In November 2025, three of America’s largest kosher-certifying organizations came together to release new guidance regarding the status of beer, which has long been considered kosher by default. But due to the proliferation of flavorings brought on by craft brewing and other industry changes, the rabbis who declare food products to be in line with Jewish dietary laws now say to check the label before drinking. “We’ve discovered that companies use many flavors to enhance [...]

Mourners gathered on Dec. 15 at Sydney’s Bondi Beach to light the menorah for the second night of Hanukkah, one day after the mass shooting at a Hanukkah celebration. Officials say a father and son killed 15 people and wounded more than three dozen others at the beachfront gathering, making it one of the deadliest attacks on Jews outside Israel in years. The father, Sajid Akram, 50, was killed, and police said they plan to [...]

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation on Dec. 1 that will establish New York’s first state-sponsored Holocaust memorial. The memorial will be built at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, a centerpiece in the state’s capital. New York has a number of Holocaust memorials, but none funded and supported by the state government. The legislation says the monument will be called the New York State Holocaust Memorial, and will aim to commemorate the victims [...]

Our Synagogue Is Cited In The Acknowledgments  I met Andrea Strongwater about 20 years ago in a summer writing class at Cornell University. She was wildly energetic about her many pursuits — art, history, writing, painting, and anything having to do with Cornell. I, on the other hand, was quiet writer, elevating my own family’s stories into essays, while a mere visitor to the campus courtesy of my husband, an alum. I admired her [...]

Every year around this time, a handwritten sign goes viral on social media, and appears taped to the windows of many of New York’s Chinese restaurants: “The Chinese Rest. Assoc. of the United States would like to extend our thanks to The Jewish People. We do not completely understand your dietary customs... But we are proud and grateful that your GOD insist you eat our food on Christmas.” Although it’s not prescribed in Jewish texts [...]

The Toledo Museum of Art had been searching for an object that embodied the connectivity of the pre-modern era. The cup calls attention to the largely forgotten Medieval Jewish community of eastern Khorasan, modern-day Afghanistan. The artifact is wide, flat and often mistaken for a bowl, but according to the curators, that was the shape of wine goblets at the time. This month, the Toledo, Ohio, Museum of Art Acquired a 12th Century Afghan Kiddish [...]

An attacker rammed a car into people outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, a synagogue in Manchester, England, then went on a stabbing spree on Thursday, Oct. 2, killing two people and wounding three others in what the police called an act of terrorism on Yom Kippur, the holiest Day of the Jewish calendar. Police said officers responded in minutes and shot and killed the attacker whom they identified as Jihad al-Shamie, 35, a British [...]

So, Woody Allen has written a novel. So what. It’s true, more recently, his personal life has overshadowed his brilliance as a scriptwriter and filmmaker, but let’s remember his brilliance as a scriptwriter and filmmaker. So, now that he has written a novel, maybe we should see what he has to say in that novel. This item is not intended for you to rush out and purchase it. But because it’s Woody, and because he [...]

The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia has returned an Israeli flag to its façade after two incidents of vandalism. The flag, which hangs on an exterior wall of the museum with the words “The Weitzman stands with Israel,” was vandalized with red spray paint. The museum had planned to swap the damaged flag with a hostage-focused sign, but drew criticism on the premise that by removing the Israeli flag, the vandals [...]

Behind an inconspicuous wooden door, the Jewish Theological Seminary in downtown Budapest harbors one of the largest and most valuable Jewish book collections in Europe, according to an article in the Sept. 9 issue of The New York Times. But about 20,000 books and many valuable manuscripts have been missing since German troops marched into the city and seized books. Now more than 80 years later, the books are slowly returning to the 150-year-old seminary, [...]