World News

(JTA) — When a film about a group of Israeli youths who visit former concentration camps in Poland premiered on Sunday at the Berlin Film Festival, its Israeli producer took the microphone after the screening to decry the state of his nation.  “The new far-right government that is in power is pushing fascist and racist…

(JTA) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition advanced a second major piece of its proposed court reform, holding an initial vote in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, on a measure that would allow the government to all but eliminate judicial review. It also advanced a bill that would prohibit the Supreme Court to disqualify government…

(JTA) — A member of the European Parliament was turned around at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv on Tuesday and sent back to her native Spain after attempting to enter the country on a diplomatic mission to the Palestinian Authority.  Israeli officials cited the fact that the politician Ana Miranda, who represents the Galicia…

(New York Jewish Week) — Hunter College High School, a prestigious middle and high school in Manhattan, has added a second date for its entrance exam after a Jewish parent complained that the test was scheduled for the eve of Passover.  Hunter spokesperson Vince Dimiceli told the New York Jewish Week that he believes this…

(JTA) — New Hampshire’s attorney general launched an investigation into an overnight wave of vandalism attacks in Portsmouth that included a red swastika and a cross painted on a synagogue. The attack on Temple Israel was one of at least 14 acts of vandalism carried out before dawn on Tuesday against Jewish and minority-affiliated institutions,…

LIMA, Peru (JTA) — The story of Lima’s only Jewish bakery begins on Christmas. On the eve of the holiday in 2016, Deborah Trapunsky was baking challah for a non-Jewish friend who wanted a unique gift for her boyfriend. Her friends had always loved her challah, and she enjoyed sharing this aspect of her culture…

(JTA) — A large painting of Jesus will be moved out of a room at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in New York, and mandatory events will not take place in its presence. That decision by the academy, announced on Friday, concludes a dispute over the painting’s fate that pitted religious freedom advocates against conservatives.…

(JTA) — American Reform rabbis joined Women of the Wall for the group’s monthly prayer service at the Western Wall, weeks after members of the Israeli government introduced, then quickly withdrew, a law that would have banned their activity. In addition, police intervened to stop Orthodox counter-protesters who tried to disrupt a separate prayer service…

(JTA) — An Israeli shooting raid in the West Bank city of Nablus drew gunfire from Palestinian militants and ended with the death of at least 10 Palestinians, reports said. The dead included a 72-year old and a 16-year-old. The raid comes amid escalating violence in Israel and the West Bank. Palestinian terror attacks in…

(JTA) — Members of a neo-Nazi group rallied Tuesday night outside the Broadway theater that is hosting “Parade,” a play about the 1915 lynching of a Jewish man in Georgia. “It was definitely very ugly and scary, but [also] a wonderful reminder of why we’re telling this particular story, and how special and powerful art…