Author: Sara Wood

(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 […]

(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. […]