World News

LONDON (JTA) — At a reception of faith leaders at Buckingham Palace the day after Queen Elizabeth’s death in September, King Charles pulled Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, aside for a word. The reception was pushed earlier in the day than originally planned to accommodate Mirvis, since it fell on a Friday. But it ran…

(JTA) — The Hadar Institute, an egalitarian Jewish educational institution, has announced that it will open a branch in California, the latest stage in the New York City-based organization’s international expansion. The organization has tapped the former associate rabbi of Ikar, a nondenominational synagogue and community in Los Angeles, to lead the venture, which will…

(JTA) – The state of Arkansas is refusing to pay a Jewish doctor for a talk he delivered at a public university because he declined to promise not to boycott Israel. Dr. Steve Feldman, a dermatologist, delivered a Zoom lecture to University of Arkansas at Little Rock medical students in February, for which he was…

(JTA) — For a decade starting in 2002, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi devoted herself to pro-Israel advocacy. After that, the Jewish philanthropist and activist from Annapolis, Maryland, went all in to fight for disability rights, working in the field for the next decade. Now, Mizrahi is focused on climate change.  “Let me put it this way:…

(JTA) — At least two American couples have been caught by Israeli customs for attempting to smuggle a total of more than 650 pounds of Fruit Roll-Ups into Israel, as the country experiences a dire shortage of the snack due to a TikTok craze. A video posted on Tuesday by Mako, an Israeli news website,…

TAIPEI (JTA) — When the Season 3 plot twist of “Attack on Titan” aired in 2019, viewers wasted no time in jumping online to discuss what they saw.  In the world of “Attack on Titan” — an extremely popular Japanese anime series now in its final season, which started in March and does not have…

(New York Jewish Week) – On a mild Thursday evening in late March, some 100 people gathered at Kistuné, a hip café and bar in the West Village that’s associated with the French-Japanese “lifestyle brand” of the same name.  Sipping on custom-designed cocktails — like the Refusenik, a Moscow mule with a “resilient mix of…

(JTA) — According to Jewish lore, God has been making matches since the creation of the world. Aleeza Ben Shalom has been at it only since 2007 — but the Jewish matchmaker is about to bring what she calls “the most important job in the world” to the masses. As the host of “Jewish Matchmaking” on…

(JTA) — Over the last few months, since the far-right government announced its plans for an overarching constitutional overhaul, Israel’s embattled liberal camp has experienced a renaissance. Unprecedented mobilization on the part of protesting masses, business leaders and the IDF vanguard has left the government in disarray and, in the wake of a seemingly endless…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Militant groups in Gaza are firing rockets at Israel — and the Israeli army is responding with rockets of its own — after a Palestinian on a hunger strike died in an Israeli prison. Khader Adnan, who died Tuesday after three months of hunger-striking, is the first Palestinian to die by this…