World News

(JTA) — Margot Stern Strom, who drew on the pain of her Jewish childhood in the Jim Crow South to create one of the most widely used Holocaust education programs in American schools, died March 28 at her home in Brookline, Massachusetts. She was 81. The Boston Globe reported the cause as pancreatic cancer. Strom…

(JTA) — A Jewish member of Finland’s parliament said that he was assaulted in a Helsinki subway station on Saturday, where an assailant punched him in the face and hurled antisemitic insults. Ben Berl Zyskowicz, a member of the conservative-leaning National Coalition Party, said that in addition to the antisemitic comments, the assailant blamed him…

(New York Jewish Week) — When Anat Gov’s play “HaChaverot Hachi Tovot” (“Best Friends”) premiered in 1999, it was an anomaly among Israeli works of theater. In fact, Gov wrote it with anomalous intentions: In an interview before it opened, she called the piece a form of “compensation for the fact that there are no…

(JTA) — “It’s like a Jewish ‘Lord of the Rings,’ but he’s just going to his mom’s house.” That’s how director Ari Aster, known for his acclaimed horror movies “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” described his new film, “Beau Is Afraid,” in a behind-the-scenes video released on Wednesday. Aster, who works with A24, the same studio behind…

(JTA) — Even though he hasn’t officially declared his Republican presidential campaign (yet), Ron DeSantis has been pitching his governance of Florida as a model for running the United States — telling Fox News last week, for example, that “we can get America back on track and back on our foundations” by following Florida’s example. …

(New York Jewish Week) — After police officers arrested two armed men at Penn Station last November and accused them of planning to attack Jews, it soon emerged that a local Jewish security agency had provided the tip that thwarted the attack. In fact, the tipoff and arrest were due to the work of multiple…

(JTA) — Greek authorities arrested two men on Tuesday who were planning mass terrorist attacks on Jewish sites in Athens, including a Chabad outpost and a Jewish restaurant, according to reports. The Mossad, Israel’s spy agency which contributed to the investigation, told the Associated Press that the men, who are Pakistani nationals, are also part…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Joe Biden said he remains concerned about the turmoil in Israel even after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paused legislation that would radically reform the judiciary. Biden also said he had no plans to meet Netanyahu anytime soon. “Like many strong supporters of Israel I’m very concerned, and I’m concerned that they…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Major American Jewish organizations that hoped to send a unified message about the turmoil in Israel yesterday instead found themselves tussling, partly in the public eye, about what exactly they wanted to say.  Should they praise the massive anti-government protests that have taken shape in recent months? Should they criticize Israel’s sitting…

An 1888 portrait of Ellen Swallow Richards and her all-female home economics class at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A 1915 campaign poster that maps out the 20 states providing food assistance for widows and single mothers. A 1940 photo of Japanese-American children eating hot dogs at a World War II internment camp in Idaho.…