National

A Jewish public school teacher who posed as a pro-Palestinian advocate in Philadelphia, Hannah Gann, admitted to fabricating Palestinian, Tunisian and black heritage to her colleagues for years, in a case that some online commenters are dubbing “the Palestinian Rachel Dolezal.”

“They blow the conch shell. We blow the shofar.” That’s how Rabbi Rachel Short, a rabbi on Hawaii’s Big Island, put it in a conversation the day after JNS reported that Jews, who make up about 0.69% of Hawaii’s population, were the targets of 75% of the religion-based hate crimes in the state in 2025 and, per official data, were targeted in 4.3% of all hate crimes in Hawaii since 2023.

Liberal Michigan rabbis and other Jewish leaders are calling on the Democratic Party to agree to a list of “nonnegotiable” principles about Jewish safety and Israel as the party’s US Senate candidate in the state, Abdul El-Sayed, seeks to make inroads with Jewish voters.

Gloria Steinem, the feminist who turbocharged the women’s rights movement and cast the liberation of women as part of the broader project of eliminating other bigotries, died at 92.

California is poised to become the first state to deem “Jewish identity” an ethnic and racial identity, after lawmakers gave final approval to the groundbreaking legislation on Aug. 31. The SB 1387 bill expands the definition of ethnicity “to include Jewish identity” in demographic data collection.

Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for US Senate in Michigan, apologized on Aug. 29 for his response to the March 12 attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Mich.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani met with a group of rabbis on Aug. 10 for roughly an hour.The rabbis’ report on the meeting differed greatly from the report of the executive director of Mamdani’s office to combat anti-Semitism, Phylissa Wisdom.

A federal judge threw out the Trump administration’s lawsuit that accused Harvard University of having “turned a blind eye” to Jewish and Israeli students.

A major fire at Agri-Star, one of the largest kosher meat processing plants in the US is poised to increase the price of kosher meat ahead of the High Holidays, in addition to devastating the plant’s local community.

Vice President JD Vance has lost the confidence of many Jewish Republicans, who have taken issue with his rep- rimanding Israeli officials, indulgence of anti-Israel stances and silence on Tucker Carlson, the prominent pundit who has turned against Israel.