Ben Sales
By Ben Sales
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Fast Forward Prominent QAnon antisemite outed as Florida evangelical who once gave a one-star review to a synagogue
(JTA) — A popular, vociferously antisemitic promoter of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory was identified as an evangelical Christian man from Florida. The man, who goes by GhostEzra on the encrypted messaging app Telegram, has more than 300,000 followers and posts “explicit Nazi propaganda, including outright Holocaust denial and a slew of conspiracy theories that…
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Fast Forward Barbra Streisand sets another record: A top 20 album in every decade since the 1960s
(JTA) — Barbra Streisand has become the only woman to record a top 20 album on the Billboard charts in every decade from the 1960s to the 2020s. The only other person to achieve that feat is Bob Dylan. Streisand’s latest album, “Release Me 2,” came out Saturday and debuted at number 15 on the…
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Fast Forward Israel will now let gay men donate blood
(JTA) — Israel has ended a restriction on blood donation that effectively prohibited gay men from donating blood. Until now, Israel had prohibited any man who had had same-sex relations over the past 12 months from giving blood. Now, the question’s wording will be changed to asking whether prospective donors have had “high risk sexual…
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Fast Forward Biden nominates Rahm Emanuel to be ambassador to Japan
(JTA) — President Joe Biden has nominated Rahm Emanuel to be the next ambassador to Japan. Emanuel, who was Chicago’s mayor from 2011 to 2019, previously served as a congressman and Barack Obama’s White House chief of staff. He has attracted opposition from progressives due to how he handled the 2014 police killing of Laquan…
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Fast Forward An Israeli cabinet member was criticized for traveling abroad during a COVID surge. Then she introduced her new baby.
(JTA) — It sounded like a story heard time and again: A government official criticizes her rivals for breaking COVID restrictions — and then is caught breaking them herself. That is what seemed to happen Friday night, when an Israeli reporter tweeted that Israel’s Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli had traveled to the United States, contrary…
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News Amid debates over vaccines and masks, Jewish day schools buckle down for a third year of COVID
NEW YORK (JTA) — When the school year ended two months ago, Rabbi Bini Krauss allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief. His Modern Orthodox day school, SAR Academy, had been perhaps the first Jewish school in the country to close due to COVID when the virus hit its New York City neighborhood in…
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News The creator of ‘Srugim’ TV series is turning to fans to finance his next project
(JTA) — The Israeli TV show “Srugim,” which brought the lives of Modern Orthodox Jewish singles in Jerusalem to the screen, was a hit in its native country. It later found a large new audience in the United States after streaming on Hulu and Amazon. But now its creator, Laizy Shapira, is having major trouble…
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Fast Forward Artem Dolgopyat won a gold medal for Israel in Tokyo, but he can’t get married at home. His story reignites an old debate.
(JTA) — Israeli gymnast Artem Dolgopyat is not only making headlines around the world for winning a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Dolgopyat, 24, who immigrated from Ukraine at age 12, is engaged but not allowed to be married in Israel because he is not Jewish according to traditional Jewish law. Only his father’s…
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Culture Why saying ‘L’shana Tova’ on Rosh Hashanah may not be the correct phrase
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Culture A Jewish prophet of the 1980s would be horrified to see that we didn’t heed his warnings
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Opinion With killing of Hezbollah’s chief, Israel occupies the inarguable moral high ground
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Opinion This is the most disorienting Rosh Hashanah in memory
In Case You Missed It
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Oct. 7: One Year Later On the eve of this grim anniversary, what we can — and cannot — control
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Fast Forward Antisemitism hits record high in the U.S.; new report shows most-ever incidents in single year
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Culture He founded the Harlem Globetrotters and is the shortest man in the basketball hall of fame. A new book tells his story.
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Oct. 7: One Year Later One year after Oct. 7, a Yom Kippur ritual of communal mourning takes on fresh meaning
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