Author: Sara Wood

(JTA) — In Judith Heumann’s 2020 memoir, the lifelong advocate for people with disabilities describes feeling shocked upon being invited to read from the Torah at her synagogue in Berkeley, California. Not only were women permitted to carry out the sacred task, unlike in the Orthodox synagogue of her Brooklyn childhood, but the bimah, or […]

This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives. (JTA) — During the pandemic, my mom decided to start baking; my friend Reagan learned Osage, a Native American language; my brother taught himself how to skateboard.  […]

(JTA) – When students at Connecticut College learned that their president had been planning to attend a fundraiser at a historically racist and antisemitic golf club, they began to organize. But their school’s building for race and ethnicity programming, the Unity House, didn’t have enough space to hold them all. So a pivotal meeting that […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Two leading Jewish civil rights organizations are part of a coalition of groups asking the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold protections for religious observance in the workplace in a case that has already drawn support from Orthodox Jews. The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee each joined separate amicus briefs this […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Biden administration officials will not meet with Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister who called for a Palestinian village to be “wiped out” then backtracked, and who is visiting the United States next week to meet with leaders of Israel Bonds, a U.S. organization. At least five liberal Jewish groups want the U.S. […]

(JTA) – The FBI coordinated with local authorities in mid-February to arrest a heavily armed man who had threatened to kill all Jewish elected officials in Michigan on social media, according to a recently unsealed criminal case.  The man appears to have been a former employee of the University of Michigan. Jack Eugene Carpenter III, […]

(JTA) – A Cleveland-area rabbi was sentenced to six months in prison on Monday for soliciting underage sex, capping a sad and shocking saga for the area’s Jewish community. Among those who testified on Stephen Weiss’ behalf in a bid for leniency was a prominent rabbi in the Conservative movement. Weiss, formerly senior rabbi at […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — As American Jewish organizations responded to Sunday’s settler riot in the West Bank, most began with statements of condemnation. One began with a question: “How can such a thing happen?” “How could it come to this, that Jewish young men should ransack and burn homes and cars?” continued the statement from Rabbi […]

(JTA) — A “National Day of Hate” against Jews planned by white supremacists that triggered sweeping warnings from law enforcement and Jewish security officials came and went without significant incident on Saturday. Synagogues and Jewish institutions across the United States had spent the preceding days shoring up their security procedures, reassuring their congregants and requesting […]

(JTA) — Sitting onstage at a comedy club filled mostly with his target audience of Orthodox Jews, comedian Modi Rosenfeld said that he’s still booking gigs at plenty of Orthodox synagogues — even after opening up about being gay. “I performed at this beautiful shul, Anshei Emuna in Boca,” Rosenfeld said at the event Thursday […]