יום חמישי, י״ג תשרי תשפ״זThursday, September 24, 2026
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By JTA
Even Peter Beinart would not have appreciated the latest German anti-Zionist slur, based on the Moloch, the practice of child sacrifice by idol worshippers and used as libel against Jews as child-killers.
By JTA
First lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha visited the Holocaust memorial in Berlin amid tight security Wednesday morning under tight security. They spent about a half-hour walking through the sea of 2,711 slabs that comprise the memorial, according to Uwe Neumaerker, its director. They were guarded by helicopters hovering over the area, which […]
Israelis who may fear that European Union nations would look unfavorably at their country's efforts to rid itself of some 60 thousand illegal migrant workers from Africa, may have less to worry about, as Germany is in the process of initiating a similar policy. Germans have been complaining for years now about the influx of […]
Germany officials recently met in Israel for the first time to negotiate aid for Holocaust survivors, whom they visited in their homes and at soup kitchens. Now it announces $800 million more aid.
Are we to believe that these Jews who were devout and pious were being punished?
The audience that attended a new production of a Wagner opera, complete with acts of Nazi atrocities, should have been Holocaust deniers. But it’s too late now. The production was yanked off stage.
By JTA
German police arrested on Monday one of the 10 most wanted Nazis, 93-year-old Hans Lipschis, who is facing charges of complicity in murder as a former guard at the Auschwitz extermination camp. State prosecutors in Stuttgart are preparing an indictment against Lipschis, a native of Lithuania who was a guard at Auschwitz from the autumn […]
The Chief Rabbinate of Israel has sent a letter of support to Berlin Chabad Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal, who was charged by an anti-circumcision activist for practicing the ritual of oral suction of a small amount of blood at a circumcision. The practice is widely accepted in Israel but caused controversy in the New York area […]
By JTA
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will receive a top award from Europe's mainstream Orthodox rabbinic body, the Conference of European Rabbis. It announced Monday that Merkel will be awarded the 2013 Lord Jakobovits Prize for European Jewry for her dedication to the German Jewish community and "outspoken denunciation of anti-Semitism throughout Europe." The award will be […]
By JTA
Two artworks sold under duress during the Nazi occupation of Germany will be returned to the heirs of New York art collector Michael Berolzheimer, who died in 1942 after escaping from Germany and settling in suburban WestchesterCounty. Berolzheimer and his family fled from Germany in 1938 after selling his art under duress, traveling first to […]
By JTA
Germany's top Jewish leader has slammed the government's decision not to join efforts to ban the country's most powerful neo-Nazi party. "The decision of the Federal Government is disappointing and politically completely wrong," Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in a statement Wednesday. "They chose hesitation and procrastination over […]
Salafists are frequently refered to in relation to Islamist terror. It is a slippery descriptor that is sometimes used in contradictory ways.
In cases where the Nazi regime judged that protest could spark attention from the broader German public, the decision was made for tactical reasons to appease rather than quell with brute force.
By Barry Rubin
Pretending there’s no elephant in the world doesn’t protect anyone from getting trampled.
Rivers, as usual, laughed at her own so-called joke
The story of three friends in the Holocaust reunited 67 years later.
Russia's strategic geopolitical interests provide an important incentive for Russia to gain a foothold in Cyprus.
Hope is a vital part of visiting the death camps in Europe.
How can anyone calling himself a Rabbi have the chutzpah to ever justify the death of innocents?
By Anav Silverman, Tazpit News Agency
Israel is an ideal location for migrating birds because it is located along the Great Rift Valley flyway.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle applauded the ceasefire agreement between Gaza terror group Hamas and the State of Israel, saying on Wednesday that "if the ceasefire holds, this would be a great relief for all of us, but especially for the people of Israel and Gaza".
If you look up the word "role model" in the dictionary you will find the following definition: "a person whose behavior, example, or success is or can be emulated by others, especially by younger people.”
Jihad marketers are making militant Islam cool, according to a new article in Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper.
By Soeren Kern
An Islamist radical convicted of stabbing two German police officers during a protest against "offensive" cartoons has been sentenced to six years in prison. Murat K, a 26-year-old German-born Salafist of Turkish heritage from the western state of Hessen, openly admitted that he had attacked and wounded the two police officers with a kitchen knife during the cartoon riots in May. He showed no remorse, however, during his trial at the district court in the city of Bonn; he said he had been morally obligated to follow Islamic Sharia law.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai presents a fascinating audio piece from the BBC about the issue of the legality of circumcision in Germany. Be sure to tune in to stay informed!
By Chabad.org
After a court ruling, that brought the future of Germany's Jewish community into question, and reminded some of a darker time in German history, proposed legislation to bring resolution. After months of debate, today the German cabinet decided to establish a new legislation which will clearly enable and support the religious practice of circumcision. "It […]
By Soeren Kern
Muslim protests over an American-made anti-Islamic YouTube film, Innocence of Muslims, have spread to more European cities. Muslim rioters had initially clashed with police in Belgium, Britain and France, but since then, protests have spread to Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Norway, Serbia and Switzerland.
Ritual circumcisions have resumed in the Cologne region of Germany, ending a controversy started in a Cologne court in June, when judges decided ritual circumcision constituted “bodily harm” to boys and religious coercion.
A spokesman for German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said his office is working on an outline for new legislation that will permit circumcision of minor males after a controversial court decision in the summer that criminalized the rite.
The oldest Jewish settlements arose in Cape Town, Kimberley, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Burgersdorp. The settlements in Grahamstown and Graaf Reinet have dissolved. There was a (Jewish) community established in Cape Town, which is the oldest is South Africa, while in Johannesburg, which today houses the largest Jewish settlement in the country, the settlement was first built there in 1887, when about 88 settlers came in from England and Australia to develop the mineral wealth of the land.
By Tibbi Singer
A group called Pro Deutschland is planning to stage a public showing of the anti-Islam film, which has been the focus of huge protests and violent attacks on American and Western diplomatic missions across the Muslim world over the past week. Pro Deutschland, which only numbers a few hundred members, appears to be putting Chancellor Angela Merkel on the spot, having to choose between civil rights and public order.
An Austrian couple is enjoying the sites in the Holy Land after winning an Israel Government Tourist Office competition for “the face of the German tourist in Israel.”
Approximately 300 protesters across the religious spectrum demonstrated in eastern Berlin in favor of religious freedom and the decriminalization of circumcision in Germany.
So let no one praise a nation that murdered a million Jewish babies and children for shedding crocodile tears over the plight of the poor little baby boy who, following a many thousand year old tradition, is circumcised 8 days after birth. Every good person should condemn Germany for what really lies at the heart of efforts to ban circumcision—old-fashioned anti-Semitism, a term coined by Germans for Germans and against Jews.
Does the German government really want to get into a public battle over whether they are better guardians of the health and welfare of Jewish (and Muslim) children than their parents?
By JTA
After an attack on a rabbi in Berlin, Gideon Joffe, the head of the Berlin Jewish community, said he would "not recommend that any Jew go around in parts of Berlin with a kipah." On Tuesday, Rabbi Daniel Alter of Berlin was violently attacked while picking up his daughter from a piano lesson. He currently […]
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Iran a “disgrace” to humanity, during a meeting with the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Germany, David McAllister.
“We are concerned that Interior Minister Yishai didn’t think of becoming better informed about the details."
By Soeren Kern
A recent study revealed that nearly half of all Turks living in Germany say they hope there will be more Muslims than Christians in Germany in the futureIslam is becoming an increasingly important component of the value structure of Turks in Germany, especially among the younger generation of Turkish-Germans, who hold religious views more radical than their elders' views.
A rabbi in Bavaria, Germany, has been slapped with criminal charges of committing bodily harm, in the first known case to arise from an anti-circumcision ruling.
Criminal assault charges have been filed against the rabbi of the Jewish community in oberfränkischen Hof, Rabbi David Goldberg, for circumcision for religious reasons. Chief prosecutor Gerhard Schmitt confirmed that the complaint was filed by a doctor from Hessen, which is under the jurisdiction of the Cologne Regional Court, which decided a while ago that […]
By Soeren Kern
Underscoring German officialdom's anxiety over home grown Islamic terrorism, the German state of Lower Saxony recently published a practical guide to extremist Islam to help citizens identify tell-tale signs of Muslims who are becoming radicalized.
German marcher Bäerbel Pfeiffer asked for forgiveness for her grandfather, an electrician who installed the electrified barbed wire fence at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
By Veli Sirin
Legal obligations and guarantees of human rights should be universally applied – but these should include mutual respect between religious and non-religious people, and members of differing religious communities. Germany would do well to examine thoroughly, respectfully and seriously, the beliefs of its Jewish and Muslim citizens about the circumcision of their sons, not to mention the unquestionable medical advantages.
In 1903, the English colonial minister offered a district for a Jewish settlement in Uganda to the Zionist leadership, whereby the English government brought to realization its efforts “to bring to pass the improvement of the Jewish race.” The 6th Zionist Congress (August 23-8, 1903) concerned itself with the English offer and decided to send an investigative commission to Uganda, but because of strong resistance inside the Zionist organization, the project was not followed up.
By JTA
Germany was warned about a possible terror attack against Israeli athletes one month before the Munich Olympics in 1972, Der Spiegel reported. The weekly magazine reported Sunday on its website that despite solid warnings of an attack plan which were received a month before the Games, no action was taken. The Palestinian terrorists, for example, […]
By JTA
Germany's parliament called on the government to step in to protect the right to religious circumcision of boys, as long as it is done by a medically qualified practitioner who avoids inflicting pain. An overwhelming majority of German lawmakers passed a non-binding resolution Thursday urging the administration of Chancellor Angela Merkel to submit a law […]
After what German diplomats have described as a "disastrous" damage to Germany's image abroad, especially in light of its Nazi past, it appears that Berlin has finally gotten the message.
By Moshe Herman
Yishai and Malkah further discuss Germany's ban on ritual circumcision along with discuss the Levy Report.
On July 11, 1947, the SS Exodus began its journey, but never reached its intended destination. Yesterday, another Exodus story occurred: 229 Jews left the U.S. on a special flight organized by Nefesh b'Nefesh and the State of Israel. Of those on board, 99 were children. There were 38 families - and 59 singles. The oldest person on the flight is 86 years old, the youngest, only 6 months old. But this time, no one stopped them before they could touch down on Israeli soil.
By JTA
Europe's main Orthodox rabbinical body is urging Jews in Germany to uphold the commandment to circumcise newborn sons, despite a court ruling in Germany that said circumcising young boys could be considered a criminal act.
By JTA
Adolf Hitler ordered that the Jewish commander of his army unit during World War I not be persecuted or deported, a German-Jewish publication reported. Susanne Mauss, editor of the Jewish Voice from Germany, found an August 1940 note of the Gestapo ordering that Ernst Hess, a former judge, not be persecuted or deported following an […]
On Saturday Night, July 8th, the 10,000 person signed the petition against the German court's ban on Brit Mila. The petition can be found here: http://jewishpress.com/petition-against-germanys-ban-on-brit-milah/ Members of the JewishPress.com staff plan to present the petition to the German Embassy in Israel this week.
Fighting during World War II took on special significance for U. S. Jewish servicemen and women in the 1940's. They understood that they were fighting a double war - one against the Axis of Evil, and one against blatant world anti-semitism. As Americans, they fought to protect their country, and as Jews they fought to protect their brethren suffering Nazi persecution.
Around 20 organizations representing four million Muslim residents of Germany, announced that the parliament must ensure religious freedom by removing legal doubts about circumcision since the June 26 court ruling. The ruling was also criticized in no uncertain terms by the head of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Dieter Graumann.
The Jewish Hospital in Berlin has suspended all religious circumcisions of children following a ruling delivered by a German court banning the practice.
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle weighed in Friday on a controversial German court ruling on circumcision, saying the country protected religious freedom and traditions, EJP reported. "The ruling on circumcision has provoked annoyance internationally," Westerwelle wrote on his official Twitter account. "We have to be clear: religious traditions are protected in Germany," he added. Westerwelle […]
The French traveler Nicolay, who in 1551 accompanied Jews exiled from France to Constantinople, depicted the life, activities, trade and traffic, culture, and the social setting of the Jews in the following manner:
By Tzvi Fishman
Normally I hate the Germans, but I have to give them credit on this one! Let their banning of brit milah be a reminder to our Jewish brothers and sisters in the Diaspora that we don’t belong in foreign lands. Unfortunately, I doubt whether the new law will affect the Jews of Germany in any meaningful way. After all, if the slaughter of 6 million didn’t make them think twice about living in that polluted, blood-stained gentile land, this new measure isn’t liable to wake them up either.
The anger that burns inside me has come to a boil and I cannot be diplomatic so I will be honest. I have nothing to say to the Germans - they are men, nothing more. They can make all the laws they want. They did in 1933, in 1938, and they will in 2012. Their laws are nothing when compared to the laws of God. Germany has outlawed circumcision. All that means is that it is time for Jews to leave Germany - not just the young ones contemplating having children, but all Jews.
A Cologne district court ruled on Tuesday that parents may not have their sons circumcised for religious reasons, essentially criminalizing religious circumcisions.
If Obama and other world leaders want Merkel to keep propping up the euro with German taxpayers' money, they will have to share some of the burden. Soon, the world will have to come to the rescue of Europe, and help to bail out the eurozone. So until November, the euro's problems are Obama's problems, too.
EJP reports that eight extreme-right politicians on Wednesday were expelled from the Saxony, Germany, state parliament for wearing neo-Nazi T-shirts. The lawmakers, from the controversial National Democratic Party (NDP), were forcibly removed by police after refusing to leave on their own. The speaker of the assembly in Saxony, in formerly communist eastern Germany where NDP […]
By Soeren Kern
The BDS movement against Israel is growing in Germany, hitting the transportation, tourism, music, agriculture, . Critics say the obsession with Israel while human rights are being systematically abused in Muslim countries such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia is a reflection of anti-Semitism.
By JTA
Israel is equipping submarines built in Germany with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, according to an in-depth report in Der Spiegel magazine. The magazine also reported Sunday that the German government has known about Israel's nuclear weapons program for decades, despite its official denials. Last month, Israel received from Germany its fourth Dolphin–class submarine, which is slated […]
European Turkey in its present form consists of the small region around Istanbul, Adrianopolis, Kirkilisse, and Rodosto. For the history of the Jews, the cities Adrianopolis – today’s Edirne, and the capital from 1361 – 1453 – and Constantinople – today’s Istanbul, capital since 1453 – come into consideration. Both cities once had thriving Jewish communities, but show signs of going under today.
The extreme-left Greek Syriza party became the second biggest party in the country on May 6, surpassing the socialist Pasok party. Syriza has a party platform which includes "disengagement from NATO" and "termination of the military cooperation with Israel."
By Soeren Kern
After releasing all but two of the Salafists responsible for the brawl on May 5th, the Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jäger, cast blame on the democratic -- and peaceful -- political party PRO NRW. He ordered police to prevent PRO NRW from displaying anti-Islam any more cartoons during the final phase of the state's regional election campaign, to be held on May 13th.
The virus of antisemitism persists in haunting Europe. In recent months, antisemitism has been exhibited all too often in European countries, not just in theory but in practice.
The INS Tanin cost approximately $500 million, one-third of which was funded by the German Government, and is slated to arrive in Israel next year.
The comparatively small Jewish population of India – after the census of 1921 there were hardly 20,000 out of a general population of 352 million – fell into four groups: the Cochin Jews of the Malabar Coast, the Bene Israel, the fore-Asian Jews, mostly of Sephardic ancestry, and immigrants from various regions of Europe.
Among its results, the study found that 72% of Polish citizens agree or strongly agree that "Jews try to take advantage of having been victims during the Nazi era," and that 68% of Hungarians share this sentiment. Nearly 70% percent of Hungarians also think that "Jews have too much influence" in their country.
By JTA
In a letter to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, two congressmen said a medal awarded to veteran journalist Helen Thomas could hurt U.S. assistance to the PA. Reps. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio), the chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, and Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) in their April […]
Günter Grass, Germany's most celebrated living author, became the center of a news hurricane on Wednesday, after he published a poem titled "What must be said," in which he blames Israel for destabilizing world peace with its plots against Iran. The Israeli Embassy in Berlin said it is a European tradition to accuse the Jews of ritual murder before the Passover festival.
Libya lies in North Africa between Egypt and Tunisia and consists of Cyrenica and Tripoli. Even in the 3rd century before the Common Era, Cyrenica was a destination for Jewish emigration. Over the next century the Jewish population grew in numbers but was strongly Hellenized.
When Sigmar Gabriel wrote on his Facebook page that Hebron was “an apartheid regime for which there is no justification,” the chairman of Germany’s main opposition party sparked an outcry that reverberated beyond his virtual wall. But such a conclusion is inevitable when one relies on sources and organizations that present Hebron in an extremely skewed light, like the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH).
Israel and Germany signed a contract purchasing the Israeli Navy's sixth submarine Wednesday. It is an SSK Dolphin Class submarine. Last year the newspaper The Welt am Sonntag reported that German chancellor Angela Merkel conditioned the sale of the Dolphin on Israeli concessions to the Palestinians, which Netanyahu obliged.
Israel Defense reports that Eurospike, a subsidiary of weapons manufacturer Rafael, has signed a contract to supply Spike missiles totaling hundreds of millions of dollars to Germany.
The stories in this column are translations by Mr. Nollet from Die Juden In Der Welt (The Jews in the World) by Mark Wischnitzer, a long out-of-print book published more than seven decades ago in Germany. The book examines Jewish communities, one country at a time, as they existed in 1935.
Rebbetzin Esther Jungreis, founder and president of Hineni, the Jewish outreach organization, addressed an overflow crowd recently at Congregation Shaarei Tefila in Los Angeles.
Turkish PM on the list, Israeli PM Netanyahu conspicuously absent.
Expulsions come in the wake of arrest by German authorities of two people suspected of spying for the Assad regime.
The Dolphin-class submarine will be Israel's sixth purchased from Germany.
The excavation of archeological layers has shown that in Roman times there were Jewish communities in Syracuse, Catania, Noto, among other places. At the end of the 6th century there is mention of Jews in Messina, Palermo, and Girgenti.
The report was commissioned by the Bundestag in 2008.
Turkey's Foreign Minister made the offer in a joint news conference with Iranian counterpart.
Is the German government going to consider 0.5% of Germany’s exports more important than solidarity with the West and the special relationship with Israel?
September 25, 2026 
