National News

Occupy Is Back, And Reading The Bible

11/18/2012 | Helen Chernikoff | Staff Writer

Occupy Wall Street has staged a comeback by taking a page out of the Good Book.

The protest movement that made its name last year by turning a Manhattan park into a commune has generated an offshoot called Strike Debt, which is raising money to buy debt that other people have accrued -- and then forgive them.

They call the initiative "Rolling Jubilee," after the Biblical injunction to hold a jubilee every fifty years in which Hebrew slaves were freed and debts abolished.

Federations Spending $5 Million To Help Israelis In War Zone

11/16/2012 | JTA

The Jewish Federations of North America committed $5 million for an Israeli terrorism relief fund to help Israeli victims of the conflict with Hamas in Israel's south.

Warning Signs For Israel In Vote

11/14/2012 | James D. Besser | Washington Correspondent

Israel could be a big loser in last week’s presidential and congressional elections — and not because of the re-election of a president whose middle name happens to be Hussein.

Beinart 'Disappointed' By Atlanta Jewish Book Festival Diss

11/14/2012 | Adam Dickter

Left wing lightning-rod Peter Beinart says he was “disappointed” by the change of venue of his talk at an Atlanta Jewish book festival -- in response to complaints about of his participation -- because he wanted to engage his critics.

Jewish Community Subject of First LGBT-Inclusion Index

11/12/2012 | Helen Chernikoff | Staff Writer

About 100 Jewish organizations are taking significant steps to welcome lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals and families, according to an “inclusion index” released today by the Human Rights Campaign, the LGBT civil rights organization.

In partnership with the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the Morningstar Foundation, Stuart Kurlander and an anomymous donor, the campaign made the Jewish world the subject of its first index for a faith-based community.

Hamas-Linked Man Removed From Treasury Dept. Terrorist List

11/09/2012

The U.S. Treasury Department removed from its designated terrorist list a Chicago man who was convicted in Israel of assisting Hamas.

Muhammad Salah, 59, who spent 4 1/2 years in an Israeli prison for funding the terrorist organization, was taken off the list on Wednesday by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. The designation had meant that Salah could not get a job or make simple purchases without the department's permission.