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By JTA
Allen said he will not address the accusations again.
By JTA
Spain’s Jewish community congratulated the government for approving a bill proposing to facilitate the naturalization of Sephardic Jews of Spanish descent. On Friday, Spain’s government approved the bill, which was filed last month by the ruling Popular Party and proposes to amend previous legislation that allowed for granting citizenship to Sephardic Jews who chose to […]
By JTA
A French court cleared comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala of charges connected to a video in which he called for the release of a man who brutally murdered a Jew. The Correctional Court of Paris acquitted Dieudonne on Friday in connection with a video what was recorded in April 2010, in which Dieudonne called for the […]
By JTA
Rabbi Michael Broyde, a prominent Modern Orthodox figure, resigned from the Rabbinical Council of America as a result of the scandal over his use of an online pseudonym. Broyde’s resignation was first reported Thursday by The Jewish Channel, which also uncovered Broyde’s online activities last year. “I deeply regret my wrongdoing and understand how disappointing […]
By JTA
A Long Island yeshiva student was charged with repeatedly scrawling antisemitic graffiti inside a commuter train station. Jonathan Schuster, 18, a senior at Priority-1: Torah Academy of Lawrence-Cedarhurst, in Cedarhurst, N.Y.,was charged with the crimes on Thursday He admitted to using black marker to write anti-Semitic statements, often including expletives, on eight occasions since December […]
By JTA
The Senate unanimously urged the State Department to renegotiate the terms for the return to Iraq of an archive of Iraqi Jewish texts. The resolution passed Thursday “strongly urges” the department to renegotiate the agreement with the Iraqi government “in order to ensure that the Iraqi Jewish Archive be kept in a place where its […]
By JTA
Obama administration officials briefed Jewish and Arab-American student leaders on the peace process. Among the participants in Thursday’s three-hour White House briefing were students affiliated with Hillel, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the American Jewish Committee, J Street and Americans for Peace Now. “As part of our ongoing efforts of working with key stakeholders […]
By JTA
The Anti-Defamation League awarded its highest honor to former President George W. Bush. The ADL presented its America’s Democratic Legacy Award to the former president during a Thursday night gala dinner that opened the its national executive committee meeting in Palm Beach, Fla. “We will never forget, Mr. President, how the vision you laid out […]
By JTA
A Belgian supermarket chain has recalled a costume which is meant to allow children to dress up as prisoners of a Nazi concentration camp. The recall was announced Friday by the Delhaize chain in a press release that it issued conjointly with the Belgian League against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA. “Delhaize deplores this incident and regrets […]
By JTA
A Dallas-area rabbi who uses his home as a synagogue is being sued by a neighbor who says it has lowered his property values. Rabbi Yaakov Rich told the local Fox affiliate Fox4 in a video posted Wednesday that his 3,700-square-foot home is a synagogue with about 25 members. A website identifies his synagogue as […]
By JTA
Several Jewish organizations in Hungary as a form of protest will not accept government grants for memorial events marking the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust. The groups are protesting what they consider the state’s whitewashing of Hungary’s role in the Holocaust. The organizations turning down the grants from the Civil Fund include the Frankel Leo […]
By JTA
Gital Dodelson, the “chained” woman featured on the front page of the New York Post last fall, says she has received a get, or religious writ of divorce, from her husband. The announcement appeared Wednesday afternoon on a Facebook page dedicated to helping Dodelson obtain a get and was confirmed by a publicist who has […]
By JTA
Doctors at the Hadassah Medical Center launched a strike on Tuesday after talks between the Jerusalem hospital and the government over the institution’s $367 million deficit broke off. The doctors are offering only urgent treatment on a Sabbath and holiday schedule. Teaching also has been halted. The strike also is protesting that hospital staff members […]
By JTA
Croatian authorities are investigating a 90-year-old man suspected of committing war crimes as an SS soldier and guard at the Auschwitz death camp. Germany’s Special Prosecutor’s Office for Investigation of Crimes during the Period of National Socialism last month alerted Croatian authorities to the presence in Croatia of Jacob Dencinger, the Croatian news outlet Jutarnji […]
By JTA
Agudath Israel of America has asked the Pentagon to restore kosher field meals and charged that the Defense Logistics Agency had solicited a bid in April for kosher and halal “meals ready to eat,” but had recast the solicitation last month to include only halal, which adhere to Muslim religious precepts. “As things stand now, […]
By JTA
Two brothers poisoned after inhaling pesticides that killed their two younger sisters in their Jerusalem home are now out of intensive care. Michael Gross, 7, and Yitzhak, 5, were well enough to join a music therapy session, the Hebrew-language Israeli newspaper Yediot Acharonot reported Tuesday, and featured a photo of the two boys playing a […]
By JTA
An Ontario judge ruled Monday that children from a fringe Haredi sect whose members fled Quebec while the community was being investigated by social services should be returned to the province. The court upheld a Quebec order to place 13 children from the Lev Tahor sect into temporary foster care, The Canadian Press reported, but […]
By JTA
The French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, creator of the anti-Semitic quenelle gesture, was banned from entering Britain by the Home Office, British newspapers reported Monday. Dieudonne reportedly had announced that he would visit London to support Nicolas Anelka, a French national playing for the West Bromwich Albion British soccer team, who has been charged by […]
By JTA
A marriage proposal awaited a runner at the finish line of the Miami Marathon. New Yorker Rachel Avisrur, who was running in Sunday’s marathon to raise money and awareness for Chai Lifeline, was surprised to find her boyfriend Avi Wolf, kneeling with his black kippa on his head, at the finish line holding a bouquet […]
By JTA
Roger Waters assailed actress Scarlett Johansson for working with SodaStream and musician Neil Young for his planned performance in Israel. In a Facebook post on Saturday, the former Pink Floyd front man said he was making a public plea to Johansson and Young after writing to them privately in recent days. Waters has publicly called […]
By JTA
Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas told The New York Times he would be willing to allow a U.S.-led NATO force to patrol a Palestinian state for an indefinite amount of time. Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlements could remain for five years from the state’s establishment, Abbas said in an interview with The New York Times […]
By JTA
A newborn in New York who underwent his ritual circumcision rite is undergoing treatment for neonatal genital herpes, according to the Forward, contracted after metzitzah b’peh, in which the ritual circumciser places his mouth directly on the child’s circumcision wound to revive the shocked blood stream. The New York City Department of Health and Mental […]
By JTA
Rabbi Mordechai “Motti” Elon, an Israeli Modern Orthodox leader, will not appeal his conviction on two charges of sexually assaulting a minor. Elon, 55, said he decided not to appeal the conviction on the advice of his family, which has asked him to move on, Ynet reported Sunday. The rabbi’s attorney said he stood a […]
By JTA
Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. deputy national security advisor, said Jonathan Pollard should be released from prison. “I think that there is a just and a humanitarian case for his release,” Abrams told i24 news, an international 24-hour news and current affairs television channel based in Tel Aviv, in an interview Friday. Pollard is in […]
By JTA
Gordon Zacks, a founder of the Republican Jewish Coalition and an unofficial adviser to George H.W. Bush, has died. Zacks, a businessman who also was chairman of the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School named for his mother, died Saturday at home in the Columbus, Ohio, area following a brief illness. He was 80. He was among […]
By JTA
Anne Heyman, a Jewish philanthropist who founded a Rwandan youth village for children orphaned in that country’s 1994 genocide, died in a horse-riding accident. Heyman, 52, died Friday afternoon after falling off a horse during a jumping competition at the Palm Beach International Equestrian Center in Florida, The Palm Beach Post reported. Heyman’s interest in […]
By JTA
Norway’s government instructed a state-run pension fund not to invest in two Israeli firms because of their activity in eastern Jerusalem. The decision regarding the Government Pension Fund Global, or GPFG, appeared Thursday on the website of Norway’s finance ministry. It named two Israeli construction firms, Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus, as well as […]
By JTA
The Netherlands is seeking the extradition from Israel of a Dutch teacher suspected of molesting pupils at an Orthodox school near Amsterdam. The request was sent last week by the Public Prosecution Service of the District Court of Amsterdam, the court’s press officer, Franklin Wattimena, told JTA Thursday. The 26-year-old man identified in Dutch media […]
By JTA
German museums must improve their record on identifying and returning Nazi looted art, World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder said. Speaking to some 200 people Tuesday at the Topography of Terror, a museum and documentation center in the German capital, Lauder said that a new commission of independent experts must be appointed to comb through […]
By JTA
Detroit’s Jewish federation has hired an accounting firm to investigate possible financial irregularities at the local Jewish Community Center. In addition to hiring tax and auditing firm to conduct a “forensic investigation” of the center, the federation retained a separate firm to take over the center’s financial operations of the center, the Detroit Free Press […]
By JTA
Twenty-four European parliamentarians called on the European Union to reinstate its working definition of anti-Semitism. The call was unanimously adopted on Tuesday by the lawmakers, who had traveled to Poland earlier this week to attend a ceremonial joint session with 58 Knesset members and dozens of counterparts from the Polish parliament on International Holocaust Remembrance […]
By JTA
A French court nullified an honorary title conferred on the murderer of an Israeli diplomat. The administrative court of Montreuil on Thursday nullified the honorary residency that the suburb of Bagnolet conferred on Georges Abdallah, according to a report published on Friday by the Le Figaro daily. Abdallah, a pro-Palestinian militant, was sentenced to life […]
By JTA
The description of a possible U.S.-drafted framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace that Martin Indyk, the top U.S. Middle East envoy, delivered to a group of Jewish leaders was not final, the State Department said. “During an off the record briefing with Jewish leaders, Ambassador Indyk reiterated the well-known United States position in support of 1967 borders […]
By JTA
Oxfam accepted actress Scarlett Johansson’s resignation as a global ambassador, calling the role “incompatible” with her work for the Israeli company SodaStream. “Oxfam has accepted Scarlett Johansson’s decision to step down after eight years as a Global Ambassador and we are grateful for her many contributions,” the global anti-poverty charity said in a statement issued […]
By JTA
The Obama administration will soon present a framework for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement that the sides may accept with reservations as a basis for a final deal by year’s end, the top U.S. negotiator told Jewish leaders. Martin Indyk, the State Department’s lead envoy to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, told Jewish leaders on Thursday that the framework […]
By JTA
A trove of documents from the Nuremberg Trials found in a flea market in Israel was sold at auction Wednesday for $10,000, a spokesman for the Kedem Auction House in Jerusalem told the Associated Press. The trove of 500 pages, An American collector bought the documents, including some used to convict top Nazis at the […]
By JTA
Travel to Israel sponsored by an affiliate of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has become an issue in the race for Nevada lieutenant governor. Sue Lowden, a former state senator, said her opponent in the Republican primary race, State Sen. Mark Hutchison, should have disclosed his 2013 trip to Israel with the American Israel […]
By JTA
French choreographer Benjamin Millepied, husband of Jewish actress Natalie Portman, told an Israeli newspaper that he is converting to Judaism. Millepied told the Hebrew-language Yediot Acharonot that he is “in the middle of the conversion process.” He added that he hopes that the conversion process will “come to an end soon and I will become […]
By JTA
A new Jewish community was dedicated in the former East Berlin, in the footsteps of one destroyed by the Nazis. In an odd twist, the community has the same name as another Berlin congregation that is mired in legal limbo and debt after failing to prove it has any members. In Tuesday’s ceremonies at the […]
By JTA
Israel will be sending five athletes to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, starting next month. Evgeni Krasnopolski, 25, a Ukraine native who grew up in Israel, will skate in the pairs competition with Andrea Davidovich, 16, of Vermont. The pair, who train in Hackensack, N.J., finished seventh in the senior pairs competition at the […]
By JTA
Nazi-looted paintings recovered by the Allies platoon known as the Monuments Men will be sold at auction in New York. The four lots will go on the block at Sotheby’s in New York on Thursday as part of a sale of Old Master paintings and sculpture. Some of the works were owned by the Rothschild […]
By JTA
President Obama in his State of the Union speech pledged to veto any new Iran sanctions. “Let me be clear: if this Congress sends me a new sanctions bill now that threatens to derail these talks, I will veto it,” he said Tuesday night. “For the sake of our national security, we must give diplomacy […]
By JTA
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Israeli President Shimon Peres paid tribute to Edgar Bronfman at a public memorial service Tuesday night. More than 1,000 people, including top Jewish communal leaders and alumni of the Bronfman Youth Fellowship program, turned out for the service held at Lincoln Center in New York. Bronfman, who […]
By JTA
The Anti-Defamation League has accepted the “heartfelt apology” from venture capitalist Thomas Perkins, who likened criticism of the wealthy to Kristallnacht. “We believe that Mr. Perkins now realizes why his Holocaust comparison was so offensive,” the ADL said in a statement after a long conversation Monday between Perkins and the ADL’s national director, Abraham Foxman. […]
By JTA
Chile’s Palestine Football Club, after being fined for wearing uniforms on which the number one in players’ numbers in the backs of their shirts were represented by a map of Israel as Palestine, unveiled its new uniforms that now show exactly the same thing on the front of the shirt. Inset into the players’ numbers […]
By JTA
Israel issued a passport for a baby born in Thailand to a same-sex couple using a surrogate mother. Twelve other babies born in Thailand will receive passports this week, Walla reported. The issuance of the passport comes several days after the families of 65 born or soon-to-be-born babies in Thailand to Israeli parents through surrogacy […]
By JTA
Treasury Undersecretary David Cohen, the top Obama administration official monitoring Iran sanctions compliance, will visit Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. The Treasury Department announcement Monday casts this week’s visit in the context of making sure nations still comply with the main sanctions even as a number of sanctions have been removed while talks, known […]
By JTA
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee said an article describing differences between the group and U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz was “inaccurate.” “I wanted to forward a statement issued by AIPAC National Board Member Ike Fisher after The Huffington Post released an inaccurate article regarding AIPAC and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” said an alert sent […]
By JTA
A march through Paris against French President Francois Hollande ended with anti-Semitic chants and cries of support for an anti-Semitic comedian. At least 150 protesters were arrested in the “Day of Anger” demonstrations on Sunday, according to reports. Nineteen police officers were injured in clashes with protesters, one seriously, the French news agency AFP reported. […]
By JTA
Dozens of lawmakers from Israel, the United States and Europe convened at the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau for ceremonies commemorating its liberation 69 years ago. The largest foreign parliamentary delegation landed in Poland from Israel on Monday, Jan. 27 — the day that the United Nations in 2005 designated as International Holocaust Remembrance […]
By JTA
Holocaust historian Randoph Braham is returning a high honor from the Hungarian state as a protest against attempts to whitewash Hungary’s role in the Holocaust, Braham said in a letter quoted by the Hungarian state news agency MTI on Sunday. Braham, 91, a Holocaust survivor, wrote that he was handing back the Cross of the […]
By JTA
The Obama administration has designated Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s deputy secretary general Ziyad al-Nakhalah as a terrorist, the U.S. State Dept. announced. The Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the Dec. 22 bombing of a bus in Tel Aviv in which quick thinking by two passengers and the bus driver prevented a mass casually disaster. “Ziyad has […]
By JTA
Bill de Blasio, New York’s newly installed mayor said, “Part of my job description is to be a defender of Israel” while speaking at a private New York event of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). “There’s no greater ally on earth, and that’s something we should say proudly,” he said last Thursday, as […]
By JTA
A French advertiser scaled back a campaign for the dating site JDate after its billboards were vandalized. Thierry Courrault, a regional director for the JC Decaux billboard giant, said his company decided to pull 18 billboards out of 100 advertising JDate. The reason was “vandalism against out property (swastika graffiti and broken windowpanes),” he told […]
By JTA
Israeli negotiators are discussing a series of limited withdrawals linked to progress by the Palestinian Authority in maintaining security, a senior Palestinian official said. The withdrawals are part of a plan for a peace agreement being brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, according to an interview with Yasser Abed Rabbo published in the […]
By JTA
Brandeis University disclosed that it paid former university president Jehuda Reinharz $811,000 for accumulated sabbatical leave that he never took during his 17-year presidency. The payment was part of a $4.9 million lump sum payment Reinharz received Jan. 2 as deferred compensation, according to a statement issued by Brandeis. The amounts paid were set aside […]
By JTA
The owners of a Jewish deli in Albuquerque found an anti-Semitic death message stuck to her establishment’s front door on a mailing label. “To the Kikes who should die,” the message stuck on the front door of the Nosh Deli said, KOB Eyewitness News 4 in Albuquerque reported. A second label read, “To the Kikes […]
By JTA
The Pentagon made clear in an order that troops may accommodate religious beliefs in their garb or grooming as long as it does not frustrate their mission. “The new policy states that military departments will accommodate religious requests of service members unless a request would have an adverse effect on military readiness, mission accomplishment, unit […]
By JTA
The French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala was arrested for allegedly assaulting court officers who came to his home with notices for payments due on fines for inciting hatred against Jews. Dieudonne, who owes nearly $100,000 for several hate speech convictions, was arrested Tuesday night, according to a report by the French news agency AFP. He […]
By JTA
A second Modern Orthodox high school in New York has announced it will permit girls to wear tefillin during prayer. The Ramaz School in Manhattan said it will allow girls to wear tefillin during coed worship, going one step further than SAR High School, which drew a flurry of media coverage earlier this week for […]
By JTA
The president of France’s main Jewish group has toned down his blanket condemnation of the quenelle gesture and said it is not necessarily anti-Semitic. Roger Cukierman of the CRIF umbrella group adjusted his position in a filmed interview published Tuesday on the website of the Le Figaro daily. Reacting to the decision that day by […]
By JTA
New York City has dropped a lawsuit against Hasidic-owned stores that posted a dress code for shoppers. The New York City Human Rights Commission reached a settlement with the seven Hasidic-owned shops in a lawsuit the city had filed alleging that the stores’ posted dress codes implied gender and religious discrimination, according to the New […]
By JTA
Fliers hung in the Oakland, Calif., Montclair neighborhood of Jewish city councilwoman Libby Schaaf show a swastika drawn on her forehead. The fliers hung district represented by Schaaf read, “Stop Schaaf. Stop the DAC” (domain awareness center) — a reference to a city plan to build a combined surveillance center for police and firefighters. Schaaf, […]
By JTA
More than 1,000 people have applied for new compensation of a one-time payment of $2,700 from Germany for labor performed in Amsterdam’s Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust. The compensation is offered to people who lived in three districts of the Dutch capital that served as ghettos for the city’s Jewish community during the German occupation […]
By JTA
Nearly 350 years after his wrongful execution, a French Jew who had been convicted of a blood libel was exonerated and declared a martyr. The village of Glatigny in the eastern district of Moselle set the record straight Sunday on the wrongful conviction of Raphael Levy in 1670 for murder. Levy, a simple merchant, was […]
By JTA
British lawmaker David Ward has raised Jewish ire again for tweeting two days after the death of Ariel Sharon. “Sharon’s death makes you think. The brutal, genocidal treatment of Jews must never be forgotten but … the Palestinians were not responsible.” One tweet in response to Ward, by British Jewish gay rights activist Benjamin Cohen, […]
By JTA
Romania supports in principle Israel’s demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as the Jewish state but encourages compromises on this and other issues, Romanian President Traian Basescu said. Speaking to JTA at his presidential palace two days before an Israel visit that began Sunday, Basescu said that “if they [the Palestinians] want peace, they must […]
By JTA
Israel for once surrendered to public pressure for the right reason.
By JTA
Hungarian Jewish leaders demanded the resignation of a key government appointee and threatened to boycott government-sponsored events marking the 70th anniversary of the Holocaust in Hungary. In an unusually strong statement posted Sunday on its website, the leadership of Mazsihisz, the official Hungarian Jewish umbrella organization, said they were “aghast and find incomprehensible” the “relativization […]
By JTA
A bipartisan slate of 134 U.S. Congress members wrote a letter to the American Studies Association protesting its decision last month to boycott Israeli universities. “Academic cooperation can be an important tool to help foster peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but you have chosen the unproductive path of isolation,” said the letter dated Friday, initiated […]
By JTA
On Friday night, 3 youths jumped and stabbed a yeshiva student on his way home.
By JTA
The U.S. Senate’s Special Committee on Aging held a hearing on the plight of Holocaust survivors in the United States. Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee said at the Wednesday hearing that survivors are better off aging at home. “The emphasis on caring for aging survivors must be on creating a safe space surrounded […]
By JTA
Moroccan police are investigating the death of two Jewish sisters in their home in the central city of Beni Mellal. The sisters, whose names were not made public, were found earlier this week in a state of advanced decomposition and are believed to have died three months ago inside their locked home, the news site […]
By JTA
Juliana Rangel, icj, Nuremberg trials, isaac stone, kedem, Chabad Berlin
By JTA
Congress budgeted $13 million for a nonprofit security assistance program that mostly aids Jewish institutions. The money was allocated in the $1.1 trillion budget passed this week by both houses of Congress. The program, which has existed since the mid-2000s, has so far disbursed $138 million through the Department of Homeland Security, not counting the […]
By JTA
Natan Sharansky joined the parents and spouses of political prisoners in asking the U.S. Congress to speak of their loved ones during meetings with foreign officials. Sharansky, imprisoned by the Soviets for nine years because of his activism on behalf of Soviet Jews, recalled at a hearing Thursday that his jailers told him, “You are […]
By JTA
A Jewish community center in San Diego cancelled a concert by Eyal Golan amid suspicions that the Israeli singer had sex with minors, an Israeli radio station reported. Golan was slated to perform Jan. 19 at a concert which was advertised as late as Jan. 10 on the website of the Lawrence Family Jewish Community […]
By JTA
Frans Timmermans, anti-israel legislation in morcco, netherlands-israel relations, netherlands-morocco relations
By JTA
Leaders of Belgium’s Jewish community rallied outside the French embassy in Brussels to thank the French government for its efforts to keep an antisemitic comedian from touring. The demonstration Wednesday was organized by the CCOJB umbrella group representing French-speaking Belgian Jews. Some 70 people showed up, police told a Belgian news agency, bearing signs reading: […]
By JTA
A Palestinian official accused the Czech Republic of violating European Union directives after its ambassador to Israel visited an Israeli university in Samaria. The visit last week by Ambassador Tomas Pojar to the University of Ariel, located in the largest Israeli settlement in Samaria, was a first for an EU ambassador, according to the Jerusalem […]
By JTA
The decision arose out of UNESCO’s support for peace talks.
By JTA
A bill introduced by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee would link assistance to the Palestinian Authority to its efforts to stop incitement. Under the bill presented Wednesday by California Republican Rep. Ed Royce, the president would have to determine that the Palestinian Authority “no longer engages in a pattern of incitement against […]
By JTA
Funding to Israel was restored to its pre-sequester level of $3.1 billion in the spending bill the U.S. House of Representatives passed on Wednesday. Aid to the Palestinian Authority was conditioned on its not running to the United Nations for recognition. The $1.1 trillion bill passed Wednesday is the result of a deal brokered last […]
By JTA
Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran, a longtime congressman from northern Virginia who repeatedly clashed with pro-Israel and Jewish groups, is retiring. Moran, 68, told media Wednesday that he would not run again in his district, which comprises Arlington, Falls Church and parts of Alexandria and Fairfax County, because it has become strongly Democratic, making his […]
By JTA
Former Israeli ambassador to Canada Alan Baker and prominent Toronto lawyers have condemned an apparent discrepancy between Ottawa’s fervid public support for Israel and official policy. Baker, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Canada from 2004 to 2008, and six Toronto lawyers, have written to Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird demanding the Foreign Affairs Department […]
By JTA
The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has come to its sense before letting the damage get out of control.
By JTA
Several Jewish organizations have criticized a Polish prosecutor’s decision not to try soccer fans who chanted about Jews and Auschwitz. A spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office of Poznan in central Poland said last week that no charges would be brought against the fans because they did not mean to offend Jews when they chanted the […]
By JTA
Israel’s Supreme Court has given Justice Minister Tzipi Livni one week to respond to a lawsuit by an Israeli NGO representing victims of Palestinian terror victims in a case against the Bank of China. On Tuesday, the court put its time mandate on Livni hours after the Shurat HaDin-Israel Law Center filed a suit requesting […]
By JTA
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asked the Vatican on Tuesday to intercede in helping free American-Jewish contractor Alan Gross from a Cuban jail. Kerry said in a meeting Tuesday with the Vatican’s secretary of state, Archbishop Pietro Parolin, they discussed Cuba and the need for respect for freedom of religion and human rights in […]
By JTA
By the time they end up at Baba’s Grillroom in central Amsterdam, Israeli tourists tend to be somewhat distracted. Situated near the famous Rembrandt Square, this popular and veteran falafel eatery is literally surrounded by pot-selling coffee shops that help make Amsterdam one of the top holiday destinations for Israelis — and especially for the […]
By JTA
A controversial 18-century painting depicting the ritual murder of Christian children by Jews, will be available to viewers in the cathedral of Sandomierz, Poland. The painting, “Mord Rytualny” or “Ritual Murder,” was painted by Charles de Prevot, A plaque will be mounted next to the painting, which will inform viewers that the Jews did not […]
By JTA
A documentary about the Holocaust by Alfred Hitchcock will be screened for the first time as the renowned late director intended, a British newspaper reported. “Memory of the Camps,” as the film is titled now, will be screened on British television early next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Europe, according […]
By JTA
A food bank chairman, a solar energy pioneer and the creator of the “Dry Bones” comic strip are among the first winners of a Nefesh B’Nefesh prize recognizing immigrants to Israel. More than 200 immigrants from English-speaking countries were nominated for the Bonei Zion Prize, which was awarded in five categories as well as for […]
By JTA
Andy Samberg’s acceptance speech for Golden Globes awards might deserve an award of its own.
By JTA
The New York congressman who represents Rabbi Avi Weiss expressed his concerns to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Chief Rabbinate’s decision to reject Jewish status letters written by the rabbi. Rep. Eliot Engel, the senior Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in a letter to Netanyahu dated […]
By JTA
Jewish organizations in the United States and around the world remembered the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a military leader and a fighter for peace. “His legacy is a more secure State of Israel, safe on its borders and resolved to put an end to the campaign of Palestinian terrorism once and for […]
By JTA
Amid an investigation into his finances and bans on his shows because of anti-Semitic content, the French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala said he was abandoning his nationwide tour. Dieudonne made the announcement Saturday at a news conference in which he appeared dressed in traditional West African garb — his mother was born in Cameroon. “Today, […]
By JTA
New York Rep. Eliot L. Engel sent a letter to Benjamin Netanyahu to express his concern over the Israeli Chief Rabbinate’s decision to reject Jewish status letters written by Rabbi Avi Weiss. Engel, the senior Democratic member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote in the letter to Israel’s prime minister dated Jan. 10 that: […]
By JTA
Sharon’s coffin was placed in the Knesset Plaza on Sunday.
By JTA
Delegates to the Modern Language Association’s annual convention upheld a resolution accusing Israel of keeping Palestinian academics from entering Judea and Samaria, but rejected another expressing solidarity with academics that boycott Israel. After an hour or so of acrimonious debate in Chicago on Saturday, the MLA’s delegate assembly in a 60-53 vote approved a resolution […]


