World News

(JTA) – A Cleveland-area rabbi was sentenced to six months in prison on Monday for soliciting underage sex, capping a sad and shocking saga for the area’s Jewish community. Among those who testified on Stephen Weiss’ behalf in a bid for leniency was a prominent rabbi in the Conservative movement. Weiss, formerly senior rabbi at…

NEW YORK (JTA) — Sidney Brustein, Jewish Hamlet?  Anne Kauffman thinks so. She made the comparison in a phone interview about the play she’s directing — a buzzy production of Lorraine Hansberry’s “The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window” that opened on Monday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music starring Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan. “One…

(JTA) —  An Orthodox Jew and Israeli left-wing political activist has raised more than $400,000 for victims of a recent settler riot in a Palestinian West Bank town. Yair Fink, a former Labor Party candidate known by the nickname Yaya, launched a crowdfunding campaign for the residents of Huwara, a Palestinian village in the northern…

(JTA) — When a pair of professors earlier this month published a paper accusing a group of Wikipedia editors from Poland of revising articles to distort the history of the Holocaust, their research went viral. Most academic articles are seen by dozens or hundreds of people at best. This one, published in The Journal of Holocaust…

(JTA) — On Sunday, after a Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israeli brothers in the West Bank, Jewish settlers rioted in the nearby Palestinian town of Huwara, burning cars and buildings. A Palestinian was killed and dozens were injured. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the Jewish rioters for “taking the law in their…

(JTA) — Anti-LGBTQ politician Avi Maoz has resigned from the Israeli cabinet, claiming that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu balked on letting him launch an initiative to shape Jewish identity. Maoz heads the Noam Party, one of three in the far-right Religious Zionist bloc that helped return Netanyahu to office. For the past two months, he…

(New York Jewish Week) — Stuart Meyers grew up in the heavily Jewish Philadelphia suburb of Voorhees Township, New Jersey. Yet, even though he was Jewish, being queer meant that he often felt like an outsider in Jewish spaces. Fortunately, as an adult, Meyers — a dancer, artist and nightlife events producer — realized that, instead of…

JERUSALEM (JTA) – Despite resounding condemnation from across the world and efforts by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to denounce the outbreak of Jewish violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, settler leaders remain defiant and are backing members of their community involved in what has been described as the one of the worst events…

(New York Jewish Week) – New York City’s Comptroller sent Yeshiva University a letter regarding the Modern Orthodox institution’s ongoing court case against a student-led LGBTQ organization on campus in an apparent attempt to pressure the university into allowing the pride club on campus. A letter sent Monday by Comptroller Brad Lander to Yeshiva University…

(JTA) — Playing saxophone in the sukkah. Discussing Judaism over coffee. Hanging out with his brothers and friends in the basement on Shabbat.  These are a few of the memories that have emerged of Elan Ganeles, 26, the recent college graduate, raised in Connecticut, who was killed Monday when a gunman shot at him on…