Tens of thousands of Jews flock to Uman for Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage despite another year of wartime warnings

(JR) — The U.S., Israeli and Ukrainian governments have all called it an extremely dangerous voyage into the heart of an ongoing war. But despite the warnings, tens of thousands of Jewish men and boys are expected to travel to Uman, Ukraine, for an annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage that pays tribute to the influential Hasidic […]

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Andy Samberg plays a famous Jewish WWII photographer in upcoming biopic

((JR)) — A historic wartime photography partnership from the 1940s — often credited as the first to capture many of the horrors of the Holocaust — is getting the Hollywood treatment. Kate Winslet stars in “Lee” as model-turned-wartime-photojournalist Lee Miller, who often worked alongside David E. Scherman, a Jewish photographer portrayed in the film by […]

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Unetaneh Tokef, the High Holidays’ roll call of ruin, is heartbreakingly real for the Ukrainian Jews I’ve gotten to know

(JR) — A catalog of calamities is central to the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holidays that begin later this week. We Jews are asked to imagine ourselves perched on the precipice of life and death. Nothing frames it as starkly as Unetaneh Tokef, the roll call of ruin enumerating various […]

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A Talmudic tale gets a 12th-century Chinese twist in children’s book aimed at diverse Jewish readers

TAIPEI, Taiwan ((JR)) — Rabbi Akiva’s daughter was destined for death on her wedding day, at least according to the star-gazers. So the early Jewish sage seemed resigned to his daughter’s fate. But on the wedding day, Rabbi Akiva’s daughter offered a poor old man her portion of the wedding feast. That night, before going […]

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Member of Goyim Defense League extradited to Netherlands after allegedly projecting antisemitic message onto Anne Frank House

(JR) – A prominent member of an American neo-Nazi group has been extradited to the Netherlands, where he will stand trial for projecting an antisemitic message onto the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Robert Wilson is accused of being behind a February incident in which a message was laser-projected onto the house where Anne Frank […]

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