If the name isn’t revealing enough, Traif, a restaurant owned by Jewish chef Jason Marcus, serves just that, and to an extreme.
The restaurant’s mission statement is posted on the homepage of its Web site: “Celebrating pork, shellfish, and globally-inspired soul food.” The menu, accordingly, features such things as shrimp, calamari, pork bellies, ribs and the [...]

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administers the constitutional oath to Elena Kagan in the justices’ conference room as Jeffrey Minear, counselor to the chief justice, holds the Bible, on Aug. 7. (Photo: Steve Petteway, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States)

(JTA) — Elana Kagan was sworn in as the 112th U.S. Supreme [...]

Remedies, a novel by local Jewish author Kate Ledger, has been released by in a paperback edition by Berkley. Three book signings are planned in Minnesota: 12 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 14 at Beagle Books, 112 Third St. W., Park Rapids; 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 17 at The Bookcase, 607 Lake St. E., Wayzata; and 2 [...]

Campaign chairs see firsthand community dollars at work

By TED FLAUM
Like the flora and fauna that have returned to Mount St. Helens 30 years after its catastrophic eruption, new life is emerging for the Jewish community of Hungary. The devastation of the Holocaust — which saw 85 percent of Hungarian Jewry killed, followed by decades of [...]

Turkey Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has appeared to make remarks in response to Netanyahu’s statement in front of the Turkel Commission on Aug 9. Following claims that Turkey had repeatedly ignored warnings and appeals “at the highest level” to halt the flotilla, Davutoglu said that “Turkey has no responsibility in the attack on the flotilla,” [...]

(JTA) — A New Jersey appeals court ruled that parents who gave their children names linked to Nazism cannot have custody of the children.
The court overturned a family court’s decision to return the three children,  who had been removed from the home of their parents, Heath and Deborah Campbell, in January 2009.
Adolf Hitler Campbell, JoyceLynn [...]

On Aug. 4, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker ruled California’s Proposition 8, the law banning gay marriage, as unconstitutional. The ruling is now awaiting appeal from the Federal Appeals court.
Proposition 8 was passed as a ballot measure in November 2008, and subsequently became a constitutional amendment for the state of California. The amendment [...]

Kander and Ebb’s musical about the case of the ‘Scottsboro Boys’ entertains, as it evokes this country’s troubled racial and ethnic history

By MORDECAI SPECKTOR
John Kander traveled from his home in New York City to Minneapolis last week to help tune up his new musical, The Scottsboro Boys, at the Guthrie Theater. Kander, half of [...]

The rabidly anti-Obama Web site World Net Daily fumed late last year about plans to build a mosque near Ground Zero, the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center. In a post with the subhead “NEWS OUTRAGE!” — it’s not just a plain old news story — the reporter railed [...]

Proceeds will support the only Jewish hospice in the Upper Midwest
By JOSH LIEBERTHAL
Sholom Community Alliance’s Johnson Hospice Care Agency (JHCA) will hold its second annual “Remember and Release Butterfly Event” on Sunday Aug. 8 at Sholom Home West in St. Louis Park. The event is intended to honor the individuals who receive hospice care, with [...]