A Jewish family reunited in Budapest in 1943 following the arrival there of family members from Holland. (Courtesy of Willy Lindwer)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — When her classmates were sent from occupied Holland to death camps, Emmy Korodi and her Dutch-Jewish family were safe in Hungary — one of Nazi Germany’s closest allies. Her family were among some 90 Jews who, at the height of World War II, survived for the unlikeliest… Read more »
Chelsea squares off against Southampton in a soccer match at St. Mary's Stadium in Southampton, England, Oct. 7, 2018. (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
(JTA) — The British soccer club Chelsea is planning to send fans who are caught chanting anti-Semitic songs on a tour of the former death camp Auschwitz rather than punishing them. The team’s owner, Roman Abramovich, who is Jewish, has spearheaded the initiative to combat anti-Semitism, according to a… Read more »
Walraven van Hall, right, and his brother Gijs in the 1930s. (Courtesy of the van Hall family)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Opposite the Dutch national bank here lies one of Europe’s least conspicuous monuments to a war hero. Titled “Fallen Tree,” the metal statue for resistance fighter Walraven van Hall looks so realistic that for months after its unveiling in 2010, the municipality would receive calls reporting… Read more »
Helle Fromberg, left, and Thomas Gorlen seen at the celebration of Danish Jewry's rescue held at the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen, Oct. 11, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (JTA) — All over the world, Holocaust commemoration events follow a certain protocol. Somber affairs where participants dress in dark colors and modestly, they usually feature a soulful rendition of the “El Malei Rachamim” prayer, or Merciful God, sung by an anguished cantor who names Nazi death… Read more »
A Torah scroll that fleeing Jews hid 75 years ago at a church Is returned to the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen, Denmark, Oct. 11, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (JTA) — Danish Jews celebrated their community’s rescue 75 years ago in a ceremony Thursday at the country’s main synagogue, the packed sanctuary filled with dozens of survivors and luminaries. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was among those on hand at the Great Synagogue of Copenhagen, joining Crown… Read more »
Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro is shown after casting his vote in Rio de Janeiro, Oct. 7, 2018. (Fernando Souza/AFP/Getty Images)
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Jair Bolsonaro, an ardently pro-Israel candidate who is highly divisive among Jews for his sometimes politically incorrect rhetoric, won the first round of Brazil’s presidential election and remains the front-runner to lead the Latin American nation. Bolsonaro, a 63-year-old conservative Christian congressman, won 46… Read more »
LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 26: Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn addresses delegates on day four of the Labour Party conference at the Arena and Convention Centre on September 26, 2018 in Liverpool, England. In his closing speech to the conference the Labour leader will promise to 'kickstart a green jobs revolution' and expand the provision of free childcare should Labour win power. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
Steeped in anti-Semitism accusations involving him and his supporters, British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has made many Jewish enemies — including inside his own party. But one of his most effective critics is not Jewish. He is a meteorology student at the University of Reading who describes himself… Read more »
Silvia Foti visits a friend in Vilnius, Lithuania, July 2013. (Ina Budryte)
(JTA) — Barring unexpected delays, Silvia Foti is months away from fulfilling an old promise that’s become her life’s work: to write a biography of her late grandfather, who is a national hero in his native Lithuania. Foti, a 60-year-old high school teacher from Chicago, made the pledge to… Read more »
Tucsonans Boaz Cohon (front left) and Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon at the Ride for the Living in Krakow, Poland, June 29 (Rabbi Samuel Cohon)
This summer my son Boaz and I traveled to Poland for the great pleasure and privilege of participating in the Ride for the Living, a 55-mile bicycle ride from Auschwitz-Birkenau to the Jewish Community Center of Krakow, Poland, from the scene of the greatest destruction of our people to… Read more »
Noam Vazana wrote her upcoming album “Andalusian Brew” in Ladino. (Asaf Lewkowitz)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Wandering the ornate streets of the city of Fes in northern Morocco, Noam Vazana heard several men singing a tune so familiar that it made her stop in her tracks. Vazana, a successful 35-year-old Israeli musician living here, was visiting her ancestors’ country of birth for… Read more »
Pablo Solarz, right, wrote and directed "The Last Suit." (Outsider Pictures)
(JTA) — When the Argentine-Jewish filmmaker Pablo Solarz was 5 or 6 years old, he asked his grandfather if he was Polish. On the phone recently, in heavily accented English, he described his grandfather’s reaction. “He gave me a very dead face,” Solarz recalled. “My father said that … Read more »
Photographers capture a ceremony at a Jewish cemetery in Frampol, Poland. (ESJF)
LUBLIN, Poland (JTA) — When German air force pilots took aerial photographs of western Ukraine in 1941, they did it to help Nazi Germany defeat the Soviet Union in a war that saw the genocide of 6 million Jews. But in a twist of fate, the German government has… Read more »
Norm Eisen, left, meets Vaclav Havel in Prague. (Forum 2000)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — If you love something but can’t possess it, you write about it. This, the secret axiom of many a besotted author, applies to the palatial embassy residence in Prague that seduced Norm Eisen. As U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic, he lived in it for three… Read more »
J.K. Rowling at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA) at Royal Albert Hall in London, Feb. 12, 2017. (John Phillips/Getty Images)
(JTA) — For months author J.K. Rowling has been warning about the dangers of anti-Semitism in England, sparring on Twitter with critics who either downplay the phenomenon or say its proponents are confusing criticism of Israel with Jew hatred. Now, in her newest book, she includes a character whose… Read more »
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO - SEPTEMBER 19: Rescuers work in the rubble after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake struck on September 19, 2017 in Mexico City, Mexico. The earthquake caused multiple fatalities, destroyed buildings and knocked out power throughout the capital. (Photo by Rafael S. Fabres/Getty Images)
MEXICO CITY (JTA) — This capital city has yet to recover from last September’s earthquake, which killed over 300 people and left many more homeless. In the trendy Condesa neighborhood, once a predominantly Jewish area here, many buildings have been demolished and others are in a state of abandonment and… Read more »
Pastor Piet van Veldhuizen has lunch inside his congregation's sukkah in the Netherlands, Sept. 18, 2018. (Cnaan Liphshiz)
HENDRIK-IDO-AMBACHT, Netherlands (JTA) — From its exterior, the massive building known as The Ark in this Dutch town looks like a typical Reform synagogue. On the Hebrew month of Tishrei, the ancient olive tree that dominates the yard of this large worship space is dwarfed by a reed sukkah,… Read more »
David Maxa delivers a sermon during Shabbat services at Prague's Spanish Synagogue during the European Union of Progressive Judaism's biennial, April 2018. (Courtesy of Maxa)
PRAGUE (JTA) — A new Torah scroll is being used in this historic city by one of its two Reform Jewish congregations to welcome the High Holidays and the series of solemn and joyous celebrations that conclude with, what else, Simchat Torah — the rejoicing of the Torah. But it’s… Read more »
The Palestinian side of the separation wall in Bethlehem has graffiti in Arabic and English, but not Hebrew, June 25, 2018. (Ron Kampeas)
(JTA) — The wall separating Bethlehem from Israel-controlled territory is silent and noisy at once, like the breakdown in conversation between Israelis and Palestinians that helped kill the Oslo peace accords. It was only this year — in June, almost 25 years since the launch of the accords that… Read more »
(JTA) — Moshe Aryeh Friedman may be mild-mannered, but the Antwerp rabbi certainly has a knack for publicity. An anti-Zionist activist from New York, Friedman, 47, has been accused — falsely, he has said — of denying the Holocaust during a 2006 conference organized by then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad… Read more »
Members of the Peace Now movement demonstrate outside the residence of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in Jerusalem, July11, 2000. (Brian Hendler/Newsmakers/Getty Images)
LAS VEGAS (JTA) — This summer, America’s Jewish youth rebelled. Or at least a very small minority of them did. But through orchestrated stunts and aggressive marketing, they garnered the headlines they sought. These youth are demanding that Israel end its “occupation,” presumably of the West Bank. They are… Read more »
