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With visitors and donations down, San Francisco’s Jewish museum to shutter at least temporarily

November 14, 2024November 14, 2024Sara Wood

Following a prolonged drop in visitation and donations from the public stemming from the Covid pandemic, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco announced Wednesday it’s taking a “sabbatical.” That’s the word the museum is using to describe the closure of its galleries to visitors starting Dec. 15 for at least a year as the […]

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s defense secretary nominee, has multiple Christian and Crusades-inspired tattoos

November 14, 2024November 15, 2024Sara Wood

Pete Hegseth wears his Christian pride on his sleeve — literally, and sometimes in Hebrew. The Minnesota National Guard veteran, Fox News personality and now nominee for U.S. secretary of defense has a slew of religiously inspired tattoos that have drawn attention as Hegseth’s public vetting for a senior position in President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet […]

Trump picks Matt Gaetz, who called ADL ‘racist’ and invited Holocaust denier to SOTU, for attorney general

November 13, 2024November 13, 2024Sara Wood

President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Matt Gaetz as his nominee for attorney general, putting forward a firebrand who has tussled with Jewish groups, embraced an antisemitic conspiracy theory and associated with a Holocaust denier. Gaetz, 42, was elected to Congress in 2016, where he has represented a district in the Florida Panhandle and has gained […]

U of Michigan student president impeached after calling critics ‘Zionists’

November 13, 2024November 14, 2024Sara Wood

The University of Michigan’s student body president entered office last semester on a campaign to shut down all “business as usual” — including funding student groups — until the school agreed to divest from Israel. Now that effort — one of the most sustained and assertive pro-Palestinian protests on a college campus — may be […]

Trump names fellow real estate mogul Steve Witkoff as Middle East envoy

November 12, 2024November 12, 2024Sara Wood

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump named as his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, a realtor and golf buddy who was present at a recent foiled assassination of Trump. “Steve is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy, who has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous,” Trump […]

Federal judge temporarily blocks Louisiana’s law requiring classrooms to display Ten Commandments

November 12, 2024November 13, 2024Sara Wood

A federal judge temporarily blocked a new law in Louisiana that would have required public schools to display the Ten Commandments by Jan. 1, 2025. The ruling by U.S. District Judge John W. deGravelles in Baton Rouge follows a lawsuit brought by a coalition of parents, including three Jewish families, arguing that the law violated […]

Trump taps Mike Huckabee, evangelical favorite, to be ambassador to Israel

November 12, 2024November 12, 2024Sara Wood

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump named Mike Huckabee as his ambassador to Israel, picking an evangelical Christian who favors Jewish sovereignty in parts of the West Bank and who, if confirmed, would be the first non-Jew to fill the role in 13 years. “I am pleased to announce that the Highly Respected former Governor of […]

Trump taps Iran hawks Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz for top national security roles

November 12, 2024November 15, 2024Sara Wood

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump is filling out his national security team with pro-Israel hawks who favor maximum pressure on Iran to stand down from its belligerence in the region. Reports Monday said Trump planned to name two Floridian allies to top jobs: Sen. Marco Rubio will be tapped to be secretary of state, and […]

Demonstrators with Nazi flags target a Michigan production of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’

November 12, 2024November 16, 2024Sara Wood

Demonstrators holding flags with Nazi swastikas targeted two rural Michigan towns over the weekend, including the site of a community theater production of “The Diary of Anne Frank.” They also reportedly chanted a pro-Donald Trump slogan. The actors portraying Anne Frank and her family, in the play produced by the Fowlerville Community Theatre, found out […]

House set to vote on bill targeting nonprofits accused of supporting terrorism

November 11, 2024November 12, 2024Sara Wood

U.S. law prohibits nonprofits from providing support to terrorist organizations, but enforcing that prohibition requires the government to furnish proof of a violation, triggering a judicial process that can be lengthy and arduous. In the more than two decades since the current law was enacted, following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the law has rarely […]