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• Israel’s justice minister: When two-state deal goes nowhere, Trump will think out of the box

  May 8, 2017 4:38pm

  NEW YORK (JTA) — Ten days before Donald Trump was inaugurated, Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked visited the Jewish settlement in Hebron. A community of several hundred ensconced in a city of 150,000 Palestinians, Hebron’s Jewish residents are considered to be among the most extremist and controversial Israeli settlers. Shaked, 41, wearing black jeans and…

• Israeli ministers praise Trump, bash PA at Jerusalem Post conference

  May 7, 2017 2:29pm

  They presented variations on the same message: The Trump administration is pro-Israel, and peace with the Palestinians is close to impossible.

• Sebastian Gorka tells Jewish audience he is not anti-Semitic, calls Israel closest ally of US

  May 7, 2017 12:28pm

  The White House adviser did not deny belonging to the Historical Vitezi Rend, a far-right Hungarian group, but said it is not pro-Nazi.

• How the Six-Day War changed American Jews

  May 7, 2017 10:00am

  NEW YORK (JTA) — On the morning of June 5, 1967, as Arab armies and Israel clashed following weeks of tension, Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg sat anxious amid his congregants at daily prayers — fearful that the Jewish people would face extinction for the second time in 25 years. “One of the people said, ‘They’re…

• When Donald Trump wanted to hold the Miss Universe Pageant at Masada

  May 5, 2017 4:30pm

  (JTA) — When Donald Trump makes his first visit as president to Israel later this month, he’s reportedly aiming to give a speech at the ancient mountain fortress of Masada. We don’t yet know if he’ll ascend the mount, a palace built by the Judean king Herod the Great which became the last Jewish holdout nearly…

• Trump executive order allows campaigning from the pulpit

  May 4, 2017 5:44pm

  (JTA) — Jewish groups largely came out against a new executive order allowing clergy to endorse or oppose candidates from the pulpit, fearing that it will erode the separation between church and state. The order, which President Donald Trump signed Thursday at the White House on the National Day of Prayer, effectively reverses a 1954…

• Rabbi criticizes Conservative seminary for not hiring union on construction project

  May 4, 2017 11:42am

  NEW YORK (JTA) — The Conservative movement’s flagship seminary should hire a union contractor to replace the company managing its construction project, says the rabbi who wrote the movement’s legal ruling on labor laws. Rabbi Jill Jacobs, who authored the 2008 decision by the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, said the Jewish Theological Seminary…

• Shmuley Boteach reveals Stephen Bannon’s wall of promises

  May 3, 2017 11:14am

  (JTA) — The man who calls himself “America’s Rabbi” revealed the agenda of America’s most powerful nationalist in a photo op with Stephen Bannon. Shmuley Boteach, an author, speaker and adviser to several celebrities, tweeted a photo of himself with Bannon, President Donald Trump’s chief strategist, on Tuesday. It was not the first time that…

• Why it’s a big deal that a secular student won Israel’s Bible contest

  May 2, 2017 6:42pm

  (JTA) — The only time I ever attended Israel’s International Bible Quiz, I sat three rows in front of the prime minister. It was 2005, I was a 19-year-old student, and I watched as Ariel Sharon strolled in with his security detail, a large black nylon kippa perched lumpily on his head. The rest of…

• Linda Sarsour: Why the Palestinian-American activist is controversial

  May 2, 2017 5:07pm

  NEW YORK (JTA) — One of the best symbols of the current Jewish political divide is a Muslim woman. To Jews on the left, Linda Sarsour is a courageous and effective activist who builds bridges and breaks stereotypes. To Jews on the right and some in the center, she’s an Israel-hating apologist for Islamic extremists….