World News
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Jewish languages meet in Birobidzhan
אויף אַן אינטערנאַציאָנאַלן ייִדישן קולטור־פֿעסטיוואַל לעצטנס אין ביראָבידזשאַן האָט מיך, ווי אַ ייִדישיסט, באַזונדערס פֿאַרחידושט די אינערלעכע ייִדישע פֿיל־שפּראַכיקייט. דער „אינטערנאַציאָנאַלער פֿעסטיוואַל פֿון ייִדישער קולטור און קונסט“ איז פֿאָרגעקומען פֿונעם 6טן ביזן 9טן סעפּטעמבער. מיט איינעם פֿון די געסט, הרבֿ עובֿדיה איסאַקאָוו, האָב איך לאַנג געשמועסט וועגן זײַן אייגענער ייִדישער שפּראַך — דזשוהורי, אַ שפּראַך…
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The Yeshiva issue that won’t go away
A backroom deal to gut oversight of private schools – specifically to bail out yeshivas that fail to teach basic subjects, condemning tens of thousands of Hasidic students to illiteracy and choking off the chance to participate in broader society – is coming back to haunt its architects. New York’s Governor and the Legislature likely…
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The Netherlands will return to Eurovision after boycott over Israel
(JTA) — The Netherlands will return to the Eurovision Song Contest, overriding a broadcaster that withdrew over Israel’s actions in Gaza. The Dutch organization that oversees public broadcasting, the Nederlandse Publieke Omroep, said on Wednesday that it will take over the country’s entry to Eurovision after Avrotros, the broadcaster that usually takes part in Eurovision…
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Police label shooting in Belleville, Ontario, a hate-motivated attack against the Jewish community
(JTA) — TORONTO – The shooter who opened fire on a Belleville, Ontario, synagogue Sunday evening committed an anti-Jewish hate-motivated offense, according to the city’s police chief. “This was a deliberate attack directed at members of the Jewish community during one of the holiest observances of the year,” Belleville police chief Murray Rodd said at…
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US Senate Democrats seek sanctions on those facilitating controversial West Bank settlement project
(JTA) — A slate of U.S. Senate Democrats, led by staunch Israel supporter Chris Coons, is seeking to sanction individuals and businesses linked to a controversial settlement expansion in the West Bank. The massive E1 project, which would add 3,401 housing units east of Jerusalem, would effectively bisect the West Bank, inhibiting the prospects for…
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Calls increase to remove Pink as UNICEF ambassador
(JTA) — Pop singer Pink is facing more calls — including from Spanish Oscar-winning actor Javier Bardem — for her removal as an ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations agency that provides aid to children and mothers. Pink criticized Macklemore for the pro-Palestinian comments and imagery in his opening set on Ed Sheeran’s tour. The…
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More than 350 cultural figures slam Spanish festival for canceling a Jewish novelist for her Israel views
(JTA) — MADRID — More than 350 writers and other cultural figures have signed a petition defending the author Ariana Harwicz, who was disinvited from a literary festival in Spain over her support for Israel. The Jewish-Argentinian novelist, longlisted for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, was scheduled to participate in a talk on Sept.…
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The rabbi’s son who drew an antisemitic mural on Wilshire Boulevard
The mural went up in a day in the mid-Wilshire district of Los Angeles. By Thursday morning, Los Angeles Jews who saw it expressed outrage, calling it hateful and incendiary. The artist who drew it, meanwhile, told me he is the son of a Jewish father who didn’t mean to offend, just start a conversation.…
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‘Vote him out’: Israeli-Americans rally against Netanyahu, plan to return to Israel to vote against him
Gripping Israeli flags in Union Square, a crowd of roughly three dozen chanted “Vote him out,” as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to speak before the United Nations on Thursday. “It’s really an embarrassment that he’s even at the U.N.,” said Israeli-American protester Steve Lax, who is planning to fly to Israel to vote…
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A candy crisis has cast a pall on upcoming bar and bat mitzvahs
Ahead of my New Jersey synagogue’s first bar mitzvah this weekend, we learned that Sunkist Fruit Gems, the popular sacred confection lovingly lobbed at the end of many services to shower the b’nai mitzvah boy or girl with sweetness, had been discontinued by its candy maker. I dreaded delivering this news to my son and…
