Egypt is preventing some 1,300 protesters from around the world from entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing, according to JTA.
Here’s the JTA news brief:
The protesters, from more than 40 countries, are part of the Gaza Freedom March, which was organized to protest Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
Some protesters, including a group of grandmothers, began [...]

Lesley Gore, the singer famed for the ’60s hit singles “It’s My Party” and “It’s Judy’s Turn to Cry,” is still performing, and comes to the the Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant for four shows Sunday, Jan. 10 and Monday, Jan. 11. The shows are 7 and 9:30 p.m. both nights.

Lesley Gore will play the Dakota Jazz [...]

The new film from St. Louis Park natives Joel and Ethan Coen explores life’s most fundamental questions

(Editor’s Note: This sermon contains spoilers about the film and reveals crucial plot points.)
By RABBI NORMAN M. COHEN

Is it merely the title of the new Coen brothers’ movie, a Job-like story that asks more questions than it [...]

The glorification of Operation Solomon, the 1991 airlift of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, has become the vested interest of certain segments of American Jewry and of the individuals in Israel and abroad who played a role in the operation
By MOSHE GIT
More than four years ago, the editor of the American Jewish World asked me to [...]

Earmark in big spending bill provides $250,000 for caregiver coaching
By ERIN ELLIOTT BRYAN / Community News Editor
When President Barack Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2010 on Dec. 17, Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis (JFCS) received $250,000 to fund services for caregivers in the local community.
Among the spending bills included in the act [...]

To stay in its Cottage Grove home, Yeshiva High School of the Twin Cities has to find $620,000 in mortgage financing by Feb. 1
By MORDECAI SPECKTOR
Rabbi Moshe Weiss, director of Yeshiva High School of Twin Cities, says that his school is “between a rock and a hard place.”
The school for Orthodox Jewish boys [...]

Marv Davidov is known locally as a guiding light of the Honeywell Project, the campaign to stop the Minneapolis-based firm’s manufacture of conventional and nuclear weapons. In You Can’t Do That! Marv Davidov, Nonviolent Revolutionary (Nodin Press), poet Carol Masters provides an empathetic account of the colorful life of a local radical political activist. She [...]

The American Jewish World occasionally publishes articles about the environmental crisis and what is being done to repair our battered planet. Recent visitors from Israel — from the Arava Institute and the Center for Creative Ecology, both located in the Arava Desert — have filled us in on innovative programs in alternative sources of energy [...]

Garrison Keillor, host of the popular A Prairie Home Companion weekly radio variety show, displays his cranky side in a recent column posted to Salon.com. In his column titled “Don’t mess with Christmas,” the radio personality and best-selling author takes a swipe at Unitarian Universalists — for changing the lyrics to “Silent Night” — then [...]

Rabbi Mendel Feller led local Jewish hoops fans in the candle lighting blessings for Hanuka, before the start of the Timberwolves game Wednesday night at Target Center. The event, Jewish Heritage Celebration Night, was sponsored by the United Jewish Fund and Council of St. Paul and the Minneapolis Jewish Federation.

Jeff Victor (left) provided musical accompaniment [...]