Articles written by Ben Sales
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Chicago-area high school pulls support for teacher
CHICAGO (JTA)—A high school district with a large Jewish population has withdrawn its recommendation of an optional training opportunity for teachers called “Teaching Palestine” after local teachers, synagogues and national organizations...
Why Israel will hold a second national election in 2019
(JTA)—Israel held a national election seven weeks ago. It will hold another one in September. If that sounds weird to you, you’re right: Israel has a famously raucous political system, but it’s never held national elections twice in one year....
Jewish lawyer representing clients at immigration court
(JTA)-Most of the year, Marty Rosenbluth lives alone in a small house in Lumpkin, a Georgia town with 2,000 residents and one restaurant. It's 500 miles away from his wife and community in North...
Palestinian activists don't understand why they can't enter the US
(JTA)-In December 1992, about nine months before the first Palestinian-Israeli peace accords were signed on the White House lawn, Hanan Ashrawi met with President George H.W. Bush in the Oval Office....
Who are the Sacklers, the family at the center of the opioid crisis?
NEW YORK (JTA)-In the 1930s, Mortimer and Raymond Sackler both traveled to Scotland for medical school because, they said, American universities wouldn't admit them as Jews. Eighty years later,...
After Poway, ADL director calls for government to take action
(JTA)—The head of the Anti-Defamation League said Saturday’s synagogue shooting should serve as a “wake-up call” for politicians and business executives to more seriously address anti-Semitism. Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO and national...
How Venezuela's remaining Jews are hanging on amid the crisis
(JTA)—One night years ago, when a Jewish man was driving to his parents’ house in Caracas, Venezuela, two cars blocked off the street he was on and held him up at gunpoint. He got into their car and began answering questions: who he was, where...
Pete Buttigieg keeps calling Mike Pence a 'Pharisee' and it angers Jews
(JTA)-Pete Buttigieg has a word he likes to use to describe Vice President Mike Pence: "Pharisee." Jewish scholars would like him to stop doing that. Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend,...
Netanyahu's promise to annex West Bank settlements, explained
(JTA)—Just days before Israel was to hold national elections, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to annex parts of the West Bank as Israeli territory. “I’m going to extend sovereignty,” he said in an interview with Israeli Channel...
Orthodox communities at the center of a measles outbreak
(JTA)—Rabbi Mordechai Shain isn’t sure about vaccines. Nearly all of the 400 kids in the school he runs, from 3 months old to eighth-grade teens, are vaccinated. About eight or 10 are not. But he’s skeptical that immunization works at all. “M...
Was a UNC-Duke conference on Gaza anti-Semitic?
(JTA)-"This is my anti-Semitic song," Tamer Nafar, a Palestinian-Israeli rapper, said at the opening of a conference on Gaza last month at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "I know it...
Netanyahu wins narrow victory
(JTA)-Benjamin Netanyahu appears likely to win a fifth term as Israel's prime minister as right-wing parties apparently have maintained their majority in the nationwide elections held Tuesday. With mo...
Airbnb will cancel ban on West Bank
(JTA)—In a reversal of a 2018 policy announcement, Airbnb will not remove West Bank settlement listings from its website. The policy change came after two federal court settlements Monday between the vacation rental company and two groups of...
Netanyahu wins narrow victory in Israel's election
(JTA) - Benjamin Netanyahu appears likely to win a fifth term as Israel's prime minister as right-wing parties apparently have maintained their majority in the nationwide elections held Tuesday. With...
The Golan Heights, explained
(JTA)-President Donald Trump recently signed a proclamation recognizing Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. Here's what you need to know about the Golan Heights, the 52-year argument over...
Benjamin Netanyahu's views on a Palestinian state, explained
(JTA)-It wasn't so long ago that most major Israeli politicians supported establishing a Palestinian state. Now it's not clear that any of them do, including the current prime minister, Benjamin...
How partisan politics are dividing an Orthodox synagogue movement
NEW YORK (JTA)-At the end of March, the National Council of Young Israel, an Orthodox synagogue association, will hold a gala dinner hosted by Pete Hegseth, the co-host of "Fox & Friends." The...
Bibi's scandals explained
(JTA)-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is going to court on corruption charges-he says he's innocent. Netanyahu was indicted in three cases Thursday pending a court hearing. It's the first ti...
Deborah Lipstadt quits synagogue after its national affiliate backs Netanyahu's overture to far-right party
(JTA)—Deborah Lipstadt, the prominent Holocaust historian, is resigning her membership in her local synagogue because it belongs to a movement that defended an Israeli political deal with the extremist right wing. Lipstadt belonged to Young Israel...
US Orthodox group defends Netanyahu's deal with far-right
NEW YORK (JTA)—An American Orthodox Jewish group is defending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to work with a far-right political party. It is the first statement by a major American Jewish organization defending...
Meet the Jewish DACA UCF student
ORLANDO (JTA)-He's not just a student at the University of Central Florida, he is the student president. Growing up, Josh Boloña was just like a lot of kids in South Florida: He was a Latino...
Will Israel be the fourth country to land on the moon?
(JTA)-He's spent eight years trying to land a spacecraft on the moon, but when Yonatan Winetraub stood on the launchpad this month at Florida's Cape Canaveral, he was still in shock. "I stood right ne...
Orthodox rabbis compare abortion to murder-and Orthodox women are angry about it
NEW YORK (JTA)—When New York State liberalized its abortion law last week, the Catholic Church and Southern Baptist Convention unsurprisingly released statements slamming the action. And they were joined by two large Orthodox Jewish religious...
How the Forward ran low on cash-and miracles-before ending its print edition and laying off its top editors
NEW YORK (JTA)-A decade ago, the publisher of the Jewish Daily Forward asked his board to believe in miracles. "We are supposed to believe in miracles; we are forbidden to rely on them, " Sam Norich w...
Illinois governor opens up about his family's immigrant past
(JTA)—J.B. Pritzker’s great-grandfather slept in a train station on his first night in Chicago. Now his billionaire descendant is about to become the governor of Illinois. Pritzker, a Jewish venture capitalist and Democrat, defeated the Republica...
