Ben Harris Email RSS

is JTA's news editor. In his seven years with JTA, he has reported from more than 15 countries. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, New York magazine, among other publications.

Latest

• When [general chaos] is a subtitle (UPDATED)

  June 21, 2013 11:41am

  Yair Lapid gave his first speech in the Knesset this week and went right for the jugular.

• With friends like these

  June 19, 2013 4:27pm

  Fox News reports: Federal authorities have accused two upstate New York men of assembling a portable X-ray weapon they intended to use against opponents of Israel.

• Defending Irwin Cotler

  June 19, 2013 10:59am

  JTA has received a number of responses to an opinion piece this week suggesting that a Canadian lawmaker and former minister of justice was not involved in broad-based human rights work.

• For graduates of Avi Weiss’ academy, ordination comes with controversy

  June 18, 2013 11:01am

  The ordination of three Orthodox women on Sunday was billed as a historic event, but for much of the Orthodox world the move represents a dangerous break with tradition — if not an outright violation of Jewish law.

• What does an Orthodox woman’s ordination certificate look like?

  June 17, 2013 5:33pm

  Tomorrow, I’ll have a longer story about Rabbi Avi Weiss’ controversial ordination of three Orthodox women on Sunday. But in the meantime, check out the sample ordination certificate, or klaf, provided to one of the first graduates of Yeshivat Maharat, Weiss’ school for the training of women as “rabbinic leaders.”

• Rabbi diva drama

  June 14, 2013 11:35am

  Beth David Synagogue in West Hartford wanted to make a promotional video. But its rabbi is such a drama queen.

• First, they take Manhattan

  June 12, 2013 3:46pm

  To some, 3,000 New Yorkers riding blue bicycles portends the end of the American way.

• United Synagogue confident in face of budget gap

  June 11, 2013 11:54am

  Despite a budget deficit twice what was expected, the leader of the Conservative movement’s synagogue umbrella group says the group will balance its budget within two years.

• Thousands of haredim protest in Lower Manhattan

  June 9, 2013 10:38pm

  Thousands of haredim gathered in Lower Manhattan on Sunday to protest efforts to conscript the haredi Orthodox into the Israeli military.

• Claims Conference launches internal probe of bungled warning

  June 6, 2013 12:18pm

  The Claims Conference launched a probe of its mishandling of an early warning of a massive fraud scheme.