Five things to know as Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial gets underway

By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) – After more than three years of investigation, charges in three cases and three national elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will enter a Jerusalem courtroom Sunday for the start of his corruption trial.

Netanyahu was indicted more than a …

Israel swears in a new government – its largest ever

By Marcy Oster

JERUSALEM (JTA) – After over a year and three national elections, Israel’s new government was officially sworn in Sunday afternoon.

The Knesset, Israel’s legislature, approved the government by a vote of 73 to 46. Thirty-six Cabinet ministers, the most ever, and 16 de…

Conservative movement allows streaming on Shabbat, holidays during pandemic

By Josefin Dolsten

(JTA) – The Conservative movement issued a ruling allowing congregations to livestream services on Shabbat and holidays during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Noting the “unprecedented time” brought on by the virus, the movement’s Jewish law authorities voted Wednesday to…

French Jews take stock of community’s ‘enormous losses’

By Cnaan Liphshiz

(JTA) – Regulars at the synagogue in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine call its main hallway “the traffic jam.”

The term, often uttered with an eye roll, refers to the bottleneck that forms several times a day outside the offices of the popular synagogue, housed…

Wait to resume services, then proceed carefully, Orthodox Jews are told

By Marcy Oster

(JTA) – When Rabbi Moshe Hauer last week told Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the United States, that synagogues wouldn’t let congregants sit within eight feet of each other once services resume, he wasn’t just mak…