Author: Sara Wood

(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 […]

(JTA) — The alleged killer in the mass shooting at a Colorado Springs LGBTQ club ran a neo-Nazi website that included a video of shootings at synagogues and mosques, according to a detective who testified Wednesday in a hearing about whether Anderson Lee Aldrich should face hate crime charges. The testimony came a day before […]

(JTA) — Did someone associated with the late Rabbi Yehiel Eckstein’s nonprofit pay a company to remove criticism of his and his daughter’s salaries from the internet? That’s the question being raised by a recent Washington Post investigation into the allegedly fraudulent activities of a firm that launders clients’ online reputations. The large organization Eckstein […]

(JTA) – The police bulletins have circulated among Jews on social media, in WhatsApp chats and via email: A white supremacist group is calling for a “National Day of Hate” this Saturday and encouraging antisemites to vandalize and deface Jewish institutions.  Information about the antisemitic campaign was first provided by the Chicago Police Department, and […]

(JTA) — A pair of pants coming up for auction are being described as “holy” — and not just because they’re a little torn.  Rather, the pants once belonged to the late Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, an Israeli haredi Orthodox leader considered by his followers to be the leading Jewish authority of his generation. Kanievsky died […]

(JTA) — New Hampshire’s attorney general launched an investigation into an overnight wave of vandalism attacks in Portsmouth that included a red swastika and a cross painted on a synagogue. The attack on Temple Israel was one of at least 14 acts of vandalism carried out before dawn on Tuesday against Jewish and minority-affiliated institutions, […]

(JTA) — A large painting of Jesus will be moved out of a room at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in New York, and mandatory events will not take place in its presence. That decision by the academy, announced on Friday, concludes a dispute over the painting’s fate that pitted religious freedom advocates against conservatives. […]

(JTA) – A Catholic high school in Miami forfeited its semifinal game in a state soccer tournament over the weekend, days after players fought in an on-field brawl with a Jewish school’s team. The Catholic school, however, did not offer additional comment on eyewitness accounts claiming that the fight was fueled by antisemitism. Archbishop Coleman […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — George Santos, the New York Republican congressman in trouble for a string of lies about his education, his career and his background, said his claims of Jewish identity were a “party favor joke.” But he doubled down on his debunked claim that his maternal grandparents were Jewish. Santos made the comments on […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Rep. David Cicilline, the Jewish Rhode Island Democrat and influential pro-Israel progressive, is leaving Congress. Cicilline said Tuesday he will exit Congress in June to head the Rhode Island Foundation, the biggest funder of nonprofits in the Ocean State. The foundation is massively influential in the state and leading it could offer […]