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Featured Stories

New Postville book blames feds, globalization for town's collapse

A soon-to-be-released book looks at what went wrong in Postville, Iowa, 20 years after the Brooklyn-based Rubashkin family created what would become the nation's largest kosher meat packing plant.

Three authors with intimate knowledge of the story behind the fall of Agriprocessors chronicle how the town's population was decimated and its infrastructure destroyed. Read more »

Ruthless Cosmopolitan: Summer reading and the Holocaust

Ruth Ellen Gruber finds three books that use the Holocaust and the lingering impact of its memory as springboards for narratives that take place in the present. Read more »

Op-Ed: Proposed civil marriage bill in Israel misses mark

A leader of the Israeli Reform movement argues that proposed Israeli legislation to allow for civil marriage will do nothing to help the vast majority of those unable to wed because of the Chief Rabbinate's hold on Israeli marriage. Read more »

Editors' Picks

Tzniut in Hollywood Child star Mayim Bialik discusses her decision to adhere to traditional Judaism's standards of female modesty while starting her second act in Hollywood.

Under the microscope Given all the negative portrayals in the headlines recently, it's hardly surprising that haredi Jews are getting flak for the weekend murder of two at a gay community center in Tel Aviv, writes JTA's Ben Harris.

Hamas at the movies The first film produced by Hamas has its premiere in Gaza, and Reuters was there.

Hebrew school rocks According to the Miami Herald, a Hebrew-language charter school in Florida is flourishing two years after its founding. Breaking News Avigdor Lieberman said he would resign as Israeli foreign minister if he is indicted in a money-laundering scheme. Hundreds of Israelis demonstrated to protest an attack on a gay community center in Tel Aviv in which two people were fatally shot. Israeli police evicted two Palestinian families from homes in eastern Jerusalem to clear the way for Jews to move in. More than half of Israeli Jews support encouraging Arabs to leave Israel, according to a new survey. The White House is defending the selection of Mary Robinson as a Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient. On the fourth anniversary of Israel's disengagement from Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu said he would help the evacuees rebuild their lives. Saudi Arabia's foreign minister called on the United States to move Israel and the Palestinians toward final-status talks. A road in Hebron that leads from its Jewish neighborhoods to a Palestinian neighborhood was opened to Palestinian traffic. The Knesset approved an Israel Lands Authority reform bill that allows people to own rather than lease their property. Egyptian police shot and killed an African migrant trying to cross the border into Israel. Israeli police arrested several Israelis and Americans for stealing millions of dollars from the Internal Revenue Service. Israel will allow Palestinians from enemy countries such as Lebanon and Syria to enter the West Bank for the Fatah general congress. The Knesset approved the "Mofaz law," making it easier for lawmakers to break away from their parties. Some 250 asylum seekers, many from Sudan and Eritrea, were ordered released from Israeli prisons. A second Israeli died of swine flu. A military court in Lebanon sentenced a man to life in prison for collaborating with Israel. Israeli President Shimon Peres celebrated his 86th birthday. Hundreds of demonstrators blocked the street leading to a Jerusalem parking lot that the municipality operates on Shabbat. A Hezbollah-sponsored TV network was granted permission to broadcast in Australia. An Australian judge branded an Islamic leader who holds views derogatory of Jews a "racist" in rejecting his defamation claim.