Comment on A $400 million cash payment to Iran has little precedent

(JTA) For each of the last four winters, Mount Hermon ski area CEO Refael Nave spent practically every day at the mountain whose peaks straddle the borders of Syria, Lebanon and Israel. As the only place in Israel to see regular snowfall, the Hermon’s Israeli recreation area drew 400,000 visitors in the winter of 2022-’23.

By DAVID BAUDER and LARRY NEUMEISTER (Associated Press Writers) NEW YORK (AP) — The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money trial ordered the media on Thursday not to report on where potential jurors have worked and to be careful about revealing information about those who will sit in judgment of the former president. Judge Juan Merchan acted after one juror was dismissed when she expressed concerns about participating in the trial after details about her became publicly known. The names of the jurors are supposed to be a secret, but the dismissed juror told Merchan she had friends, colleagues and family members contacting her to ask whether she was on the case.

The Miami Marlins’ game at the Chicago Cubs has been postponed because of rain in the forecast for Thursday night. It will be made up as part of a split-doubleheader on Saturday at Wrigley Field. Chicago was back at home after a 5-4 trip that included stops at San Diego, Seattle and Arizona.

When Professor Ron Hassner made the decision to stage a sit-in protest at his University of California, Berkeley office until the school’s administration agreed to take seriously rising campus antisemitism, several other local professors were inspired to visit the professor of political science in solidarity as he ate and slept in his office — and taught class from there — for two weeks. Encouraged by Hassner’s activism and the support he received from other concerned faculty, the Academic Engagement Network announced it will coordinate a national campaign called the Faculty Against Antisemitism Movement (FAAM) and #KeepTheLightOn, eJewishPhilanthropy has learned exclusively. Courtesy/Ron HassnerProfessor Ron Hassner shows the bed he set up in his office to protest antisemitism at the University of California, Berkeley, in March 2024.

By EDITH M. LEDERER (Associated Press) UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States vetoed a widely backed U. N. resolution on Thursday that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought. The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 12 in favor, the United States opposed and two abstentions, from the United Kingdom and Switzerland.

(JNS) A rare volume of the Talmud printed before World War II and found unscathed in a historic Munich beer hall after the Holocaust was given to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum by the family of President Isaac Herzog. The Pesachim Tractate of the Babylonian Talmud has been in the family’s possession for the last eight decades; it will be permanently displayed at the museum in Jerusalem. Courtesy of Yad VashemIsraeli President Isaac Herzog (left) and the Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan at the ceremony at the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, April 17, 2024.