New synagogue in Dresden plans to operate outside of Germany’s Jewish mainstream

(JR) — A new synagogue billing itself as a neo-Hasidic congregation has opened in the former East German city of Dresden, without the backing of Germany’s main Jewish communal umbrella organization. The Jewish Community Dresden, or JKD, was founded two years ago by Akiva Weingarten, who received his first ordination in the Satmar Hasidic sect in […]

Continue Reading

Why is the Ukraine war more Jewish than the Iranian uprising? A year after Mahsa Amini’s death, that should change.

(JR) — I regularly post Middle Eastern Jewish feminist content on social media, so right when Mahsa Amini was murdered, TikTok’s algorithm flooded my account with videos of women from Iran, giving a play-by-play account of events. Amini was a 22-year-old woman from Kurdistan, visiting her relatives in Tehran. Despite the fact that she was […]

Continue Reading

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 […]

Continue Reading

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 […]

Continue Reading