(JR) — Volodymyr Zelensky met with 32 Chabad emissaries and rabbis Thursday night ahead of Rosh Hashanah, marking the Jewish president of Ukraine’s first official meeting with Jewish leaders since Russia invaded in February 2022. Also in attendance were 15 Jewish soldiers whom Zelensky presented with medals. During the meeting, Zelensky made his latest appeal […]
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(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 […]
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(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 […]
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(New York Jewish Week) — When a small group of people convened next to an inconspicuous plaque steps from the entrance to the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal earlier this week, they weren’t there to catch a boat leaving the island. Instead, they had come to the southern tip of Manhattan to celebrate a ship […]
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((JR)) — Sandy Koufax’s decision to sit out Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur is well-documented. But in a lesser-known dramatic tale just over 30 years earlier, fellow Jewish Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg faced a dilemma of his own as the High Holidays approached. Picture the scene: […]
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(JR) — Police in Argentina have raided and closed down a publishing house that they say was distributing Nazi literature online. They also arrested a man who was first raided for distributing Nazi propaganda in violation of Argentine law more than a decade ago. At the time, Pablo Giorgetti was a university student; now, he […]
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(New York Jewish Week) — The table at the center of the room, set for 16, was festooned with a rainbow tablecloth and sparkles, and surrounded by about a dozen college-age guests. At its head were two chairs decorated with rainbow necklaces and flags and set for the guests of honor: Both place settings came […]
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(New York Jewish Week) — The graffiti scrawled on public bathroom walls may not seem like the highest form of art. But for Jewish comedian and musician Caitlin Cook, a particular phrase she saw on a bathroom stall became the catalyst for a decade of creative inventiveness. “Since writing on bathroom walls is neither for […]
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(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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MELBOURNE (JR) — Ruth Hannah has lived in the Australian coastal town of Mallacoota for more than 30 years. The 72-year-old daughter of Holocaust survivors knows of only one other Jewish person in her town, which has a population of 1,183 people. Known for its beautiful beaches and wildlife, Mallacoota is located near the middle […]
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