Author: Sara Wood

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Jewish Democrat from California who has been in office for more than three decades, will not run in 2024. “I am announcing today I will not run for reelection in 2024, but intend to accomplish as much for California as I can through the end of next year […]

(JTA) – The Reform movement’s rabbinical association has expelled Sheldon Zimmerman, a former leader of major Reform institutions, after an ethics committee reinvestigated allegations of sexual misconduct lodged more than 20 years ago, including that he abused a 17-year-old congregant.  The announcement of Zimmerman’s expulsion was made Tuesday when the Central Conference of American Rabbis […]

(JTA) — Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who became a pro-Israel favorite during her two years as the Trump administration’s ambassador to the United Nations, announced her bid for the presidency, becoming the first Republican to challenge the former president ahead of 2024. In a video released Tuesday, Haley did not name Donald […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Four in ten American Jews felt less secure in 2022 than they did in 2021, according to an American Jewish Committee survey, a 10-percentage point rise from when the same question was asked a year earlier. The proportion of American Jews who said they feel less secure was roughly the same as […]

BOSTON (JTA) – Veiled brides holding white bouquets; a gold-colored chuppah; the signing of ketubahs, Jewish marriage contracts; lively Jewish music wafting through a social hall as guests danced the hora. It had all the telltale signs of a traditional Jewish wedding. But the three couples were already married — and had been for a collective […]

This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with teens across the world to report on issues that impact their lives. (JTA) — After wearing his yarmulke all day at his Orthodox yeshiva on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, Zac Jacobs takes it off before boarding the 6 train home. […]

(JTA) — Thousands of women who serve as Chabad emissaries gathered this week in Brooklyn for a conference that’s meant to provide a mix of professional development and networking opportunities. But on the conference’s first afternoon on Thursday, many of the attendees came together not to meet but to mourn. Standing under an overcast sky […]

(JTA) — Police in San Francisco have arrested a man they believe is responsible for shooting blanks during a study session inside a Jewish center there. The San Francisco Police Department announced an arrest early Saturday in the incident, which took place on Wednesday but was not reported to authorities until the following day. They […]

(JTA) – Organizers of protests on behalf of Soviet Jewry in San Francisco in the early 1970s might have bolstered crowds by secretly recruiting participants from Jews for Jesus. The explosive revelation that Jewish leaders turned to a Christian missionary group for help appears in a 1973 FBI memo that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency recently […]

(JTA) – A candidate for chair of the Michigan Republican Party who faced criticism after inviting a Messianic “rabbi” to offer a prayer for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in 2018 has now announced that she is a “Jewish Messianic believer of Christ.” Lena Epstein, who was raised Jewish, made the comments Tuesday […]