Complaints by Arab states led UNESCO to cancel the exhibition.
By JTA
The decision arose out of UNESCO’s support for peace talks.
By Daniel Mael
J Street and Open Hillel claim they want openness and honesty in the discussion about Israel, but that's only for those who agree with them.
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 […]
The Tu B’Shvat holiday Thursday literally has roots in the Land of Israel
Israel's Iron Dome defense system saved more lives early Thursday morning.
The Knesset easily passed on preliminary reading on Wednesday a bill that would make it illegal to use the word Nazi and Nazi symbols, but Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said the measure violates freedom of speech. Only 19 Knesset Members voted against the bill, sponsored by Likud Knesset Member Shimon Ohayon, with 44 in favor, […]
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 Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency
The expression “only in Israel” usually relates to the country's positive uniqueness. Not this time.
In 1998, Katz lost a close race to Anthony Weiner for Chuck Schumer's congressional seat.
Traditionalists can still plant trees in events throughout the country sponsored by the Jewish National Fund (JNF).
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 […]
When a Muslim king asks the Jews to pray for rain you know that the world is not so out of kilter.
By Kosher Today
The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets has named Rabbi Aaron Metzger of Monsey, New York, as the new head of the Kosher Law Enforcement Division. “As part of his duties, he will work to protect consumers by ensuring compliance with the certification, record keeping and signage requirements relating to kosher food, and […]
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 […]
Hesh's Bakery, a Northeast Philadelphia kosher bakery, in the Rhawnhurst section of town, known for its butter cookies and chocolate-chip pound cake, closed over the weekend after more than a half-century in business, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. A message posted outside the bakery read, in a seemingly rushed style: "It is with a very sad […]
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
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 […]
By the time Hitchcock's film was finished, the allies' political needs had changed.
By JTA
Supporters of the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne hijacked three French pro-Israel websites in a coordinated cyber attack. The attack Thursday paralyzed the websites Israel-Flash.com, Europe-Israel.org and liguedefensejuive.com, the website of the French Jewish Defense League, and replaced their content with messages of support for Dieudonne, Le Nouvel Observateur reported. On the hijacked websites, the hackers called […]
By JTA
Amiri Baraka, the New Jersey poet laureate whose works were celebrated by blacks but often condemned by Jews, has died. Baraka’s writings, lectures and poetry brought him national renown beginning in the 1960s, and the one-time black nationalist was celebrated by many African Americans as a voice of the disenfranchised. He was a winner of […]
By JTA
The president of Hungary’s Jewish umbrella group criticized a planned monument to victims of the Germany occupation for ignoring Hungary’s complicity in the Holocaust. The memorial announced Thursday would be built in Budapest’s Freedom Square and pay tribute to “all Hungarian victims with the erection of the monument commemorating the tragic German occupation and the […]
By JTA
For the second time in less than a month, Israel demanded clarifications from the Netherlands on Dutch firms’ divestment from Israel. On Friday, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Dutch ambassador to Israel, Caspar Veldkamp, to provide clarifications on the decision of PGGM, a large pensions administrator, to divest from five Israeli banks because […]
By JTA
This discovery was first announced in JewishPress.com in April 2013. The longest water tunnel ever discovered in Israel is being excavated in Jerusalem, near the train station in the southern part of the city. Both the tunnel and a stone column head at its opening, belonging to a state structure dating back to the kings […]
By JTA
Prison authorities in Russia released a Jewish schoolteacher whose controversial bribery conviction triggered protests by leading politicians. The teacher, Ilya Farber, was released Friday from the Tver correctional prison after serving three years of a 7-year sentence for accepting $13,000 in bribes. “The campaign to resolve the issue of [political] prisoners just got another devoted […]
A congressional letter slams the American Studies Association's academic boycott of Israel as antithetical to academic freedom and as "thinly veiled bigotry." UPDATED!
Caleb Jacoby, the missing suburban Boston teenager, has been found and is safe!
The French government has won a last minute appeal on Thursday to France’s highest court, which reinstated a ban lifted hours before by a third court and decided that the French anti-Semitic comic Dieudonne M'bala M'bala cannot appear as scheduled in Nance. Interior Minister Manuel Valls appealed to the Council of State, France’s highest court […]
By JTA
A court in France scrapped a municipal ban on a performance by the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala Thursday after he petitioned to negate the ruling by a court in Nantes. The judge rejected the argument made by Christian de Lavernée, a municipal administrator, who banned the show on grounds that it would create a […]
By JTA
A Chinese businessman who is determined to buy an American newspaper said he is just as smart as the Jews who own some of those newspapers. Chen Guangbiao, chairman of Jiangsu Huangpu Recycling Resources, who made his fortune in recycling construction materials in China, announced late last month that he would travel to New York […]
By JTA
The family of murdered Brooklyn landlord Menachem Stark has contributed $50,000 to what is now a total reward to $72,000 for information leading to the killer of the Satmar Hasidic real estate developer. The New York Police offered $20,000 and the NYPD Crime Stoppers program pitched in with $2,000. “We have increased the reward in […]
"He was definitely casing the guy," police source said.
16 year old Caleb Jacoby, student at Maimonides School in Brookline, Massachusetts has been missing since mid-day Monday.
By JTA
The famous Girl Guides cookies now have the OU approval as being kosher thanks to an all-Orthodox troop in Canada, but their chocolate mint cookies still are on the forbidden list. All Girl Scout cookies in the United States have been kosher for at least 20 years, said organization spokesman Stewart Goodbody. When the 31 […]
The Haredi husband faces trial before an Israeli rabbinical court and, ultimately, Israel’s criminal justice system.
Rabbi Mordechai Rosenberg, who was accused last week of botching a circumcision of an 8-day-old boy who was rushed to the hospital after his penis had accidentally been cut off, told a court that is not at fault. The incident revived worldwide publicity at a time when anti-circumcision lobbies have succeeded in convincing some European […]
State Senator Anthony Williams introduced a Resolution into the Pennsylvania legislature condemning the ASA boycott of Israel as antisemitic.
J.P. Morgan Chase will pay $1.7 billion to victims of the Bernard Madoff Ponzi fraud scheme, according to deal announced by the Justice Department’s prosecutors, who agreed to delay criminal charges against the bank. The financial institution is charged with violating the Bank Secrecy Act, and charges will be delayed for two years pending the […]
The international Jewish fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Pi (AEPi), located on American campuses across the country, has been accepted as the first frat to be a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. “AEPi is a remarkable organization with affiliates on campuses across the country and provides an array of educational and […]
By JTA
French interior Minister Manuel Valls instructed French mayors to ban performances by the antisemitic comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala. Valls sent the non-binding recommendation in a circular to French municipalities on Monday, days before Dieudonne is scheduled to launch a nationwide tour, the French news agency AFP reported. “I have sent an instruction today to all […]
By JTA
Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, was elected president of the Association for Jewish Studies at its annual meeting. Sarna is the fourth Brandeis professor to serve in the role — one was his father, Nahum Sarna. “This is a great honor to be a leading an organization that plays […]
By JTA
Stark was remembered by friends and relatives as a “go-to guy.”
By JTA
Aaron Liberman of Northwestern checked in for the final minute of action against Michigan in the Wildcats’ 74-51 men’s basketball loss in Ann Arbor on Sunday and.in the process, the red-shirt freshman made history twice: According to the Big Ten News Network, Liberman was the first player to wear a yarmulke in Big Ten Conference […]
By JTA
New Year’s revelers shot fireworks and urinated in Germany’s Holocaust memorial in Berlin. Reacting to a disgusting and shocking video that also explicitly showed a man urinating amid young party-goers celebrating among the 2711 stone slabs at the memorial last week, spokesperson Jenifer Stolz told JTA that “we are all quite appalled. But it is […]
By JTA
A Dutch soccer team is facing criticism for playing in Abu Dhabi after agreeing to the emirate’s demand not to let in the team’s Israeli defender. Two Dutch politicians and several media criticized the soccer team Vitesse from Arnhem over the weekend for agreeing to play in Abu Dhabi despite the refusal Saturday to let […]
Grabbing a Jewish girl, flicking a lighter next to her hair and saying "let's burn the Jew" is apparently not a racially motivated act in Winnipeg.
So many of 2013's pro-Israel bright lights on U.S. campuses were the result of a single strong individual refusing to allow anti-Israel forces to get away with what they have for far too long on far too many campuses.
By JTA
French comedian Diedonne M’bala M’bala complained to police about threats to blow up the theater in which he performs. The bomb threat was made Thursday against the Main D’Or theater, which Dieudonne operates, in Paris’ 11th arrondissement, according to MetroNews.fr. Police rushed to the scene but found no explosives. Performances by Dieudonne, a professed anti-Semite […]
By JTA
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife are responsible for the largest on-record charitable donation in the United States in 2013. For the second straight year, Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave away 18 million Facebook shares — a gift worth more than $970 million — to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation in December, […]
“He owed a lot of people money.”
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
A new Facebook campaign by McGill University American History professor Gil Troy, called “Troycott,” has garnered more than 1,100 “likes” in three days, topping the 827 votes of American Studies Association (ASA) members for a boycott of Israel. Troy, who is also an iEngage Project Fellow with the Shalom Hartman Institute, told JNS.org that he […]
By Jewish News Syndicate (JNS)
The Modern Language Association does not want to listen to pro-Israel language at a discussion on academic boycotts.
Nazi lovers and sports fans now have chance to add a Nazi-era soccer poster, complete with a swastika, to their collections. A Nazi-era poster of soccer game between Ireland and Germany, represented by a picture of a swastika, is going on sale at an auction in Dublin.The poster is expected to bring in up to […]
By JTA
French police are searching for an unidentified man who performed an anti-Semitic gesture at three locales connected to the murder of Jews. A photo of the suspect surfaced last week online in which he performed the quenelle, a quasi-Nazi salute, in front of the Toulouse school where the Muslim extremist Mohammed Merah murdered four Jews […]
Now quinoa is OK for Pesach says the OU.
By JTA
Israeli government money was transferred for the first time to the Reform Movement in Israel to pay the salaries of four community Reform rabbis. The transfer of the more than $86,000 on Wednesday comes 18 months after Israel’s Supreme Court approved an arrangement to enable non-Orthodox spiritual leaders who lead congregations to receive state salaries […]
Chabad emissaries would share the same status as those who do national service.
There were many gloriously bright pro-Israel lights to celebrate on U.S. campuses in 2013.
Queen Elizabeth will grant Israeli Haredi Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira one of the Commonwealth’s highest civilian honors with an appointment as Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the British Embassy announced Tuesday. Rabbi Shapira is the son of former Haredi Knesset Member Rabbi Avraham Yosef Shapira. The Embassy said he will be […]
Some Russian-descent students just don’t understand that Israel is a Jewish state, Mahmoud Abbas notwithstanding.
A Tennessee court Monday sentenced self-acclaimed anti-Semitic and anti-Christian Satanists Justin Baker to four years in prison for defacing a Torah scroll and prayer books in Memphis last January. Baker pleaded guilty on December 9 to damaging and defiling holy Jewish items of the Margolin Hebrew Academy. Judge Roy Morgan Jr, sentenced Baker to the […]
By JTA
Two artworks hanging in Germany’s parliament building in Berlin may have been confiscated or acquired at artificially depressed prices by the Nazis from the original owners, German newspapers reported. The Die Welt newspaper suggested that one of the works coincidentally stems from a gallery owned by an uncle of Hildebrand Gurlitt, the Nazi-era dealer whose […]
By JTA
National Basketball Association star Tony Parker has apologized for performing an anti-Semitic salute after a three-year-old photo was published in the French media. The photo shows Parker, who was born in Belgium and is French by nationality, performing the quenelle salute earlier this year standing next to the gesture’s founder, anti-Semitic French comedian Dieudonne Mlaba […]
Researchers have revealed three rare 2,000-year-old fabrics that were dyed with an extract and in prestigious colors mentioned in Jewish sources.
By Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency
The connection runs so deep, that the Arab villagers have alerted Efrat authorities against terror cells.
Only in Israel. The Eretz Israel Museum in Tel Aviv is naming a hall after U.S. fugitive and former Comverse technology CEO Kobi Alexander, who along with his sister donated money for renovating the museum’s Glass Pavilion, now called the Shaula and Kobi Alexander Center. Alexander, a native of Israel, fled to Namibia in 2006 […]
By JTA
A New Jersey man said he was fired after refusing to fire a man his boss called a “no-good New York city Jew.” Thomas Greco, a Middleton, New Jersey father of five, said after he was hired in May 2011 as a superintendent at the U.S. Custom House in Lower Manhattan, his boss, Howard Anastasi, […]
The Knesset will discuss and vote on a new bill to give official kosher food inspectors powers to make sure that restaurants and other public places that are certified as kosher live up to their commitment. The Israeli media immediately labeled the supervisors the “Kashrus Police,” implying some kind of Saudi or Iranian religious goon […]
By JTA
Amid a public debate in France over an allegedly anti-Semitic gesture, French media have reproduced a photo of a man performing it outside the Toulouse school where four Jews were murdered. The photo, which was published Monday on the website of the France 3 broadcaster, shows a man wearing a shirt featuring a portrait of […]
The government will actively promote abortions by funding them for women between ages 20 and 33 if a proposal by a Health Ministry committee is accepted. Israel’s”basket” of drugs and medical treatment gives hefty discounts for citizens, and the government adds “goodies” to the basket each year. The committee that came up with this coming […]
President Shimon Peres delivered a Christian New Year’s message enthusiastically proclaiming that Israel “will continue to guarantee access to holy sites for all” in the wake of recent “price tag” attacks on Christian sites. “There is no place for violence in our society, even more so when it targets people or places of faith,” he […]
Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Europeans and Americans are well-represented.
By Tibbi Singer
Tony Parker did the “quenelle.”
By JTA
A star athlete from France is facing disciplinary action for showing support for an antisemitic comedian whose shows may soon be banned by the French government. Britain’s Football Association said Saturday it was considering punishing Nicolas Anelka, a French national playing for the West Bromwich Albion soccer team, for performing, during a match, the quenelle […]
By JTA
Lithuania’s prime minister condemned a lawmaker for suggesting Jews are cheap and “are just looking to take from Lithuania.” “I judge this statement to be very negative and it doesn’t represent the party’s position,” Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius said Dec. 23, according to the news site Delfi.lt. A spokesperson for Butkevicius’ Social Democratic Party of […]
By JTA
Plumbers fixing a water leak in central Portugal discovered what appears to be a cluster of 600-year-old Jewish ritual baths. The discovery was made earlier this year in the city of Coimbra as the plumbers were replacing the piping of an old building in what used to be the Jewish part of the Old City, […]
By JTA
The New York Times is conducting a survey of Hungarian Jews to help deepen its coverage of anti-Semitism in that country. The survey, published online Tuesday, asks respondents whether they experienced anti-Semitism and considered emigrating as a result, among other questions. “An openly anti-Semitic political party has gained power in Hungary’s Parliament in recent years, […]
By JTA
A new non-denominational Jewish burial society has replaced an Orthodox one at a Boston-area Jewish funeral home. Community Hevra Kadisha of Greater Boston, which launched this fall and is part of a growing movement of Jewish burial societies that include non-Orthodox volunteers, began performing tahara – the ritual preparation of bodies for burial – at […]
Haredi political leaders across the board called a court ruling for new elections in Beit Shemesh” corrupt,” “racist” and a sign of “dictatorship,” among other less than complimentary adjectives. The court accepted a petition by Attorney General Yehudah Weinstein that documented corruption in the voting October 22 as ground for voiding the election results, which […]
By JTA
An American Jewish government contractor kidnapped by Al Qaeda in Pakistan again has asked the Obama administration to negotiate with his captors. Al Qaeda released a video message from Warren Weinstein, a former Peace Corps and USAID official, late Wednesday night in which he says he feels “totally abandoned and forgotten,” according to the Washington […]
By JTA
The nephew of Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy was arrested for trespassing in a yeshiva high school in Stamford in an apparently drunken condition. Kerry Mallory, an actor who appears in the new movie “The Wolf of Wall Street,” was arrested Monday on the property of Yeshiva Bais Binyomin, along with his girlfriend Courtney Wilson. Both […]
Police have charged a man with assault and threatening to tattoo a swastika on the forehead of a woman, the Doylestown, Pennsylvania Intelligencer reported. The woman was crying in her hotel room when police arrived after having been alerted of a disturbance. She said that 33-year-old Clinten Lawrence McClain assaulted her, threatened to kill her […]
News of Ostreicher’s escape from Bolivia broke Dec. 16, and little was known about the circumstances of his return to America until actor Sean Penn told the Associated Press on Dec. 18 that he was with Ostreicher following a “humanitarian operation” to free the Jewish businessman “from the corrupt prosecution and imprisonment he was suffering in Bolivia.”
German-American non-Jewish attorney Peter Sonnenthal and his family, which has Jewish roots (his grandmother was Jewish and perished in Auschwitz) have been fighting for more than two decades to reclaim lucrative properties stolen from them under the Nazi regime, Spiegel reported, adding that Sonnenthal continues to face legal hurdles in trying to restore this legacy. […]
By JTA
They beat a man suspected of performing the "quenelle" and locked him inside the trunk of a parked car.
By JTA
Two more American institutions of higher learning officially withdrew their memberships from the American Studies Association after its membership voted in favor of an academic boycott of Israel. Kenyon College and Indiana University on Monday joined Brandeis University and Penn State Harrisburg in canceling their memberships in the association. Dozens of other universities also have […]
One judge wondered how meat could be considered kosher, if the employees of the kosher slaughtering firm "just passed on the cows."
By JTA
Ephraim Mirvis became the first sitting British chief rabbi to address the annual Limmud conference, defying the opposition of prominent haredi Orthodox rabbis in England. Mirvis, who received a standing ovation Monday upon entering the packed auditorium at the University of Warwick, did not directly address the controversy in his session on this week’s Torah […]
By JTA
Rapper Kanye West told a Chicago radio station that he wants to take back the “ignorant compliment” he made about Jews last month during an interview on the New York City radio station WWPR-FM. West said, “Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people.” In an interview last week with the […]
Jews make up three of the 10 biggest gainers in net worth in 2013, as listed by Forbes. Among the Jews are Google co-founder Larry Page, whose mother was Jewish, who was raised without religion and who intermarried. The biggest jump in bank accounts was that of gambling casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, whose net worth jumped […]
By JTA
Pollack is basketball’s ultimate numbers and public relations man.
The rabbinical leader of the Vishnitz Chas - the new Knesset law that Haredim must serve in the army just like every Jew in the country. The two rabbis spoke for approximately 15 minutes, a relatively long time, and spoke “words of Torah and subjects that are on the agenda,” the Haredi website Kikar HaShabbat […]
By JTA
The northern Greek city of Thessaloniki will build a Holocaust research center at the site where some 50,000 of the city’s Jews were deported to Nazi death camps. “This is the fulfilment of a historic responsibility for Thessaloniki,” city Mayor Yiannis Boutaris told reporters. The agreement to establish the Memorial Center on Holocaust Education Remembrance […]