In the wake of the shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn., Jewish groups are looking to build alliances and back legislation to strengthen gun control laws. Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said that his group is assembling a coalition that would be ready to act once the right legislation comes along. “The point now is to create the atmosphere in which there is a demand for action, using our voices, organizing the parents in our pews,” Saperstein told …More

Four Jewish Democrats kept or earned top slots on US House of Representatives committees. Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.) preserved his top slot on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, as did Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on the Energy Committee, after the caucus' standing committee announced its selections on Tuesday. Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) ascended to the top slot on the Appropriations Committee and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) is now the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Lowey replaced Rep. Norm …More

Members of the US House of Representatives will hold a moment of silence for the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches slain by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. “We’re going to give one-minute speeches on the House floor and devote a substantial moment of that to silence on Thursday,” Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) said in a conference call with the media on Wednesday. Following that, he and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY) will lead a group of lawmakers to the Capital grounds for another moment of …More

Even though the International Olympic Committee officially has denied the request for a moment of silence this summer in London to remember the 11 Israeli athletes murdered during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, boosters of the tribute are not about to give up. It all started with an online petition launched April 13 by the JCC in Rockland County, NY, in cooperation with Ankie Spitzer, the widow of Israeli fencing coach Andrei Spitzer, who was one of the 11 Israelis murdered in Munich. The petition, which calls …More