Masha Shumatskaya fled Donetsk, Ukraine, in June 2014. (Uriel Heilman)
(JTA) — Masha Shumatskaya never imagined she would be a war refugee, even after that first night last spring when she dragged the mattress off her bed and into her windowless hallway to protect herself from flying glass in the event a bomb shattered her windows. But after weeks… Read more »
Mark Halter, second from right, and Hassen Chalghoumi, in white cap, at a mass rally in Paris following the shootings at the Charlie Hebdo magazine and the Hyper Cacher supermarket, Jan. 11, 2015. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
PARIS (JTA) — A burst of applause greeted Holocaust survivor Marek Halter and his close friend, Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, as they entered the Synagogue de la Victoire together in January. Halter, a celebrated author and friend of French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, is known for his outreach to moderate… Read more »
A Ukrainian couple at pre-flight briefing for immigrants to Israel in Kiev, March 23, 2015. (Ben Sales)
KIEV (JTA) — Tatyana Orul would have moved to Israel years ago if not for her job as a television journalist in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, which interested her too much to give up. But when bombs started falling next to her house last year, she reconsidered.… Read more »
Ilya and Luba Tolkachov and their 22-month-old son in the tiny one-room apartment they share with Ilya's mother. (Ben Sales/JTA)
KIEV (JTA) — In a crowded room of the Tolkachov family’s tiny apartment here, a couch and twin bed sit kitty-corner from each other, sandwiching a small crib. In another corner, a wooden table is cluttered with a computer and some toys. Since October, three generations of the Tolkachov… Read more »
Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, helped shelter hundreds of Jews during the Holocaust. (Wikimedia Commons)
WARSAW (JTA) — In a carriage bound for the Warsaw Zoo, Moshe Tirosh could sense his parents’ fear and the strong odor of alcohol wafting from the direction of the driver and his horse. The trepidation that rainy night in 1940 was from the Nazi soldiers guarding the Kierbedzia… Read more »
Some of the tens of thousands in Moscow protesting the murder of Boris Nemtsov, March 1, 2015. (Alexander Aksakov/Getty Images)
(JTA) — During the past two years, Dima Zicer has skipped several political rallies opposing the chauvinistic policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin. A Jewish scholar of education from St. Petersburg, Zicer, 55, has limited hope for change in a country that is ranked 148th in the Press Freedom Index and where several… Read more »
(JTA) — As a longtime promoter of Jewish-Muslim dialogue in Denmark, Naveed Baig is no stranger to Copenhagen’s Great Synagogue. The imam at the capital’s Danish Islamic Center, Baig, 39, has on numerous occasions sat under the structure’s gold-and-white ceiling meeting with people he calls his “Jewish brethren” to… Read more »
Agata Kulesza, left, and Agata Trzebuchowska co-star in the Polish film "Ida," an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film about an aunt and niece looking for family lost in the Holocaust. (Opus Film) LOS ANGELES (JTA) — For the past few decades, Holocaust films have been common — and often victorious — fare at the Academy Awards. But this year, the Polish nominee in the Foreign Language Film category ventures into the less frequently explored territory of the Holocaust’s aftermath. “Ida,” writer-director… Read more »
Chabad emissaries won't set foot in Havana's Orthodox synagogue, Adath Israel. (Josh Tapper) HAVANA (JTA) — On the freshly painted, salmon-colored walls of Alberto and Rebeca Meshulam’s apartment, two portraits of the late Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, frame the entranceway leading to a wide, airy vestibule. Miniatures of the same portrait sit atop a glass-covered countertop near an image of the… Read more »
Copenhagen's main synagogue, where a guard was shot and killed early Feb. 15, 2015. (Wikimedia Commons) (JTA) — From the window of the Jewish Community of Copenhagen’s crisis center, Finn Schwarz can see his country changing before his eyes. Hours after the slaying of a guard outside the Danish capital’s main synagogue early Sunday morning, two police officers toting machine guns were on patrol outside… Read more »
The entrance to the core display of the museum of the Holocaust Education Center in Fukuyama, with its replica of the infamous Auschwitz gate, Dec. 27, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) FUKUYAMA, Japan (JTA) — In the auditorium of this country’s main Holocaust education center, a teenage actor explains the dilemma that faced a Japanese diplomat during World War II. “My conscience tells me I must act a certain way, but doing so means defying my commanders,” says the actor… Read more »
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) — A federal judge in Argentina who has authored a book about the Holocaust was tapped to pick up the late AMIA prosecutor Alberto Nisman’s case against President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Daniel Rafecas, who has a relationship with the Jewish community, was chosen by… Read more »
(L-R): Johnny Pekats (U.S.); Mordechai Ronen (Canada); Ronald Lauder; Rose Schindler (U.S.); Joseph Madrowitz (U.S.) (Courtesy Shahar Azran) AUSCHWITZ, POLAND– Fifteen Auschwitz survivors, aged 80-94, returned this morning, Monday January 26, to the infamous death camp, Auschwitz, some for the first time. Ahead of the 70th anniversary celebration of the Auschwitz liberation on January 27, the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the USC Shoah Foundation, organized the historic visit… Read more »
Israeli arcaeologist Yoram Haimi, right, has been warning of threats to important historical artifacts at the Sobibor death camp in Poland, September 2013. (Courtesy of Yoram Haimi) SOBIBOR, Poland (JTA) — After he uncovered the path that two of his uncles followed to the gas chambers at Sobibor, Yoram Haimi thought the complex he had worked years to unearth would be preserved for posterity. So when Polish authorities announced in 2011 that they would build a… Read more »
(Jewniverse via JTA) – It might seem that the only Jews left in Pakistan are underground – in Karachi’s lone Jewish cemetery. But that’s not quite so. Faisal (Fishel) Benkhald, the son of a Muslim father and Iranian Jewish mother, dares to call himself a Jew in a country… Read more »
KRAKOW, Poland (JTA) — Holocaust survivors gathered in Krakow on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz amid unease regarding the safety of Jews in Europe. Some 100 survivors from 19 countries — each with a child, grandchild or companion — are expected to attend official ceremonies on… Read more »
The conservation laboratory at the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, which was established two years after the German army's retreat in 1945. (Katarzyna Markusz) OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — Seventy years ago this month, Germany evacuated 58,000 prisoners from the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Birkenau, burning documents and blowing up gas chambers and crematoria. On Jan. 27 — the day now celebrated as International Holocaust Remembrance Day — the Soviet Red Army arrived,… Read more »
International Criminal Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced a preliminary examination concerning the "situation in Palestine." (Andreas Rentz/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — On Jan. 16, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, launched a “preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine.” Here is a review of what that means based on interviews with experts on international law and statements by the ICC and Israeli and U.S. officials. Has… Read more »
Beth Alexander and her twin boys, Benjamin and Samuel. (Times of Israel) VIENNA (JTA) — In an apartment in the Austrian capital, Beth Alexander is deleting hundreds of photos of her 5-year-old twin boys from Facebook. In one picture, Benjamin and Samuel are laughing as they hold a toy. In another they are waiting to be served lunch in their native… Read more »
Demonstrators at the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires protesting the death of federal prosecutor Alberto Nisman. The banner at left reads "I am Nisman. I am the Republic," Jan. 19, 2015. (Movimiento Argentino de Fotografxs Independientes Autoconvocadxs Facebook page) (JTA) – The mysterious death of Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman seems ripped straight out of a crime thriller. Nisman — the indefatigable prosecutor collecting evidence of culpability in the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people — was found dead in his… Read more »
