Articles written by Ben Sales
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Netanyahu easily wins Likud primary
(JTA)-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has won his party's leadership primary with 72.5 percent of the vote. Challenger Gideon Saar got 27.5 percent, according to Haaretz. Turnout for the...
Inside the biggest American Shabbat service of the year
CHICAGO (JTA)-Josh Nelson sat onstage in front of 5,000 people, accompanied by eight other musicians and perched next to a ginormous video screen bearing the words to one of Judaism's central...
Everything you need to know about Israeli settlements and the Trump administration's announcement
(JTA)-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced this week that the United States will no longer consider Israeli Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria to be illegal. Here's an explainer about what th...
Ukraine asked Alexander Vindman to be its defense minister, and other takeaways from his impeachment testimony
This is a developing story. (JTA)—Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Jewish National Security Council staffer whose firsthand account of the July phone call between President Donald Trump and the president of Ukraine is at the center of the...
Jewish man stabbed repeatedly outside New York synagogue
This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA)—An Orthodox man was stabbed multiple times on his walk to synagogue for morning prayers. The man was approaching the synagogue Toshnad Heichel Torah Utfila in Spring Valley, New York, when a man got out...
These Manhattan synagogues want to become condominiums
NEW YORK (JTA)-One of the most active times of day at the West Side Jewish Center begins precisely at 1:40 p.m., when 60 or so middle-aged men trudge in, mutter through the afternoon prayer service...
Anti-Semitism is spiking in Brooklyn, and officials don't know why
NEW YORK (JTA)-Days after a series of attacks against Jews across Brooklyn, the Anti-Defamation League announced that it would double funding for a school program combating hate. But city officials...
Student walks out on survivor's speech after accusing Israel of 'ethnic cleansing'
(JTA)—A Palestinian student at Benedictine University called on a Holocaust survivor to condemn the establishment of Israel, and then walked out on his speech after he did not do so. Following a speech last week by Professor Harold Kasimow, who...
Michael Bloomberg for president?
NEW YORK (JTA)-Michael Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and billionaire media mogul, appears to be preparing to run for president. Bloomberg, 77, flirted with presidential runs in past...
All of Israel's embassies around the world are on strike
(JTA)—As of Wednesday morning, Israel’s embassies and consulates across the globe are on strike. “No consular services will be provided and no one will be allowed to enter,” one ambassador posted on Twitter. Those services include passport...
Jared Kushner appears to back Israeli unity government
(JTA)—Jared Kushner, the point man on the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan, appeared to endorse a unity government between Israel’s two largest parties. In a rare interview Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and...
At this Florida Jewish day school, half the students aren't Jewish
SARASOTA, Florida (JTA)-Most American Jewish day schools go all in on Chanukah, in part to remind their students that Jews have a winter holiday of their own. But when December rolls around at the...
America's 7.5 million Jews are older, whiter and more liberal than the country as a whole
NEW YORK (JTA)—In the past seven years, the American Jewish population has grown 10 percent. It remains a population that is mostly liberal, college educated and overwhelmingly white. And it’s not getting any younger. This is all according to a...
Anti-Semitic hate crimes in NYC have risen significantly in 2019
NEW YORK (JTA)—The number of hate crimes against Jews in New York City has risen significantly over the first nine months of this year, part of a citywide rise in such offenses. The New York Police Department has reported 311 total hate crimes...
How one Jewish school is processing the arrest of a teacher who preyed on children
NEW YORK (JTA)—Sitting at the front of a large room lined floor to ceiling with Jewish holy books, Rabbi Joseph Beyda’s voice broke as he processed, seemingly in real time, the idea that a trusted teacher had preyed on his students. “I think th...
Here's how New York City's new hate crimes chief plans to tackle rising anti-Semitism
(JTA)-Like other local officials, Deborah Lauter can't say exactly what's causing the recent spike in hate crimes against Jews in New York City. It could be, in her words, "the rhetoric that's coming...
The New York Times exposé
(JTA)—As of this writing, Israel has not bombed Iran’s nuclear program. But according to an exposé in The New York Times that dropped Wednesday, it could still happen. And nearly did. The 10,000-word story details how close Israel came to...
The relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Jewish philanthropist Leslie Wexner, explained
(JTA)-One of the most befuddling questions surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein saga is why Leslie Wexner, a billionaire entrepreneur, entrusted all of his money to Epstein, a secretive financier with no...
Trump condemns bigotry and white supremacy in response to El Paso and Dayton shootings
(JTA)—President Donald Trump said “hate has no place in America” in an address to the nation following the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Trump pledged additional resources to the FBI to investigate domesti...
Netflix's 'The Red Sea Diving Resort' misses the real story of Ethiopian Jews
(JTA)-Out of all of the unrealistic scenes in "The Red Sea Diving Resort," the most absurd one might be when Ben Kingsley, playing a supposedly gritty Mossad agent, shows up in the desert wearing a su...
El Paso shooting investigated as domestic terrorism
(JTA)—Before he killed at least 22 people at a Walmart on the southern border, the gunman in El Paso posted a white supremacist manifesto on the fringe social network 8chan denouncing a “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” The U.S. Justice Department...
Jews helped inspire America's refugee program and Stephen Miller might end it
(JTA)-In July 1939, eight months after Kristallnacht and seven weeks before Hitler would invade Poland, Congress killed a bill that would have allowed 20,000 Jewish refugee children into the United...
Americans don't know much about Judaism but love the Jews, survey says
(JTA)—U.S. Jews know more about religion in general than their non-Jewish neighbors, a new survey shows. Americans who are not Jewish, meanwhile, don’t know a lot about Judaism. But they like Jews more than any other religious group. And they...
The Jews getting arrested at ICE centers are just getting started
NEW YORK (JTA)-If you're going to physically block an entrance to an ICE detention center, the handbook says, don't act nice about it. Do chant in Yiddish. Do sing Hebrew prayers. "Defiant, angry,...
Bernie Sanders says being the first Jewish president would be 'another barrier broken down'
NEW YORK (JTA)-Bernie Sanders wants you to know that he's not grumpy all of the time. "There are some times I'm not grumpy. Now is not one of those times," he says, a wry smile crossing his face....
