducted by GBAO Strategies on behalf of the liberal pro-Israel lobby J Street, found that…
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Their sons survived the battlefield but not their wounds. Now these Israeli mothers mourn together.
(JTA) — TEL AVIV — On the morning she left Jerusalem for a health retreat for bereaved mothers, Taly Drori was surprised to recognize another woman in her rideshare. More than two years earlier, they had often crossed paths in the intensive care unit of the same hospital, where their sons were being treated in…
