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The Forward
Mayim Bialik is producing a movie about YU basketball’s historic 50-game winning streak
(JTA) — From 2019 to 2021, the Yeshiva University men’s basketball team embarked on a 50-game win streak — vaulting to the top of the NCAA’s national Division III rankings and enrapturing Jewish fans across the country. Now, the Y.U. Maccabees’ historic run is headed to the big screen, courtesy of Mayim Bialik, the Jewish...
Claire Weinstein, Jessica Fox and 12 other Jewish athletes to watch in the 2024 Paris Olympics
(JTA)There are veterans like an Australian gold medalist canoe paddler and Israel’s powerhouse judo team. There are newcomers, like the youngest American female wrestler ever and Israel’s soccer team. And there are athletes competing in events from fencing to beach volleyball to racewalking to air pistol shooting. The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are around...
Last 3 defendants in Lev Tahor cult abduction case sentenced to more than 10 years in prison
(New York Jewish Week) — Three members of the extremist Jewish Lev Tahor religious cult were sentenced to more than 10 years in prison by a New York court on Tuesday. Brothers Yoil Weingarten, Yakov Weingarten and Shmiel Weingarten were convicted in March of child exploitation and kidnapping for their role in abducting a 14-year-old...
Israeli hospital has been quietly harboring 24 patients from Gaza and their families since October
RAMAT GAN, Israel — Ibrahim Hasanein, who turned 3 this week, was born in Gaza but has spent almost half his life in an Israeli pediatric ward. Relatives brought him to the Sheba Medical Center more than a year ago to treat his rare blood disease. They were there when Hamas terrorists breached the fence...
For a Jewish Boricua whose great-grandfather spoke Yiddish, theater is almost a birthright
Antonia Cruz-Kent was born into the theater. She grew up the daughter of playwright Migdalia Cruz, whose celebrated work has been staged at such venues as Brooklyn Academy of Music, Playwrights Horizons, and Classic Stage Company. Her babysitters were actors in her mother’s plays. “I got spoiled in the sense that I got really good...
Trump’s bacon remark wasn’t kosher, but it may be right
For a brief, but enduring window of time, bacon was the ultimate memeable food. YouTubers Epic Meal Time crammed glistening strips of pig back into every conceivable caloric atrocity they made. The crispy, streaked treat adorned novelty t-shirts, swirled its way into ice cream and effectively conquered the low culinary world. Alas, the culture seems...
Battle over bodies: Israel is holding a dead Palestinian prisoner as leverage for Gaza hostages
JERUSALEM — It’s been nearly three months since Walid Daqqa died of cancer near the end of his lengthy term in Israeli prison, but his family has yet to receive his remains for burial. Daqqa, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who spent 38 years behind bars for commanding a group that abducted and killed an...
Anne Frank statue in Amsterdam tagged with ‘Gaza’ graffiti
(JTA) — A statue of Anne Frank in Amsterdam was defaced Tuesday, with the word “Gaza” painted in red on the base. The statue sits in a public park near the famous annex where Frank and her family hid from the Nazis, and where they were later discovered. Mayor Femke Halsema condemned the graffiti, and...
Israeli kids with life-threatening illnesses find respite from war at Catskills camp
(New York Jewish Week) — GLEN SPEY, New York — Shira Tshuva, 15, was diagnosed with cancer the week of Oct. 7. Following her diagnosis, she had to make a three-hour trip each day from her home in northern Israel to receive treatment at the Tel HaShomer Hospital outside of Tel Aviv. Rockets fired by...
Jury deliberations begin in trial of slain synagogue president Samantha Woll’s suspected killer
(JTA) — Jury deliberations are set to begin in the Samantha Woll murder trial, nearly nine months after the Detroit synagogue president was found stabbed to death outside her home. Defendant Michael Jackson-Bolanos, 29, is charged with first-degree murder, home invasion and lying to the police. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyer said...
In the dwindling Jewish community of Moldova, one man fights to keep the old traditions alive
Even if you’ve never met him before, Roman Soibelis will be excited to see you. His eyes bright, his smile, his kippah advertising the coming of the messiah, he’ll welcome you into his home with a greeting that befits the name of his street – Salom Aleihem. Soibelis lives in the northern city of Beltsy,...
French Jews are caught between ‘les extrêmes’
The big headlines out of France this week were about the unexpected failure of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party to take power in a snap election. Instead, a sprawling left-wing coalition of parties won the plurality of seats. But many French Jews had mixed feelings about the results. Top Jewish leaders had campaigned...
Joe Biden is beginning to look a lot like the biblical Jonah. That’s bad news for all of us
The debate around whether President Joe Biden should drop out of the presidential race has reminded me of another Joe. Or, rather, a Jonah. In the Bible, Jonah has a profound flaw: He fails to understand that the story in which he is living is not just about him. He may be its protagonist, but...
Director of national intelligence warns that Iran is funding anti-Israel protests in US
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, said Iran was seeking to interfere in the U.S. election and was stoking protests against Israel as it wages war with Hamas, including through funding demonstrations. “In recent weeks, Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war...
Has Israel really killed up to 186,000 people in Gaza? How to understand the numbers war
The political contest being waged over the number of civilian deaths in Gaza is making it harder, not easier, for us to actually understand just how many civilians have been harmed through the past nine months of war, and in what ways. Those who study civilian casualty counts, as I do, understand that they are...
Democrats clash over aid to Israel at meeting of party platform committee
(JTA) — WASHINGTON — The committee drafting the Democratic platform heard clashing visions of what the party’s Israel policy should be, with two witnesses urging continued military aid and one urging cuts. Tuesday’s online meeting, convened by a subcommittee of the Democratic platform committee, underscored a dilemma the party faces as it heads into their...
4 congregations will share a new synagogue in the heart of Potsdam, Germany
(JTA) — BERLIN — Germany’s president helped inaugurate a new, multi-denominational synagogue center in the city of Potsdam last week. With a formal blessing delivered by Rabbi Avichai Apel, chair of Germany’s Orthodox Rabbinical Conference, the inauguration means that every state capital in Germany now has its own freestanding synagogue. Potsdam, just west of Berlin,...
A new Shazam-style bot will detect Shlomo Carlebach’s melodies
(JTA) — On Shabbat, Shlomo Tannor often encounters a problem common to regular synagogue-goers: He’ll hear a tune that sounds familiar but he can’t place it. When Shabbat is over, he’ll have no way to look it up. Frequently, those tunes come from one source: Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, perhaps the most prominent composer of Jewish...
Roger Waters denied 10/7. Here’s why Israeli radio should keep playing his songs.
TEL AVIV — One evening, exactly 38 years ago, a few weeks before my 18th birthday and four months before my conscription to the Israeli army, I sat on the beach with my two best friends, Uzi and Oren, trying to come up with a good song for our funerals. All three of us had...
Why don’t ceasefire talks ever go anywhere? Ask Netanyahu.
We’re living in Groundhog Day, Israel-Palestine edition. Every time talks on a deal to return the remaining hostages from Gaza in exchange for a ceasefire seem to be nearing a breakthrough, they fall apart. They resume when the clamor in Israel grows loud enough, only to fall apart again. And despite high hopes in recent...
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