President Joe Biden is bringing a Jewish High Holiday celebration to the White House for the first time.

His White House is hosting a Rosh Hashanah reception on Sept. 30, Jewish Insider reported on Monday.

As vice president during the 2009-2017 Obama administration, Biden hosted Rosh Hashanah and ...

Hours into last month’s debate over one of the most significant pieces of climate legislation ever passed, Maryland’s senior senator turned his remarks to Jewish tradition.

Sen. Ben Cardin, who is Jewish, noted that discussion of the Inflation Reduction Act, with $369 billion in funding for climate and energy at stake, coincided with Tisha B’Av, a time of Jewish collective mourning over historic tragedies.

The Democrat’s comments stemmed from Dahlia Rockowitz, a leader for the group Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, who had reached out to Cardin’s office over...

A national survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute finds that Jewish voters are highly motivated to go to the polls in November, with concerns over the future of democracy and abortion as the top issues driving their choices.

In keeping with decades-long patterns, the poll, based on online interviews with 800 Jewish...

On any given day, the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan is crammed with commuters and tourists off to the office or to Broadway’s “The Lion King.” But since August, the world’s largest bus station has also welcomed thousands of asylum-seekers arriving on unscheduled buses from Texas.

“It’s like a little pop-up Ellis Island where people are meeting volunteers with clothes, shoes and socks and other items,” Alexander Rapaport, CEO of a Jewish nonprofit called Masbia (which in Hebrew means “to satiate”), told RNS in a...

Second gentleman Douglas Emhoff met with representatives from the National Council of Jewish Women at the White House on Monday (Sept. 12) to discuss abortion rights, with activists saying he agreed the topic is a matter of religious freedom for many American Jews.

Sheila Katz, head of the NCJW, called the roughly hourlong meeting she and members of her group convened with Emhoff “wonderfully inspiring.” She said the discussion focused primarily on various state-level battles over abortion access in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade earlier...

Blowing shofars, traditional Jewish instruments made from a ram’s horn, a group of Jewish lawmakers, rabbis and activists proclaimed their support for abortion rights outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday (Sept. 14), insisting that access to abortion is a Jewish value.

The event was one of many demonstrations dubbed “sho-tests” to convene across the country by the National Council of Jewish Women in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overturn abortion rights and looking ahead to November’s midterm elections.

New York state officials on Friday proposed new rules that would require private schools to prove they are meeting state education standards, a long-awaited response to allegations that ultraconservative Jewish yeshivas are failing to deliver lessons in core subjects such as English, math and science.

Schools that refuse to comply could lose their designation for meeting the state’s compulsory...

The Jewish community of Helena, Montana, has officially reacquired Temple Emanu-El, 87 years after the original congregation closed its doors.

“We are thrilled to have succeeded in this monumental effort,” said Rebecca Stanfel of the Montana Jewish Project, which bought the property from the Helena Catholic Diocese.

Stanfel and Catholic Bishop Austin Vetter signed documents formalizing the acquisition in a ceremony outside the synagogue on August 19. A crowd of about 100 looked on. 

Source...

A recent study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University and Oklahoma State University has revealed that the majority of U.S. colleges and universities do not offer campus clubs or groups for Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim students. 

The researchers assessed religious organizations at 1,953 four-year, not-for-profit colleges and universities. They found that 66 percent have no minority religious student group of any type. Buddhist and Hindu student groups each exist at only 5 percent of campuses. One-quarter of the schools have Jewish student organizations, and...

Tech companies are investing in the metaverse and increasingly recognizing that religious communities, some which have already been meeting in virtual reality, will play a key role in the digital future. Many questions remain, however, as to whether that relationship will be good for the religious communities themselves or merely prioritize profits through engagement at any cost.

The metaverse is an immersive virtual world where people can...

A mural that was painted in a Vermont synagogue more than 100 years ago by a Lithuanian immigrant — and hidden behind a wall for years— has been termed a rare piece of art and has been painstakingly moved and restored.

The large colorful triptych painted by sign painter Ben Zion Black in 1910 shows the Ten Commandments with a lion on both sides, the sun beaming down, and columns and rich curtains at the borders. Now known as the “Lost Mural,” it’s a rare representation of a kind of art that graced wooden synagogues in Europe that were largely destroyed during the Holocaust,...

At a seminar for schoolteachers on teaching the Holocaust, instructor Donna Tarney rolled through a list of antisemitic tropes about Jews throughout history.

In the Middle Ages, Jews were accused of poisoning wells and using human blood to make matzo.

In the early 20th century, automaker Henry Ford claimed Jews caused World War I, the outbreak of “thieving and robbery” — even, he said, the ...

A century ago, German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig spearheaded the revival of intellectual Jewish life in the city of Frankfurt am Main with the “Freies Jüdisches Lehrhaus” — the Jewish House of Free Study.

As many as 1,100 adult students would attend lectures tailored to secular Jews and aimed at democratizing the kind of Jewish learning that was typically restricted to the beit midrash, or formal house of Jewish study.

Now, a Lehrhaus in the spirit of 1920s Frankfurt is coming to the Boston area. The brainchild of Rabbi Charlie Schwartz and Sefaria cofounder...

Jeremiah Lockwood comes from a family of cantors, the spiritual leaders that guide Jewish congregations in prayer and song. His grandfather, the late Jacob Konigsberg, served as a cantor in several cities and performed in concerts outside of religious services, always hoping to inspire people with liturgical music.

It's no surprise that Lockwood would incorporate cantorial music in his own band, The Sway Machinery, and wrote his dissertation about Chasidic...

Oregonians will be voting on one of America’s strictest gun control measures on the ballot this November.

If passed by voters, the gun safety initiative would ban the sale of magazines with a capacity greater than 10 rounds and would require permits and firearm safety courses to purchase any gun. Applicants would have...