Author: Sara Wood

((JEWISH REVIEW)) — For synagogues across the country, it’s becoming a standard part of preparing for the High Holidays: Set up extra seating in the sanctuary. Make sure the shofars are in order. Take out the Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayer books. And figure out what, if anything, to do about COVID-19. As Jews […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) — The Boston Red Sox fired Chaim Bloom on Thursday, ending the Shabbat-observant baseball executive’s nearly four-year tenure as the team’s chief baseball officer. Bloom, who also keeps kosher, was seen as a wunderkind with his previous team, the Tampa Bay Rays, who under his leadership became one of baseball’s best teams despite […]

WASHINGTON ((JEWISH REVIEW)) — As the High Holidays near, Rabbi Mara Nathan doesn’t expect the recent wave of fake bomb threats directed at synagogues to significantly change the way she and her congregation worship together.  After all, her synagogue will already have its usual, extensive array of security measures in place: from bomb-sniffing dogs and […]

WASHINGTON ((JEWISH REVIEW)) — A Rosh Hashanah celebration at Vice President Kamala Harris’s official residence was a celebration of American Jewish success that included a reminder of the threats Jews still face. Douglas Emhoff, the second gentleman, began by noting his amazement that as the descendant of Jews fleeing antisemitism in Eastern Europe more than […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) – In January, a Turkish Instagram user posted part of an interview with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, making statements in praise of Hitler and denying the Holocaust as well — and swiftly had the post removed from the social media platform. But that wasn’t a success story for Meta’s […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) — The number of student governments taking up resolutions to boycott Israel dropped sharply last year, even as anti-Israel activity on college campuses nearly doubled over the previous year, according to the latest tally by the Anti-Defamation League. The antisemitism watchdog releases an analysis of anti-Israel activism on college campuses annually, as part […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) – Several Jewish groups are suing a large school district in Orange County over an ethnic studies curriculum they allege is antisemitic and was approved covertly in violation of California law requiring public participation in decision making. The lawsuit, filed Monday by the Anti-Defamation League, the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights […]

(New York Jewish Week) — In Israel, the right-wing government’s effort to weaken the country’s court system has divided society, with some of the fault lines forming between Orthodox and secular Jews. Thousands of miles away, in Brooklyn, a Reform synagogue is hoping that it can provide a space for local Israelis wrestling with the […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) – Nazi book burnings, antisemitic attacks on high school students and Shylock were all invoked during a Senate hearing on school book bans Tuesday morning.  The hearing brought to Capitol Hill the debate over how much control parents should have over what kinds of books their children can access in their school and […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) – At least two more synagogues in the United States evacuated their congregants over the weekend following bomb threats, the latest in a series of such calls that have put dozens of congregations on high alert heading into the High Holidays. One of the synagogues was threatened during the pre-Rosh Hashanah Selichot services […]