World News
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Hungarian Jewish chess legend Judit Polgár declines offer to fill presidency
(JTA) — The Jewish chess legend Judit Polgár has declined an invitation to become Hungary’s president, a largely ceremonial position that would have increased the visibility of one of the country’s most celebrated Jewish figures. “I do not feel enough strength within me to take on the historic responsibility of uniting a divided nation, so…
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Argentina’s Jews turn a World Cup chant into a call for justice 32 years after the AMIA bombing
(JTA) — BUENOS AIRES — If the phrase Argentina’s Jewish community has adopted to mark the 32nd anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history sounds familiar to their compatriots, it’s intentional: “Today we cannot lose … our memory” echoes the soccer-mad nation’s World Cup slogan. Fans chanting “Today we cannot lose” were…
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In Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ the main hero feels plucked from Exodus
While some scholars note the parallels between The Odyssey and the Book of Genesis, Christopher Nolan’s version of the epic seems to take its cue from Exodus. The nearly three-hour long movie, staggering in its length and cinematic beauty, does not sing the praises of Homer’s ingenious inventor but depicts a reluctant and flawed leader,…
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How Michigan’s Senate race is testing pro-Israel Jews’ loyalty to the Democratic Party
(JTA) — Joel Tauber has been through many an election in his 92 years. And, with the exception of “one out of 100 times,” he’s always backed a Democrat — something even more important in the current midterm cycle, he believes. “Winning the Senate and the House is the beginning of a way back to…
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Aptly titled ‘The Darkest Light’ documentary wrestles with Shlomo Carlebach’s contradictions
One of the most influential rabbis of the last century, someone who brought tens of thousands of disaffected Jews closer to Judaism, who helped create Jewish spirituality as we know it today, and who wrote tunes so familiar that most people think they are hundreds years of old, was also, according to overwhelming evidence, a…
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Mamdani orders review of whether New York can arrest Netanyahu when he visits this fall
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has revived one of his most controversial election promises, raising once again the prospect of arresting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he comes to New York in September for the United Nations General Assembly. It’s a move that legal experts say Mamdani is unlikely to be able to…
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A Jewish couple fell in love with rural Oklahoma. Then they built a cemetery there.
Linda Fitzerman did not want her children making burial decisions through tears. For years, she and her husband, Todd Boone Fitzerman, told each other they needed to settle the question. They were not interested in cremation. They wanted a traditional Jewish burial. And they did not want their children, someday, to face the cost and…
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Why Orthodox Jews are pushing back against permanent daylight saving time
(JTA) — For many Orthodox Jews, a typical winter weekday begins early: head to synagogue, gather in a minyan for morning prayers, then rush off to work. Orthodox Jewish groups say a bill that would make daylight saving time permanent could upend that routine by pushing winter sunrises — and the earliest permissible time for…
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Colombia and Slovenia recently recognized a Palestinian state. Now they’re moving their embassies to Jerusalem.
(JTA) — JERUSALEM — Colombia, the world’s second most populous Spanish-speaking nation after Mexico, has little in common with landlocked Slovenia, the second-smallest of the six republics that once comprised Yugoslavia. But when it comes to their stance on Israel, the parallels are hard to ignore. Within one month of each other, leftist, pro-Palestine governments…
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He organized World Cup viewings in Gaza. Then an Israeli airstrike killed him
Soccer is a universal language. Billions of people around the world watch the game, which means that soccer fans everywhere can appreciate someone like Mohammed al-Wahidi, who enabled others to participate in that shared global experience. Al-Wahidi was a Palestinian aid worker who organized public screenings of the FIFA World Cup in Gaza. He’s emerged…
