Jessica Bettelheim, a business ethics lecturer at Portland State University and a young Jewish mother, has little time to spare on weekends. Like other professionals her age, she's busy bonding with her husband and 4-year-old daughter, meeting friends at one of Portland's many fine restaurants or gardening, a favorite pastime in the verdant metropolis known as the City of Roses. So when Bettelheim received an email from the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland last month advertising Food for Thought, a festival …More

More than 100 US Jewish leaders urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to make clear "Israel’s readiness to make painful territorial sacrifices for the sake of peace." "We believe that this is a compelling moment for you and your new government to respond to President Obama’s call for peace by taking concrete confidence-building steps designed to demonstrate Israel’s commitment to a ‘two-states for two peoples’ solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict," said the letter …More

Darkness descended on the airport in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, and the Hercules aircraft opened up. The red lights flashing from inside the plane, the hot air whizzing off the propellers, and the great roar of the engine combined to create a surreal scene as the Ethiopian Jewish olim (immigrants to Israel) continued their march towards freedom in the land of Israel. While the sounds first appeared nightmarish to the Ethiopian olim, it also provided a great sense of relief – the relief of the end …More

Elie Wiesel, the speaker of Israel's Knesset and two former Israel Supreme Court justices are among those who will select the winner of a new $1 million prize for serving as a role model for Jewish values. The Genesis Philanthropy Group, a consortium of mega-wealthy philanthropist-businessmen from the former Soviet Union, announced the formation of the two committees that will determine the inaugural winner of the Genesis Prize, which will be given out annually. Dubbed the Jewish Nobel Prize by Time Magazine, …More

What is the appropriate way to commemorate the mass murder of a people? How should the Holocaust be memorialized? And should it be done differently in Germany than in Israel? There are no easy answers to these questions. In many ways the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin—its official title is “The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe”—aims to make visitors uneasy. Designed by American architect Peter Eisenman, the memorial consists of 2,711 gray concrete slabs, also known as …More

The parents of a Hebrew teacher who was killed in an anti-Semitic attack in Yemen immigrated to Israel. Yisrael (Yaish) and Terneja Nahari, the parents of Moshe Nahari, made aliyah on Monday. The couple, in their 70's, were reunited in Israel with their four children and 20 grandchildren, including the nine children of Moshe Nahari, the son who was fatally shot in 2008 by an Islamist extremist. Five of Moshe Nahari's children made aliyah immediately following the murder. His wife, Louza, and the remaining four …More

Natan Sharansky has been unanimously appointed to a second four-year term as head of the Jewish Agency for Israel. The news came this afternoon, following an address by Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israeli prime minister spoke to the Jewish Agency’s board of deputies today, urging the body to keep Sharansky at the helm. Bibi called Sharansky a “symbol of Jewish unity and the triumph of the Jewish People over adversity,” adding, “But you are much more than just a symbol. You have always worked …More

The Israeli consulate called the death of former NYC mayor Ed Koch a loss for the nation, the Jewish people and all of humanity. [Wall Street Journal] President Barack Obama praised Koch for his "energy, force of personality, and commitment to causes ranging from civic issues to the security of the state of Israel always informed and enlivened the public discourse." [Jerusalem Post] Koch's tombstone is inscribed with a quote from the murdered Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, who died on the same day as the mayor …More

A group of Jews from Yemen arrived in Israel via Doha on a Qatari flight, the Iranian Fars news agency reported. The Fars report on Sunday cited the Palestinian Arab-language weekly al-Manar, which quoted "informed sources" as saying that the undetermined number of Jews from Yemen had landed in Israel. Israel is planning to bring more Yemeni Jews in the coming months, according to Fars. The Jewish community of Yemen last year numbered an estimated 130, with 50 living in the capital Sana’a in a compound …More

Jewish immigration to Israel fell 2 percent last year, a trend that was bucked by new arrivals from Europe and the former Soviet Union. Overall, Jewish immigration to Israel stood at 18,691 in 2012 compared to 19,135 in 2011, according to an annual analysis by the Jewish Agency for Israel of figures for aliyah, or Jewish immigration to Israel, obtained by JTA on Jan. 21. Of the newcomers, 2,432 came from Ethiopia--a 9 percent drop in immigration from that country compared to 2011. Jewish immigration from North …More

The Sister colleges—Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith and Wellesley— are united in educating and empowering women, but when it comes to supporting Israel, each school takes its own stance. The Sister colleges began in 1915 as the female equivalent to the Ivy Leagues, which were male-only institutions until the late 1960s and 1970s, when most of them became coeducational, with the exception of Columbia University, which went co-ed in 1983. The Sister colleges began as a consortium of Seven …More

Three US Jewish groups welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s initiative to review restrictions on women’s prayer at the Western Wall. The Union for Reform Judaism, Hadassah and the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly. “It's a really important development,” Mark Pelavin, a senior advisor to the Union for Reform Judaism's president, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, told JTA. “It's the first time the prime minister has recognized that the status quo is problematic. It's the …More