World News
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Who can play a Jew — A debate in Germany
אױף דער בינע פֿון „דײַטשן טעאַטער“ אין בערלין טראָגט דער בלאָנדער שױשפּילער מאָריץ קינעמאַן אַ טלית. ס׳איז שװער צו זײַן אַ ייִד אין דײַטשלאַנד, גיט ער צו פֿאַרשטײן. שפּעטער שילט ער אין עולם אַרײַן מיט אױסגעשרײען פֿון „פּאַסקודנע גױים!“ מע װאָלט געקענט מײנען אַז קינעמאַן איז אַ ייִד, און אַז ער רעדט פֿאַר זיך אַלײן.…
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In three centuries of Southern Jewish life in the Big Easy, no easy way to be Jewish
Returning: A Search for Home Across Three Centuries By Nicholas Lemann Liveright, 416 pages, $35 Nicholas Lemann’s Jewish life was negligible. Great care was taken to make it so. His family not only celebrated Christmas, they skipped Hanukkah, a fact that created a small scandal in their Reform congregation in New Orleans, a shul that…
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‘No speaking Swedish here!’ — Yiddish Day in Lund University
דעם 26סטן פֿעברואַר 2026 איז אין לונד, שװעדן, פֿאָרגעקומען אַ „ייִדיש־טאָג“. דער לונדער אוניװערסיטעט בשותּפֿות מיטן שוועדישן אינסטיטוט פֿאַר שפּראַכן און פֿאָלקלאָר („איסאָף“) האָבן אָרגאַניזירט אַ צונױפֿטרעף פֿון אַמאָליקע און איצטיקע לונדער ייִדיש־סטודענטן. ס׳רובֿ הײַנטיקע ייִדיש־לימודים בײַם לונדער אוניװערסיטעט װערן געלערנט אָנלײַן, אין דיסטאַנצקורסן. דערפֿאַר איז דער ייִדיש־טאָג פֿאַר עטלעכע אָנטייל־נעמערס געװען דאָס ערשטע מאָל…
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We’re forgetting the lessons of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire
When the young women of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sat down before their Singer sewing machines on Saturday, Mar. 25, 1911, they could not know that their lives would soon be extinguished because of a lit cigarette. At around 4:40 p.m., a worker flicked a still-smoldering cigarette butt into a bin filled with paper patterns…
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Roald Dahl’s monstrous views have a seat at the table today
Roald Dahl’s house is falling down. It’s 1983, and the children’s author’s Buckinghamshire estate is undergoing a gut renovation. Its exposed plumbing and naked beams bespeak an unseemly core behind the author’s facade of prickly charm, cracking after publication of his incendiary review of the book God Cried, about the 1982 Lebanon War. The article,…
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‘Verbal sparring’ at a conference for religious Jews breaking from Israel orthodoxy? That’s not what I experienced
To the editors: The Forward‘s article about the recent Smol Emuni conference seems to describe a different event than the one that I attended. There were certainly different viewpoints among the people assembled at the gathering for religious Jews who, per the organization’s mission, seek “justice, equality, and dignity for Jews and Palestinians.” And there…
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Catholic Church urges clergy to address ‘misleading statements’ about Jews by far-right influencers
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops cautioned its members in a recent memorandum that Catholic “media personalities” are distorting the church’s position on Jews and Israel, and said that priests should use Holy Week and Easter sermons to clarify these stances. Bishop Joseph C. Bambera, who chairs the conference’s committee on interreligious affairs and…
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Is this Netanyahu’s Winston Churchill moment?
Much of Israeli society is living with a profound cognitive dissonance, one that few articulate openly and many would rather not confront. On one hand, there is a broad and deeply felt desire to see the jihadist Iranian regime weakened or deposed. On the other, there is a pervasive fear that any success on that…
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Government takeover of Brooklyn hospital faces legal setback amid Orthodox backlash
A proposed takeover of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn by New York City’s public hospital system has hit a new obstacle, after the state Attorney General’s office rejected a request to fast-track the merger deal amid fierce opposition in the Orthodox Jewish community it serves. The AG’s office’s charities bureau told Maimonides that it cannot…
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Trump says US in ‘productive’ talks with Iran to end war, delays strikes after ultimatum
(JTA) — President Donald Trump announced on Monday that the United States had been negotiating an end to the war in Iran for the past two days, marking the first signal from the president of high-level talks with Tehran since the war began with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes last month. The talks had been “very good…
