World

In significant meetings with Jewish leaders, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez condemns the AMIA bombing

Argentina's President Alberto Fernandez, right, met with the head of the AMIA Jewish group and the father of an AMIA bombing victim in Buenos Aires, July 14, 2020. (Courtesy of AMIA)

BUENOS AIRES (JTA) — In the days before the 26th anniversary of the Buenos Aires AMIA Jewish center bombing that killed 85 in 1994, Argentina’s President Alberto Fernandez has conveyed to Jewish leaders his desire to end the decades-long legal case that followed the attack, which has been complicated… Read more »

How a Holocaust survivor’s book helped this Rohingyan refugee survive brutal detention

Jaivet Ealom is now a political science student at the University of Toronto. (Cole Burston)

This story originally appeared on Alma. Jaivet Ealom is the only known person to have ever escaped the notoriously brutal Australian-run refugee detention center on Manus Island. As a Rohingyan refugee fleeing Myanmar’s campaign of genocide, Jaivet found himself imprisoned on the remote island near Papua New Guinea for three… Read more »

This French town is known for saving Jews during WWII. It just elected a far-right mayor who has been accused of anti-Semitism.

Children sing at the inauguration of an avenue named for the Righteous Among the Nations in Moissac, France, April 28, 2013. (Courtesy of Moissac, ville de Justes oubliée)

(JTA) — The municipal council of Moissac sometimes calls its placid French town overlooking the Tarn River, near Toulouse, “the city of the Righteous Among the Nations.” It’s a reference to how hundreds of locals during the Holocaust helped resistance activists rescue about 500 Jewish children — an occurrence that… Read more »

Brazil’s president has COVID-19 and the country is a coronavirus hot spot. Here’s how Rio Jews are adapting to the pandemic.

An aerial view of Flamengo Park in Rio de Janeiro, July 5, 2020. (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — The bombshell news on Tuesday was ironic for some — Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, one of the world leaders who has most staunchly downplayed the potential of the coronavirus pandemic, had contracted the virus. Despite his ardent support of Israel, Bolsonaro’s tempered rhetoric on… Read more »

After World War II, there were 100 Jews left in Frankfurt, Germany. Today, the community has a potent voice.

A view of the Frankfurt skyline, May 8, 2020. (Boris Roessler/picture alliance via Getty Images)

BERLIN (JTA) — There were approximately 30,000 Jews in the city of Frankfurt before World War II, making it the largest community in Germany. By the time the U.S. military occupied the city in 1945, there were only about 100 left. “Jewish life was destroyed,” said Tobias Freimuller, author… Read more »

Meet Omer Yankelevich, the Orthodox woman tasked with mending the frayed ties between Israel and the Diaspora

Omer Yankelevich with three of her five children at the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 30, 2019. (Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Omer Yankelevich is the new minister of Diaspora affairs in Israel, meaning she’s in charge of managing the Jewish state’s relations with Jewish communities abroad. It has never been an easy task, but tensions in recent years between Israel and the United States, as well as… Read more »

Austria breaks ground for Holocaust memorial in Vienna

(JTA) — A new Holocaust memorial will be built in Vienna engraved with the names of 64,000 Austrian Jews killed by the Nazis. A groundbreaking ceremony was held Monday for the The Memorial to the Jewish Children, Women and Men of Austria who were Murdered in the Shoah, will… Read more »

Auschwitz memorial and museum will reopen to visitors on July 1

(JTA) — The Auschwitz Memorial and the site of the former Nazi camp will reopen to visitors on July 1. The memorial and museum said it will open for guided tours and individual entry beginning on that date. Reservations must be made online. It closed to visitors in mid-March… Read more »

Some believe ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ was staged somewhere in the world every day since the ’60s. COVID-19 ended that.

Zero Mostel and Maria Karnilova, center, in "Fiddler On The Roof" on Broadway in 1964, the year it debuted. (Stage Production/Getty Images)

(JTA) — The coronavirus pandemic has done something that no war, natural disaster or other calamity has been able to do for more than 50 years: It’s put a stop to stage performances of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The current North American tour of “Fiddler” was halted on March… Read more »