Author: Sara Wood

(JTA) — When Talia Avrahami was asked to resign from a job teaching in an Orthodox Jewish day school after people there found out she was transgender, she was devastated. But she hoped to be able to turn to her synagogue in Washington Heights, where she had found a home for the last year and […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — With a new right-wing government in Israel raising alarm bells among many in the United States, the timing seemed ripe for a gathering by AIPAC, which regularly convenes bigwigs to talk about the U.S.-Israel relationship. But the group’s conference this week in Washington is focusing not on that relationship but on American […]

(JTA) – The Israeli ministry responsible for engaging with the half of the world’s Jews who don’t live in Israel has gotten a new name — and a leader who disdains the values of many American Jews. Amichai Chikli announced during his swearing-in ceremony Monday that his ministry was changing its name from the Ministry of […]

WASHINGTON (JTA) — The committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol wanted to test how fast it took social media to get to radical content. The answer, when it came to TikTok and Nazis, was just over an hour. It took TikTok 75 minutes to deliver Nazi content to a new […]

(JTA) — The judge in the civil case brought against the organizers of the 2017 white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, that resulted in the death of a protester has slashed the penalties awarded to the victims. Victims in the case, brought by two Jewish attorneys who have made it their mission to hit neo-Nazis […]

(JTA) — As the sports world continues to react to NFL player Damar Hamlin’s sudden cardiac arrest during a game on Monday night, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is pitching into a fundraiser campaign — with a donation inspired by his Jewish identity. Kraft and the Patriots donated $18,003 to an online fundraiser Hamlin […]

(JTA) — Binya Kóatz remembers the first time she saw a woman wearing tzitzit. While attending Friday night services at a Jewish Renewal synagogue in Berkeley, she noticed the long ritual fringes worn by some observant Jews — historically men — dangling below a friend’s short shorts. “That was the first time I really realized […]

(JTA) — Barbara Walters, the iconic newswoman and celebrity interviewer who made history for women and Jewish anchors on mainstream American news television, died at 93 on Friday. ABC News, where Walters regularly appeared on shows such as “20/20” and “The View,” shared the news without giving a cause of death. Before becoming one of […]

(JTA) — A recount in Arizona finalized defeat for attorney general candidate Abraham Hamadeh, one of a quartet of Republicans who lost in statewide races and whose campaigns raised concerns for the state’s Jewish community. A Maricopa County court determined Thursday that Democrat Kris Mayes would be the state’s next attorney-general after a mandatory recount […]

(JTA) — Hasidic schools in New York are taking advantage of a policy designed to make special education more widely available by siphoning public funding for other purposes, according to an investigation published Thursday by the New York Times.  Private companies serving Hasidic and Orthodox schools are now collecting more than $350 million a year in […]