Author: Sara Wood

(JTA) – The president of Connecticut College has announced she will step down at the end of the semester, following weeks of student protests stemming from a fundraiser she had planned to attend at a golf club with a reportedly racist and antisemitic history. Katherine Bergeron’s announcement Friday capped a saga that saw mounting backlash […]

(JTA) — The announcement was akin to several that Jewish groups have made in recent years: a new partnership with an Arab nation would advance coexistence in the Middle East. Except that the group announcing the new alliance last week was the Anti-Defamation League, which devotes itself to fighting for human and civil rights. And […]

For most of his life, Chiune Sugihara received little recognition for the dramatic actions he undertook as Japanese vice-consul to Lithuania on the eve of World War II: the rescue of some 6,000 Jews from Poland and elsewhere from the Nazi death machine. For decades, the Jewish world remained largely ignorant of his heroism. When, […]

(JTA) – From Neo-Nazi propaganda campaigns to attacks against Orthodox Jews to threats directed at synagogues, the number of antisemitic incidents in the United States saw a dramatic increase in 2022, according to an annual audit published by the Anti-Defamation League.  The ADL counted 3,697 incidents of harassment, vandalism and assault targeting Jews last year […]

(JTA) — The University of Florida has more Jewish students than any other public college in the United States — and last week, one of them reached out to a professor, fearing that it would no longer be possible to study Jewish topics there. Citing a graphic that had been making the rounds on social […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A law passed by Israel’s government yesterday has sparked a strong rebuke from the Biden administration, words of caution from some of Israel’s strongest supporters in the Senate — and damage control from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The new law repeals a portion of Israel’s 2005 disengagement, in which it withdrew […]

(JTA) — For millennia, Jews have eaten matzah. And for years, Jewish patrons of Trader Joe’s have been able to purchase matzah off the shelves of the tiki-themed grocery chain — which has gained its own quasi-religious following. Now, for the first time ever, Trader Joe’s will be selling matzah under its own famous private […]

(JTA) – Israel Mizrahi joined dozens of fellow connoisseurs of rare Jewish books last December to watch the livestream of Genazym, the hottest auction house in the market. A bookdealer by trade, Mizrahi was also on the phone being paid to advise a wealthy client who had signed up to make bids.  But as the […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — “They’re coming for me,” Donald Trump said in a fundraising email to his supporters, and he immediately made clear who “they” were: “district attorneys hand-picked and personally funded by George Soros.” The email, sent late Monday, came a day ahead of when, Trump claims, he is likely to be arrested. He says […]

(JTA) – Responding to a recent rise in neo-Nazi activity in his state, a Jewish lawmaker in Florida is trying to outlaw displays of “religious or ethnic animus” on private property in his state. H.B. 269 takes aim at a variety of activities that neo-Nazi groups in the state have undertaken, from distributing flyers with […]