Author: Sara Wood

WASHINGTON ((JEWISH REVIEW)) — Ben Cardin’s love letter to Maryland, the state he has represented in the U.S. Senate since 2007, was also a love letter to his family’s Jewish values. In a video that Cardin released this week to announce his retirement from the Senate, he reminisced about the 56 years he has spent […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) — The Hadar Institute, an egalitarian Jewish educational institution, has announced that it will open a branch in California, the latest stage in the New York City-based organization’s international expansion. The organization has tapped the former associate rabbi of Ikar, a nondenominational synagogue and community in Los Angeles, to lead the venture, which […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) — For a decade starting in 2002, Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi devoted herself to pro-Israel advocacy. After that, the Jewish philanthropist and activist from Annapolis, Maryland, went all in to fight for disability rights, working in the field for the next decade. Now, Mizrahi is focused on climate change.  “Let me put it this […]

WASHINGTON ((JEWISH REVIEW)) — As the 2024 election gets into gear, both Republicans and Democrats are again using Israel as a wedge issue.  A lot has changed in both countries since the last presidential election, but in the halls of Congress, the battle over Israel is playing out in familiar ways.  Republicans have accused President […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) — As a young teenager growing up in Manhattan, Nina Kauder found it nearly impossible to ask her mother difficult questions about puberty or her Jewish identity, for two reasons. Her mother had fled the Holocaust as a child and was, in Kauder’s words, “very tough” to talk to. And by the time Kauder […]

WASHINGTON ((JEWISH REVIEW)) — In a major policy speech, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt doubled down on his argument that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, emphasized the threat to visibly Orthodox Jews and accused The New York Times of an “antisemitic attack” in its coverage of Hasidic movements. One topic he didn’t discuss: former President Donald Trump […]

((JEWISH REVIEW)) – The pioneering linguist and left-wing activist Noam Chomsky, the longtime Bard College president Leon Botstein, the filmmaker Woody Allen, and a former Israeli prime minister are among the Jewish names listed in a newly uncovered private calendar for the disgraced financier and child sexual abuser Jeffrey Epstein. Some of the names had […]

PITTSBURGH ((JEWISH REVIEW)) — How many times should an alleged synagogue shooter’s name be mentioned in a news story about his trial, now beginning after more than four years? For the Pittsburgh Union Progress last month, the answer was seven. For the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, it was an uneasy five, in a departure from its […]

(JTA) — Over the course of an illustrious 72-year career as a newspaper reporter, Jerry Izenberg has just about seen it all. The longtime columnist for The Star-Ledger in Newark, New Jersey, Izenberg covered the first 53 Super Bowls. He’s been to 58 Kentucky Derbies, not to mention numerous Olympics, World Cups and boxing matches. He […]

(JTA) – After hate groups in his county on Florida’s East coast projected antisemitic messages onto the Daytona International Speedway, the local sheriff delivered a press conference with one simple message: He’d had enough. “We put up their photos, talked about their arrest records, and let everybody know what a bunch of reprehensible thugs were […]