World News

(JTA) — The city of Miami Beach has agreed to pay $1.3 million to a small Orthodox synagogue that accused it of discrimination by sending inspectors more than once a week on average for two years At the same time, Congregation Bais Yeshaya D’Kerestir agreed to make changes to its parking and noise practices. The…

(New York Jewish Week) – New York City educators and parents are protesting after the city announced that public schools would be open for part of Passover next year, breaking from a longstanding tradition. The eight-day holiday has overlapped virtually every year with the city’s spring break since 1973, when Jewish teachers successfully lobbied to…

When Shoshana Polakoff, 40, received an unexpected breast cancer diagnosis three years ago, the mother of three young children needed extra support. Her friends, family and Jewish community in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan immediately stepped up. They organized help with after-school childcare, packed school lunches for her kids and sent her little notes…

(New York Jewish Week) — The New York Police Department has reported 100 anti-Jewish hate crimes in the city since the start of the year, a decrease of some 20% when compared to the same period last year.  Anti-Jewish incidents have comprised nearly 45% of the 223 total hate crimes the NYPD has reported this…

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — Over the past two weeks, Israel’s soccer team has thrilled South American Jews with a historic run at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Argentina.  The thousands of locals who have shown up with Israeli flags have watched the under-20 team, in their first-ever appearance in the tournament, repeatedly come from behind…

(JTA) — The U.S. State Department has condemned Roger Waters, calling the former Pink Floyd frontman’s recent concert in Berlin “antisemitic.” A reporter asked at a press briefing on Monday whether the department agreed with recent comments from Deborah Lipstadt, the department’s envoy for combatting antisemitism, who tweeted criticism of Waters. “The concert in question,…

PITTSBURGH (Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle via JTA) — When Judy Clarke delivered her opening statement to the jury that will determine the fate of the man charged with committing the massacre in the Tree of Life synagogue building, she did not deny that her client was responsible. In fact, she sympathized with the victims and their…

(New York Jewish Week) – Now 21 years old, New York’s biggest film festival is also reliably rife with Jewish connections. And this year, the festival — which runs at various venues throughout Manhattan, beginning Wednesday evening and continuing through June 18  — boasts a cool crop, ranging from a profile of Jewish comics legend…

(JTA) — Like some Jewish baseball fans, many dedicated Jewish comic book readers keep a running roster of Jewish heroes that have appeared in the “major leagues” of the comic world: Marvel, DC and some independent publishers’ titles. Many know the handful of often-discussed Jewish characters: The Thing, whose adult bar mitzvah and Jewish wedding…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Speaking before one of the leading architects of the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, Vice President Kamala Harris stressed the importance of independent courts in a democracy. Harris’s speech on Tuesday came after a week in which opponents of the judicial overhaul — which would significantly weaken the Israeli Supreme Court — protested…