יום חמישי, ז׳ אלול תשפ״וThursday, August 20, 2026
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By JTA
Cuban Jewish leaders met with imprisoned Jewish-American contractor on the last day of Hanukkah, two days after Gross marked his fourth year in jail in Cuba. “During the encounter we could see that he was in better spirits, more physically recovered,” according to a statement from the Beth Shalom Temple in Havana according to the […]
By JTA
Demanding no enrichment, Obama said, was unrealistic.
By JTA
Canada’s largest Protestant church launched a campaign to boycott goods made in Judea and Samaria. The United Church of Canada campaign, dubbed “Unsettling Goods: Choose Peace in Palestine and Israel,” encourages “economic action” against three Israeli companies: Keter Plastic Ltd., SodaStream and Ahava, which all have factories in Judea and Samaria. “With these efforts, we […]
By JTA
Companies with connections to Israel contributed $6.2 billion to the Massachusetts economy last year, a new study found. The study, released on Thursday, was conducted by the consulting firm Stax and supported by Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston. It found that, when accounting for other business spending, the full economic impact of companies with Israel […]
By JTA
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said talks between Israelis and Palestinians entered a difficult phase over security guarantees. Speaking in Tel Aviv before returning to the United States, Kerry said the sides remained committed to advancing toward a peace agreement and that he expected to return to the region in a week or so. […]
By JTA
Peace between Israelis and the Palestinians is unlikely, but talks must continue if only to manage the conflict, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said. “Trust between the two sides is about zero,” Liberman said Friday evening at the annual Saban Forum, a gathering in Washington of Israeli and U.S. persons of influence. Liberman said U.S. […]
By JTA
A German soccer team withdrew from a sponsorship agreement with Saudi Arabia’s national airline because it refuses to ticket Israeli citizens. The FSV Frankfurt team abrogated the contract with Saudia this week after criticism leveled by Jewish groups and other organizations, according to the Associated Press. The airline’s director told The New York Post in […]
By JTA
Eli’s Restaurant, a popular kosher eatery in Washington frequented by politicians, will move instead of closing down. After announcing in October that the restaurant would close because of a redevelopment project, it announced this week that it would move three blocks from its current location at the southeast corner of the intersection of N and […]
By JTA
The kindest cut of all might be the one that new father makes at his son’s circumcision.
By JTA
Rabbi Sergio Bergman, wearing a colorful yarmulke, was sworn in to Argentina’s National Parliament Wednesday on a Tanach when he swore the oath of office before “God, the motherland and the sacred scriptures of the Bible, the Tanach.” Bergman, the first rabbi to take office as a national legislator, was one of Argentina’s 127 newly […]
By JTA
One of Netanyahu’s neighbors noticed that the Prime Minister on a Sabbath stroll, stopped to help an old man take out the trash. One mitzvah leads to another.
By JTA
A best-selling German satirical novel about the return of Adolf Hitler to modern-day Germany is being adapted into a film. “Er Ist Wieder Da,” German for “He’s Back,” sold 1.3 million copies in Germany after its 2012 release. In the book, Hitler awakens in modern-day Berlin and garners enough attention to become host of his […]
By JTA
Israeli Prof. Havazelet Bianco-Peled of Haifa's Technion University has invented a new super glue that mechanically seals areas of potential leakage after surgery, without the need for sutures. Bianco-Peled set up the Sealantis start-up at Technion in 2007, and the company now is expecting FDA approval for the “Seal-V” glue, developed from the cell walls […]
By JTA
New York Democratic Congressman Eliot Engel has been appointed chairman of an umbrella body for Jewish lawmakers worldwide, succeeding Italy’s Fiamma Nirenstein, who recently made aliyah to Israel. The steering committee of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians named Engel, the senior Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, as its chairman […]
By JTA
The longer Israelis live in the United States, the less critical of Israel they are likely to be, a new survey suggests. The Internet-based survey of nearly 1,600 people divided respondents into two groups: those living in the United States for less than 10 years, and those living in the country for more than 10 […]
By JTA
Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem is on the brink of financial collapse, the Forward reported. The hospital is facing a $300 million deficit, including $80 million accrued in the last year, according to the newspaper. Efforts by Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America to save the medical center have resulted in a break with […]
By JTA
An alleged perpetrator of a brutal anti-Semitic attack in suburban Sydney pleaded not guilty. Spartaco Marciano Di Bella, 23, appeared in court Tuesday and was charged with affray — fighting in a public place that disturbs the peace. His bail was continued until Jan. 13, when the magistrate ordered the next hearing. Di Bella, who […]
By JTA
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of a Minnesota rabbi who claimed he was cut from an airline’s frequent flier program for earning too many miles. Oral arguments in the case of Rabbi Binyomin Ginsberg were heard on Tuesday. Ginsberg was one of Northwest Airlines’ top fliers when he was cut from […]
By JTA
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a Hanukkah party Monday night that he will use the $1 million Genesis Prize to “promote commerce between the people in Palestine and the people in Israel,” the Daily Forward reported. It is not yet known which organizations will be assisted by the prize money. Bloomberg made […]
By JTA
Goldman Sachs chief Lloyd Blankfein recalled the role of his rabbi and Jewish organizations in helping him realize he could succeed despite growing up in a working-class neighborhood. “The only person I knew who put on a suit everyday was our rabbi,” Blankfein told a crowd of 1,700 fellow Wall Street insiders and guests Monday […]
By JTA
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu presented Pope Francis Monday with a copy of the book “The Origins of the Inquisition in Fifteenth Century Spain,” a Tel Aviv scholarly publication of some of the worst things the Catholic Church has done to Jews. The book was written by the Prime Minister’s late father Benzion, who wrote of […]
By JTA
Immigrants to Israel from seven countries will light Hanukkah candles Tuesday night simultaneously with Jews in seven other countries in a ceremony organized by the Ministry of Immigration and Absorption and The Jewish Agency for Israel. The candle lighting in Israel will take place at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, where 300 young […]
By JTA
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Rome’s main synagogue Sunday night and lit Hanukkah candles with his Italian counterpart Enrico Letta before he arrived at the Vatican for an audience with Pope Francis. Speaking to the Jewish community and the media at Sunday’s ceremony, Netanyahu reiterated his warnings that the recent agreement on Iran’s nuclear […]
By JTA
A French court imposed a $1,300 fine on members of an anti-Israel group who called on supermarket shoppers to boycott Israeli products. The Court of Appeals of Colmar near Strasbourg fined each of the group’s 12 members individually on Wednesday for their participation in a pro-boycott activity in 2009-2010, which the court qualified as “provocation […]
By JTA
Israel may join for the first time a regional group within the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of a deal to improve the U.N. body’s relations with the Jewish state. The council’s Western European and Others Group (WEOG) is expected to announce that its member states have voted in favor of Israel’s admittance, […]
By JTA
One of Europe’s oldest functioning synagogues sustained heavy damage in a fire that broke out in the city of Grodno in Belarus. The flames erupted Tuesday night as a result of malfunctioning heating system and consumed the dining room and part of the second floor of Grodno’s Great Choral Synagogue, according to a report Wednesday […]
By JTA
Israel's Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs Eli Ben-Dahan has accused U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of giving “legitimacy to terror” and misunderstanding Middle East politics. “John Kerry, who warns us of an intifada, does not understand the Middle East, and he is not worthy to be a mediator when he goes back to his […]
By JTA
The same Museum has thwarted earlier attempts to honor the victims.
By JTA
He urged the mayor’s office to cancel a public candle-lighting event on Mollard Square scheduled for Dec. 3.
By JTA
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters Tuesday that the six-month interim agreement with Iran has not yet started. The next step is “a continuation of technical discussions at a working level so that we can essentially tee up the implementation of the agreement,” she said. It’s not clear when the agreement will come into […]
By JTA
Nearly 70 years after the Holocaust, some European Jew still are afraid to be confident enough to be Jewish in public. Christina Zionists are trying to help them, buy aliyah to Israel would be a lot easier.
By JTA
Alan Gross’ wife and Washington’s Jewish community are calling on President Obama to prioritize securing his release from a Cuban jail and will attend a demonstration at Lafayette Park outside the White House at noon next Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of his imprisonment. Judy Gross and officials from the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater […]
By JTA
Israel’s Chief Rabbinate issued restrictions on the extent to which mikvah attendants may question and interact with women visiting the ritual baths. According to a letter sent Monday from the Chief Rabbinate to Itim, an organization that helps Israelis navigate the rabbinate’s bureaucracy, mikvah attendants may not question women visiting the baths, nor may they […]
By JTA
The White House held at least two phone calls with Jewish leaders to explain aspects of the interim sanctions-for-nuclear-rollbacks deal between Iran and major powers. Among the speakers on the conference calls Monday with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Jewish Federations for North America were Tony Blinken, a deputy […]
By JTA
Israel and the European Union have agreed on a compromise under which Israel will join the Horizon 2020 research and development project despite new EU guidelines on Jewish settlements. Following months of negotiations, the agreement was reported Tuesday night in the Israeli media after an impasse was reached on Monday night. The project is expected […]
By JTA
The Zionist Organization of America blasted the interim Iran deal in the strongest terms, describing the agreement concluded over the weekend in Geneva between the P5+1 –– the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States) and Germany –– and the Islamic Republic of Iran as an […]
By JTA
Harvard Law School professor and vocal Israel supporter Alan Dershowitz said the deal reached in Geneva under which Iran promised to stop uranium enrichment beyond 5 percent in exchange for $7 billion in sanctions relief “could turn out to be a cataclysmic error of gigantic proportions.” “It could also turn out to be successful, to […]
By JTA
Elie Wiesel received the President’s Medal of Distinction from Israeli President Shimon Peres in a ceremony in New York Monday night. Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz and author of more than 40 books, was awarded Israel’s highest civilian medal for “his unique contribution to the memorial of the Holocaust and in light of his uncompromising […]
By JTA
Jewish immigration from France to Israel has increased by 49 percent in the first nine months of 2013 compared to last year. Through September, 2,185 French Jews have immigrated to Israel, compared to 1,469 immigrants during the same time frame in 2012, according to Jewish Agency for Israel figures. The number of immigrants who arrived […]
By JTA
At least four investigations of possible Nazi-era war criminals have been turned over to German investigators in recent months after being identified as a result of an awareness campaign by the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “Operation Last Chance II,” launched in 2011 and expanded Monday with a new poster campaign, has yielded hundreds of calls and […]
By JTA
Ukrainian Jewish leaders said Romania was unfit to head a Holocaust remembrance forum because it has not done enough to come to grips with its own Holocaust-era culpability. Approximately 380,000 Jews were murdered in Romania-controlled areas during the Holocaust, according to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. “Romania’s actions prove it is not ready […]
By JTA
A nominee for the top court in Massachusetts is facing opposition in part because of his affiliation with the Anti-Defamation League. Joseph S. Berman, 49, a regional leader of the New England ADL and a commissioner for the national ADL since 2006, was nominated as a judge for the state Superior Court in October by […]
By JTA
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he would be willing to speak to the Knesset, but only on the issues he chooses. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a public statement last week called on Abbas to address the Knesset and said he would travel to Ramallah to speak to the P.A. leadership. “Netanyahu comes […]
By JTA
President Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the United States would consult closely with Israel as talks with Iran go forward. “Consistent with our commitment to consult closely with our Israeli friends, the president told the prime minister that he wants the United States and Israel to begin consultations immediately regarding our efforts […]
By JTA
The student-run Harvard Ichthus Christian blog website apologized for an anonymous post by a Jewish convert to Christianity who wrote that Jews deserve to be persecuted for killing Jesus. The apology was issued on Friday, and the original post that was published last Wednesday has been removed from the site. “(W)e sincerely apologize for breaching […]
By JTA
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he would be willing to speak to the Knesset, but only on the issues he chooses. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Abbas last week to address the Knesset and said he would be willing to travel to Ramallah to speak to the PA leadership. “Netanyahu comes up […]
By JTA
Citing anti-Semitic content, a French court sanctioned a publishing house for five books, including one first printed more than a century ago. The court in Bobigny, near Paris, last week handed down a blanket ban on the publication and dissemination of one book, “The Anthology of Quotes against Jews, Judaism and Zionism” by Paul-Eric Blanrue. […]
By JTA
Finnish police are investigating whether a captain overloaded a boat that sought to breach Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. The captain, Mika Jamian, is suspected of exceeding the maximum number of passengers allowed, according to a report Thursday by the Turun Sonomat daily. It said the ship, the Estelle, carried 30 people when it […]
By JTA
An email from an athletic trainer at the U.S. Air Force Academy pledging to “talk about Jesus Christ” at work does not reflect Air Force policy, the academy said, but the official will not be disciplined. “Mr. Allen Willoughby does not speak for the Air Force’s Academy and we absolutely do not tolerate proselytizing among […]
By JTA
Israel’s proposal that Iran totally dismantle its nuclear capacity in exchange for sanctions relief would likely lead to war, a top White House official said. The official, in a conference call Wednesday with think tanks and advocacy groups sympathetic to the Obama administration’s Iran strategy, outlined the proposal that the major powers will put to […]
By JTA
U.S. Senate leaders pledged to revisit intensified Iran sanctions after the Thanksgiving holiday. “The Senate must be prepared to move forward with a new bipartisan Iran sanctions bill when the Senate returns after Thanksgiving recess. And I am committed to do so,” Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the majority leader, told The Hill, a Capitol Hill […]
By JTA
The Jewish community of Paraguay inaugurated a new Jewish museum which includes the country’s first Holocaust studies center. The Walter Kochmann Jewish Museum of Paraguay, which opened to the public last week, has been under construction for the past 11 years, according to a report by the news site ABC.com.py. The museum is located inside […]
By JTA
A poll showed majority support for the Obama administration strategy of easing sanctions on Iran in exchange for a partial rollback of its nuclear program. A CNN poll released Thursday and conducted by ORC international showed 56 percent of respondents favored “an interim deal that would ease some of those economic sanctions and in exchange […]
By JTA
Detroit is bringing in the Jews. A couple of weeks after hiring Brad Ausmus as manager, the Tigers on Wednesday traded for Ian Kinsler, previously of the Texas Rangers, to play second base. The cost for the Jewish infielder, a three-time American League All-Star: mega-salaried first baseman Prince Fielder and a cool $30 million. Lucky […]
By JTA
A German pastor who defended Jews’ rights to ritual circumcision will receive the highest award of the Central Council of Jews in Germany in ceremonies in Berlin Thursday evening. The awarding of the Leo Baeck Prize will honor Nikolaus Schneider, 66, president of the council of the Evangelical Church in Germany – the country’s main […]
By JTA
Yeshiva University President Richard Joel acknowledged the school was facing “substantial deficits.” In an email to faculty and staff obtained by JTA, Joel disclosed that the measures taken to shore up finances at the New York City university following the financial crisis in 2008 have been insufficient. “We intended to achieve a balanced budget by […]
By JTA
A Ukrainian billionaire living in London is being sued by his rabbi over a joint property venture. Rabbi Yonah Pruss claims that he and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, a philanthropist who is involved in the Chabad movement, entered into a deal to find, purchase and manage investment properties in Britain along with a surveyor, Colin Gershinson, according […]
By JTA
A white supremacist was executed in Missouri for killing a man at a St. Louis-area synagogue 25 years ago. The execution had been stayed Tuesday evening by two district court judges due to concerns over the drug used for the execution. The U.S. Supreme Court early Wednesday morning upheld the death sentence and the use […]
By JTA
The public editor of The New York Times said she received hundreds of complaints last week after the newspaper used a large and sympathetic photograph of a distraught Palestinian Authority mother to illustrate a story about her son’s stabbing to death of a sleeping Israeli soldier sitting next to him on a public bus. The […]
By JTA
Europe’s first Jewish divinity program at a state university opened in Germany at the University of Potsdam outside Berlin. The School for Jewish Theology, which launched Monday, is being called a groundbreaking development in the German university system, which until now has only subsidized Catholic and Protestant theological training programs. Islamic programs also were introduced […]
By JTA
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), a co-chairman of the Congressional caucus on Turkey, pressed the Turkish foreign minister on reports of Antisemitism and human rights abuses in his country. Cohen said he asked Ahmet Davutoglu when the caucus met Monday with a Turkish delegation about reports of a surge of Antisemitism of the repression of dissent […]
By JTA
Pope Francis, reacting to the disruption of a recent interfaith Kristallnacht memorial in Buenos Aires, Argentina, told Latin American religious leaders visiting the Vatican that “aggression cannot be an act of faith.” “Preaching intolerance is a form of militancy that must be overcome,” Francis told the delegation on Tuesday. The pope made his remarks a […]
By JTA
Leftists may not like Moshe Feiglin’s view of the Palestinian Authority, but they love him for his pro-marijuana stance. Meretz MK says, “On this we have a shared goal.” Feiglin reveals, “I don’t smoke.”
By JTA
French President Francois Hollande visited the Jerusalem graves of the victims of the attack on a Toulouse Jewish school on Tuesday, accompanied by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and members of the Sandler and Monsonego families. Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30; his children Gabriel, 6, and Aryeh,3; and Miriam Monsonego, 8, were killed in March 2012 when […]
By JTA
The Polish edition of Forbes magazine apologized for three articles about the restitution of prewar property of Jewish communities that targeted the leaders of Poland’s organized Jewish community and several Jewish organizations. The apology for the articles published in September was published Monday on the magazine’s website. The original articles were titled “Who are our […]
By JTA
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday there will always be a job waiting in Israel for a United Nations interpreter caught wondering aloud at an excessive number of anti-Israel resolutions while her microphone was still on. The interpreter’s remarks came during the Nov. 14 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly’s Fourth Assembly, attended by […]
By JTA
Fire damaged the first floor of the former site of the Agriprocessors kosher meat processing plant in Iowa. The late Friday night fire at Agri Star Meat & Poultry in Postville started in a dryer that was left on in the plant’s laundry room, according to reports, and has been classified as accidental. No one […]
By JTA
Cornelius Gurlitt said he is the legal owner of the 1,400 works of Nazi-looted art found in his Munich apartment and he will fight for them. At issue are long-lost works by Chagall, Picasso, Matisse and others deemed “degenerate” by the Nazis. “I won’t give anything back voluntarily,” Gurlitt, 80, said in the German-language Spiegel […]
By JTA
Authorities charged the owner of a New York insurance company with helping William Rapfogel, the former chief of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, steal more than $7 million from the organization. The owner, Joseph Ross, was arrested and charged with a litany of crimes, including first-degree grand larceny and money laundering, according to The […]
By JTA
Italian police launched a widespread operation against the neo-Nazi Internet hate organization Stormfront. On Thursday, police searched the homes of 35 people aged 17-51 in more than 20 towns and cities up and down the Italian peninsula on suspicion of spreading ideas on the Internet “based on racial and ethnic hatred and incitement to commit […]
By JTA
Hungarian officials questioned the methodology of a survey that showed greater fear of anti-Semitism among Jews in Hungary than in other European countries. The head of the Hungarian delegation to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Gergely Prohle, raised “several questions with relation to methodology, strongly questioning its representative nature,” according to a Nov. 12 statement […]
By JTA
U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice said Israeli settlement expansion announcements helped spur recent tensions between Israel and the Palestinians. In a speech Thursday to a Washington think tank, the Middle East Institute, Rice said the United States remained committed to Middle East peacemaking, but made clear that Jewish settlement construction plans are hampering those […]
By JTA
A police investigation into sex abuse allegations against a prominent London rabbi has been dropped. The Metropolitan Police said Friday that the Crown Prosecution Service would not bring charges against a 54-year-old man regarding allegations of sexual assault, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported on its website. Several London rabbis have confirmed to JTA in […]
By JTA
Ronny Naftaniel, the former leader of Holland’s main pro-Israel lobby, was feted by the Dutch prime minister and hundreds of others. “I grew up observing you,” Premier Mark Rutte told Naftaniel Monday at a speech at Naftaniel’s retirement party at the Hague’s Royal Theater. “Your optimism is unparalleled and as long as you maintain that […]
By JTA
Authorities charged the owner of a New York insurance company with helping William Rapfogel, the former chief of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, steal more than $7 million from the organization. The owner, Joseph Ross, was arrested Wednesday and charged with a litany of crimes, including first-degree grand larceny and money laundering, according to […]
By JTA
A new drama series to be aired on the NBC subsidiary USA Network will be the first American television series to be filmed in Israel, and most of the scenes will be in eastern Jerusalem. “Dig” will be filmed in the City of David national park located in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem as well […]
By JTA
The street in front of the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington has been renamed Dimitar Peshev Plaza, in honor of the man credited with halting the deportation of about 50,000 Jews. In March 1943, Peshev, who was the deputy speaker of the Bulgarian Parliament at the time, heard of a deportation order and decided he had […]
By JTA
A Brooklyn academy touted as the model for a national movement of Hebrew charter schools received an F on its New York City Department of Education Progress Report. The Hebrew Language Academy Charter School, which opened in 2009 and has 450 students in kindergarten through fifth grade, is one of 23 New York City elementary […]
By JTA
The Israel Defense Forces has sent a 148-member humanitarian delegation to the Philippines to provide search-and-rescue and medical services to areas hard hit by Typhoon Haiyan. The team left Israel on Wednesday equipped with a field hospital as well as about 100 tons of humanitarian and medical supplies, according to the IDF. The team will […]
By JTA
Fundamentalist Christians disrupted a joint Jewish-Christian ceremony commemorating Kristallnacht held at the Buenos Aires City´s Metropolitan Cathedral Tuesday night. The event was organized by the Inter-Religious Dialogue Committee and Bnai Brith Argentina. When the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Mario Poli, tried to start the ceremony’s liturgy of commemoration, the fundamentalist group interrupted the ceremony, praying […]
By JTA
Belgian police have arrested a man whom they suspect of planning an attack against Israeli diplomats in Brussels. The police department of Uccle, the Brussels suburb where the Israeli embassy is located, confirmed on Tuesday the Oct. 17 arrest of one man who is thought to have tried to enter the embassy while carrying a […]
By JTA
A fourth man was charged in an alleged anti-Semitic attack on five religious Jews in Sydney. The 26-year-old appeared in court on Tuesday and was denied bail after being arrested the previous day. Among the charges are possessing a knife in a public place and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He and three others are […]
By JTA
Two relatives of the man who has refused to give his wife a religious divorce temporarily resigned their positions with the religious publisher Artscroll. Yosaif Asher Weiss and Yisroel Weiss will temporarily resign from Artscroll, according to a blog post yesterday on the publisher’s website. Artscroll had come under fire for continuing to employ the […]
By JTA
The rate at which America’s Orthodox Jewish population is growing — and the non-Orthodox population is shrinking — is more dramatic than previously thought, according to Pew Research Center survey data. In a finding first reported Tuesday in the Forward, Steven M. Cohen, a Jewish sociologist, parsed the data from the center’s recent survey of […]
By JTA
The Council of Europe will not ban Jewish ritual circumcision of boys, its leader assured members of the Conference of European Rabbis. Thorbjorn Jagland, the council’s secretary general, said Monday in Berlin that he wanted to make it “absolutely clear … that in no way does the Council of Europe want to ban the circumcision […]
By JTA
A lifelong exposure to public Christian prayer drove a Jewish woman to sue a small New York town for violating freedom of religion. She won the case, but the Supreme Court might overrule the decision.
By JTA
German authorities have bowed to international pressure and are publishing a partial list of artworks found in a Munich apartment. The spectacular art find – including works by Chagall, Picasso, Matisse and Beckmann – was publicized by the Munich-based Focus magazine earlier this month. Officials are assembling a “task force” of experts to speed up provenance research. […]
By JTA
The number of anti-Semitic incidents in Argentina dropped in 2012 compared to the previous year, though the number of physical assaults and online attacks rose. According to the annual report of anti-Semitic incidents in Argentina released last week by DAIA, the Argentine Jewish political umbrella organization, there were 243 acts of anti-Semitism based on recorded […]
By JTA
Italian actor Moni Ovadia resigned from the Milan Jewish community with accusations that it is a “propaganda office” of the Israeli government. The announcement by Ovadia, 67, in an interview published last week in the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano sparked a row in the Italian Jewish world. “I don’t want to stay in a place […]
By JTA
Saul Kagan founded the Claims Conference, which brought in tens of billions of dollars in payments to survivors of the Holocaust. He also helped found Yad VaShem in Jerusalem.
By JTA
The widow of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority paid for the Swiss medical tests on the late Palestinian leader’s body that showed he did not die of natural causes. The Washington Free Beacon reported Friday that a spokesperson for the University Centre of Legal Medicine in Lausanne told the newspaper that Suha Arafat and […]
By JTA
The superintendent of a New York State school district that has been accused of anti-Semitic harassment said the district “has a long history of acceptance and tolerance.” Joan Carbone, superintendent of the Pine Bush Central School District 90 miles north of New York City, acknowledged in a statement issued Sunday that the school is getting […]
By JTA
Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht with a visit to a Jewish kindergarten in Berlin. “Connecting Jews in Germany to their roots is the worthiest retort to the darkness that prevailed here 75 years ago,” Rabbi David Lau said during his first official visit to Berlin, where he went to the […]
By JTA
The king of Spain, who is recovering from hip surgery, left his residence for the first time since the operation to greet a delegation of Jews led by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. King Juan Carlos left the Palace of Zarzuela to greet Adelson and other activists with the Keren Hayesod–United Israel Appeal philanthropic body on […]
By JTA
A group that seeks to convert Jews to Christianity removed from its website references to a scheduled fundraiser appearance by George W. Bush, though a Bush spokesman said the former president still plans to attend (GW Bush Fundraising for Proselytizers of Jews in America and Israel). Bush was scheduled to headline a Nov. 14 fundraiser […]
By JTA
The lesson of Kristallnacht is to speak out “against anti-Semitism and intolerance,” President Obama said in marking the 75th anniversary of the pogrom that presaged the Holocaust. “Kristallnacht foreshadowed the systematic slaughter of six million Jews and millions of other innocent victims,” Obama said. “Seventy-five years later, Kristallnacht now signifies the tragic consequences of silence […]
By JTA
An array of liberal Jewish groups lauded the U.S. Senate for passing a bill that would extend federal anti-discrimination protections to gays. “Today’s bipartisan Senate passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is an overdue and historic accomplishment in our nation’s effort to end workplace discrimination for the LGBT community,” Reform clergyman David Saperstein, the director […]
By JTA
The United Nations’ cultural body suspended the voting rights of the United States and Israel two years after they stopped paying dues in protest over its granting full membership to the Palestinians. Both countries missed a Friday deadline to provide an official justification of non-payment and a plan to pay back the missed dues to […]
By JTA
A Frenchman who called a Jewish school in Toulouse to gloat over the murder of four Jews was sent to jail for three months. The criminal court of Toulouse sentenced the 21-year-old man, who was not named, on Nov. 4 for making four telephone calls to the Ohr Hatora Jewish School in Toulouse in March, […]
By JTA
Nearly a third of respondents to a survey on anti-Semitism in Europe said they “seriously considered emigrating” because of perceived anti-Semitism. In the survey among 5,847 Jews from nine European Union member states, 29 percent of all respondents said that they considered emigrating in recent years because they did “not feel safe” living in their […]
August 14, 2026 
