World News

(JTA) — The organizers of the deadly neo-Nazi Charlottesville rally in 2017 have been ordered to pay close to $5 million to plaintiffs for legal costs in a lawsuit, adding to the penalties already facing the mostly bankrupt crew of extremists. The rally organizers were sued later in 2017 by Charlottesville residents who suffered trauma…

(JTA) — ​​If you were born anytime before, say, 1975, you might remember Israel not as a source of angst and tension among American Jews but as a cause for celebration. In the 1960s and ’70s, most Jews embraced as gospel the heroic version of Israel’s founding depicted in Leon Uris’ 1958 novel “Exodus” and…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The leading institutions of the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist movements are among a coalition of liberal Jewish groups calling on American Jews to snub Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s far-right finance minister, when he visits the United States next week. But the Orthodox Union, an umbrella organization for Orthodox Jews, has confirmed to JTA…

(JTA) — Throughout his career, actor Adam Goldberg has been associated with iconic Jewish roles, from the hero in the kitschy 2003 action comedy “The Hebrew Hammer” to a Jewish soldier in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar winner “Saving Private Ryan.” But for his latest role, on CBS crime procedural “The Equalizer,” Goldberg didn’t know his character…

(JTA) — Chaim Topol won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of an immigrant to Israel, stepped off the stage in London to fight for his country and had his sketches of Israeli presidents turned into postage stamps. But the actor was by far best known for his embodiment of Tevye the Dairyman in “Fiddler…

(JTA) – An investigation into sexual abuse and misconduct in the Conservative movement’s youth group programs over the past seven decades identified an “overly sexualized culture” and collected accounts of alleged abuse from 40 victims.  Most of the allegations included in the investigation took place between 1987 and 2019 in the New York City area,…

JUPITER, Florida (JTA) — In the squad’s first-ever exhibition game against an MLB team, Team Israel lost 11-5 against the Miami Marlins on Wednesday night in a tuneup before the World Baseball Classic. Israel had taken a 5-2 lead into the bottom of the fifth inning, but the Marlins scored three runs in both the…

If an alien spacecraft landed in Dr. Avi Loeb’s backyard tomorrow, he would readily step on, leave his family behind and take off to discover the great beyond. Obviously, he’d be giving up a lot, but it’s for an essential cause, he says: Humans need to explore the possibilities for human life beyond earth. “We…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is spearheading a letter from Democrats urging President Joe Biden to “use all diplomatic tools available” to get Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt his controversial legislation to sap the power of Israel’s top court. The letter also opposes…

(JTA) — As part of his journey after a tumultuous decade and a half in the spotlight, former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry is speaking at a pro-Israel event in his second career as an evangelical minister. Strawberry, an eight-time MLB All-Star-turned-traveling-preacher, will be a panelist on Thursday at Extending the Branches of Zionism,…