U.S. Report

NEW YORK (JTA) -- The U.S. Reform movement, which drew headlines and criticism for canceling its youth trips to Israel this summer, is resuming high school programs in Israel this fall.

Rabbi Allan Smith, director of youth programming for the movement's Union of American Hebrew Congregations, said it would send 25 students for the semester because the Jewish Agency for Israel and the Israeli government have stepped up their security provisions in recent months.

Israelis plea innocent in drug smuggling

LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- Eight Israelis pleaded innocent in a U.S. court to charges they were involved in an international Ecstasy drug-smuggling ring.

Monday's pleas came after the group's alleged ringleader, Oded Tuito, was indicted last week in Spain. He is currently being sought by both the United States and Israel.

ADL blasts Lutherans for opposing Israel aid

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The Anti-Defamation League is criticizing a resolution by the governing body of the Lutheran Church that calls for the United States to withhold aid to Israel.

In a letter to the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the national director of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, called the church's resolution a "one-sided and counterproductive view of the current Israeli-Palestinian violence."

CAMERA claims NPR coverage is skewed

NEW YORK (JTA) -- U.S. public radio's coverage of Israel is skewed and false, according to a Middle East media watchdog group that took out an ad in Sunday's New York Times.

Between late September and late November, National Public Radio ran more stories that only featured Arabs, and its stories on the conflict contained more pro-Palestinian/pro-Arab words than pro-Israel words, according to CAMERA.

Israeli women e-mail coach who seeks wife

NEW YORK (JTA) -- A U.S. basketball coach who advertised over Israeli television that he was looking for a wife at last month's Maccabiah Games said he is maintaining e-mail contact with about four or five of the women he met in Israel.

Todd Schayes, 36, told the New York Times that he received more than 5,000 phone calls after his search for a woman received widespread media attention. "It's been flattering for me, all this attention," he said.

Reform congregation takes over convent

NEW YORK (JTA) -- A Reform congregation in suburban Philadelphia can move into a building previously used as a Roman Catholic convent, a local zoning board decided.

The Aug. 15 decision reversed an earlier ruling against Congregation Kol Ami that had been made after residents in the area complained about possible traffic, noise and pollution.

After that decision, Kol Ami sued the township of Abington, Pa., under a federal law designed to protect religious discrimination in zoning issues.

Anti-Semitic fliers left on Mass. lawns

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Hundreds of racist and anti-Semitic fliers were dropped on lawns across a predominantly Jewish suburb of Boston.

The fliers found over the weekend in Sharon, Mass., included pamphlets by a white supremacist leader whose writings are alleged to have inspired Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

Trial begins for rabbi accused in wife's death

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Jury selection began Monday in the New Jersey trial of a rabbi who allegedly arranged his wife's death.

Fred Neulander could face the death penalty if he is convicted in the 1994 murder of his wife, Carol.