A Golda Meir biopic starring Helen Mirren avoids politics. It premiered as Israel’s government faces widespread scrutiny.

(JTA) — When a film about a group of Israeli youths who visit former concentration camps in Poland premiered on Sunday at the Berlin Film Festival, its Israeli producer took the microphone after the screening to decry the state of his nation.  “The new far-right government that is in power is pushing fascist and racist […]

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Among Ukraine’s Jews, a year of war has transformed the ordinary into the sacred

TRUSKAVETS, Ukraine (JTA) — Nearly 600 Jews stand shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes trained on the young man leading the service to close out Shabbat. The crowd sings a soulful havdalah tune that lifts up its final words: “hamavdil ben kodesh l’chol” — “the One who divides between sacred and ordinary.” It looks like a Shabbat gathering anywhere […]

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