WASHINGTON — Nathan Diament learned two things 22 years ago while watching Barack Obama play pickup basketball at the Harvard Law School gym.“He was a generous passer,” he said of the school’s Law Review editor and the future U.S. president. “He...
CHICAGO — Sinai Synagogue in South Bend, Ind., has been struggling with issues facing many small congregations in an era of dwindling budgets and shifting demographics. In particular, with only 150 families, until recently it was increasingly difficult...
WASHINGTON -- President Obama is spreading the word, one Jewish constituency at a time: He has Israel's back. Obama defended his record on Israel and on religious freedoms on Tuesday during a White House meeting with Orthodox leaders. Challenged by one...
WASHINGTON — As soon as President Barack Obama wrapped up the television interview in which he endorsed same-sex marriage, he called an evangelical minister who advises him to offer a heads up. Jack Lew, the White House chief of staff, made a similar...
By Shira Schoenberg, JTA
• Published April 20, 2012
BOSTON—When the U.S. Supreme Court effectively legalized school vouchers in 2002, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs called it “a devastating blow to one of the foundations of our democracy”: the separation of church and state. Four years earlier,...
WASHINGTON -- For decades, the American Jewish community has debated the advisability, constitutionality and necessity of government aid to Jewish (and other faiths’) parochial schools. But with the United States still experiencing tough economic challenges,...
By Lori Weinstein and Lee Sherman, JTA
• Published March 1, 2012
Thirty years ago, a Jewish woman experiencing domestic violence had few places to turn. Community leaders strongly resisted acknowledging violence for fear that it would harm marriages and break up families. Few services existed for women seeking support...
WASHINGTON -- Jewish groups praised the Obama administration and Congress for $10 million in new homeland security grants, while noting that it was almost half of last year's allocation. "While tough decisions were made by Congress and the Administration,...
WASHINGTON -- What were the Jews doing becoming so involved in a debate over contraception? It was a question that more than Jewish official asked themselves over recent months as tensions between the Obama administration and leaders of the Catholic Church...
WASHINGTON -- Jewish organizations are expressing concerns at cost-cutting proposals in President Obama's $3.8 trillion budget for 2013. The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America and The Jewish Federations of North America released statements...
WASHINGTON -- Two national Jewish organizations criticized a provision in the Obama administration's federal budget proposal that would reduce the tax deductibility rate of charitable donations. The president's proposal would force taxpayers earning more...
WASHINGTON—Birth control is rapidly gaining steam as an election-year wedge issue, with Jewish advocates lobbying out front and behind the scenes in what is shaping up as a clash between calls for individual freedom and religious liberty. Several Jewish...
