Billionaire George Soros pledged $1 million to a Super PAC supporting President Obama. The donation reported over the weekend by The New York Times will go to Priorities USA Action. It reportedly was announced September 27 at a luncheon held by the Democracy Alliance, a group of liberal donors, by Michael Vachon, a longtime Soros political adviser, according to the Times. Soros also is set to donate $500,000 to two Super PACs backing Congressional Democrats, the newspaper reported. With the donations, Soros now …More

Sukkot meals: sweet and sour stuffed onions. [Forward] A pro-US rally will take place in Tel Aviv. [Times of Israel] Israel's finance minister says Iran's economy is on the brink of collapse. [Jerusalem Post] JFK Airport experienced a terror scare, just as Benjamin Netanyahu arrived to fly home. [New York Post] An Iranian news source erroneously posted as fact an Onion piece last week, satirically stating Americans prefer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over Barack Obama. [Tablet] Jewish groups are criticizing …More

A haredi Orthodox sect has pledged not to impose gender segregation in the streets of Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighborhood. The Toldot Aharon Chasidic sect in discussions with the Jerusalem police and municipality agreed not to impose gender segregation, including using special ushers on the streets to maintain the segregation, Ynet reported. A safety fence will be erected to maintain order during the massive Simchat Beit Hashoeva celebration, however. Segregation on the streets of Mea Shearim and other …More

Drew Barrymore has become a first-time mom. The "Charlie’s Angels" star gave birth to baby girl Olive last week, three months after she wed the child’s father, art consultant Will Kopelman. The couple have released a statement via a spokesman, which reads, “We are proud to announce the birth of our daughter, Olive Barrymore Kopelman, born September 26th, healthy, happy and welcomed by the whole family. Thank you for respecting our privacy during this most special time in our …More

Eric Hobsbawm, a British Jewish historian who was a stalwart contributor to Marxist history in the UK, died today in London at the age of 95. Hobsbawm famously remained a Communist even after the fall of the Soviet Union in the mid-20th century, making him a controversial figure for the remainder of his life. In academic circles, however, he was incessantly noted for his authoritative voice on the 19th century labor movements that helped form the capitalist culture of the West. The author was born to Jewish …More

Jordan reportedly has appointed a new ambassador to Israel. The appointment late last week of career diplomat Walid Obeidat was reported by the French news service AFP and Ammon News. The position has been vacant since mid-2010, when Ali al-Ayed left to become the country's minister of media affairs. Jordan did not fill the position immediately, citing the lack of progress in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Obeidat is expected to arrive in Israel …More

Israel expressed its disappointment this weekend that Argentina has agreed to bilateral talks with Iran. Argentina’s decision to work with Iran on settling a decades long skirmish over a Jewish center bombing was announced last month. Since that time, the Jewish state has reacted with terse acknowledgement, saying in a statement Saturday, “The Government of Israel received with great disappointment the news about the Argentine acceptance of a meeting with the Islamic Republic of Iran on a Foreign …More

Then 14-year-old Bracha Leah Weiss first thought of putting an ad in a local paper eight years ago, looking for disused sukkot that could be re-purposed for new families. The idea took off, and launched an environmentally friendly family project, Sukkah Shadchan. Since then, Bracha Leah’s father, Avi Weiss, has led a family-staffed project that recycles used sukkot and places them with families who otherwise would have not had a sukkah of their own to fulfill the mitzvah during the Sukkot …More

Israeli pharmaceuticals are going to be simpler to purchase in Europe, thanks to new measures by the EU. The European Parliament has endorsed efforts to allow medicines to be exported and imported between Israel and the continent without need of additional certification. The move will be voted on at a plenary later this month, and is expected to go through. European Friends of Israel called the effort “a major step in improving the life of European consumers.” “EU-certified pharmaceuticals …More

Merav Turel, NoCamels - Israeli Innovation News Over the past decade, the non-profit organization Tmura has donated an impressive $6.3 million to youth organizations in Israel. While charitable organizations aren’t rare, the unique characteristic about Tmura is that instead of holding fund raisers and asking people for donations, they get their contributions from startups. Tmura approaches early-stage startups and asks them to donate stock options, to be exercised when the company is sold or goes public. …More

A Jewish group in New Jersey is getting a leg up on helping prepare youngsters for the workforce, thanks to a grant from AT&T. The Jewish Renaissance Foundation of Perth received a $100,000 check from AT&T President Mike Schweder last week, to help local students graduate high school prepared to start careers or head of to college. The money will be used as part of JRF’s dropout prevention program. The donation was part of a $10 million figure AT&T has pledged to 47 different recipients for its …More

Arthur “Punch” Sulzberger, longtime Jewish publisher of the New York Times and the man credited with printing the Pentagon Papers, died Saturday in New York. He was 86. Sulzberger was just 37 in 1963 when he took on the post of publisher for America’s newspaper of record, making him the youngest publisher the paper has boasted to date. He held the position for 34 years, seeing The Times through some of its most transitional periods in history. He took the paper public to fight lagging sales, …More