Joe Goldblatt, a Texan who gained Scottish citizenship in July, campaigns for Scottish independence in Edinburgh, September 2014. (Ben Sales) GLASGOW (JTA) — Bright blue signs scream “Yes” while red ones urge “No, thanks” in the streets of Scotland’s largest city just days before a vote on whether to secede from the United Kingdom. But at Frank Angell’s house, his windows are empty and his yard is bare. A… Read more »
Anti-fascist protesters holding a banner in front of the Athens municipal ampitheater during a swearing-in ceremony for Golden Dawn party member Ilias Kasidiaris, Aug. 29, 2014. (Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images) ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — Jewish groups say the passage of a bill banning Holocaust denial and imposing harsher penalties for hate speech is an important milestone in the fight against Greece’s rising neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party. “This comes very late, but not too late,” World Jewish Congress CEO Robert… Read more »
Rabbi Karol Sidon stepped down as Prague's chief rabbi amid reports about his love life. (Petr Balajka/Prague Jewish Community) PRAGUE (JTA) — When the novel “Altschul’s Method” hit the shelves in Czech bookstores this March, it was hailed as a brilliant political and psychological thriller combining elements of science fiction, alternate history and Jewish mysticism. But it became a true literary sensation when it was revealed a week… Read more »
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, left, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, meets with Jews who fled eastern Ukraine, July 2014. (Olivier Fitoussi) (JTA) — Each time he dispatches a car into Lugansk, Rabbi Shalom Gopin readies himself for hours of anxious anticipation. The scene of brutal urban warfare between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists, this eastern Ukrainian city now has no regular power supply, running water or cell phone reception. Mortar… Read more »
Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs and his wife, Bluma, by the glass window of their home damaged in an attack on July 17, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) AMERSFOORT, The Netherlands (JTA) — After the latest attack on his home, Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs sat down on his couch, picked up the phone and made three calls. A chief rabbi of the Netherlands, Jacobs first phoned police and a Jewish community leader to tell them that late on… Read more »
Israeli Ambassador to the Netherlands Haim Divon, right, with Christian volunteers Timo Erkelens and Eveline Hagoort in the pro-Israel situation room near Amsterdam, July 24, 2014. (Canaan Liphshiz) (JTA) — Israeli Ambassador to the Netherlands Haim Divon nodded approvingly as he surveyed the small army of 50 men and women fighting for Israel. Around a conference table in an office in the Amsterdam suburb of Buitenveldert, 30 volunteers were writing and collecting pro-Israel materials and transferring them… Read more »
(Sean Hayford O’Leary via Creative Commons) WASHINGTON (JTA) — Talk at the annual meeting between Democratic senators and Jewish groups kept coming back to anti-Semitism in Europe. The recurring theme, which the 24 senators who attended and the Jewish leaders both raised, was a measure of the anxiety aroused by recent reports of attacks on… Read more »
Ira Forman, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, speaks at the Hungarian parliament in Budapest, October 2013. (Tom Lantos Institute)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Obama administration’s anti-Semitism monitor has added an issue to his office’s portfolio: defending circumcision in Europe. Circumcision has become a top focus for Ira Forman, the State Department’s special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism. He has been using the pulpit his office provides to… Read more »
Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar putting teffilin on 102-year old David Barulya, a World War II veteran and Crimean Holocaust survivor, at a Holocaust commemoration ceremony in Sevastopol, July 10, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) SEVASTOPOL, Crimea (JTA) — Until recently, Holocaust commemorations in this port city were generally low-key gatherings of a few dozen people reciting the Kaddish prayer for victims of the near-annihilation of Crimean Jewry in 1942. But on July 10, a memorial service at the Sevastopol Holocaust monument attracted hundreds of visitors, including a delegation of… Read more »
Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, attends a panel discussion during the 50th Munich Security Conference in Germany, Feb. 2, 2014. (Joerg Koch/Getty Images) WASHINGTON (JTA) — The issue of Iranian uranium enrichment remains as stubborn an obstacle to a nuclear deal as it was at the launch of the talks six months ago. Iran and the major powers, led by the United States, agreed July 18 to extend the talks another four… Read more »
In the Paris suburb of Sarcelles, pro-Palestinian rioters broke shop windows and set fires on July 20, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) SARCELLES, France (JTA) – Shortly before their synagogue became shrouded by tear gas and smoke, 100 Jews wielding baseball bats and clubs were singing the French national anthem in front of the synagogue’s heavy metal gate. They had gathered outside the main synagogue in this Paris suburb Sunday to defend it against a… Read more »
The Saint Petersburg company Tzar Caviar used molecular engineering to produce a kosher caviar substitute now available in New York and Paris. (Courtesy Tzar Caviar) PARIS (JTA) — In a penthouse office with a view of the Eiffel Tower, Olivier Kassabi uses a ceramic spoon to extract a small scoop from a jar labeled as Russian caviar. Placing a clutch of black globules on the base of his thumb, Kassabi licks it off, savoring… Read more »
The July 13 riot outside the Synagogue de la Roquette in a Paris suburb was notable not only for the terror it inspired among those inside the shul, but for the fierce and unusual response by young Jewish men who pushed back the pro-Palestinian rioters. (JTA) — For the past 14 years, French Jews have grown accustomed to coming under attack during periods of conflict in the Middle East from hostile elements within their country’s large Arab and Muslim communities. One recent incident, however, stood out: the July 13 riot by Palestinian sympathizers outside the… Read more »
Bride Katka Reszke and groom Slawomir Grunberg, made their wedding a celebration of Polish Jewish revival, June 22, 2014. (Ruth Ellen Gruber) WROCLAW, Poland (JTA) — When Katka Reszke and Slawomir Grunberg tied the knot at the historic White Stork synagogue in this southwestern Polish city, they were determined that the occasion would be more than just a wedding. They wanted it to be a symbol of how thousands of Polish… Read more »
NEW YORK (JTA) — A special panel tasked with examining the governance and strategic vision of the Claims Conference is recommending that the organization shift its long-term focus to Holocaust education and remembrance, JTA has learned. The panel was appointed last year following a scandal involving the Claims Conference’s… Read more »
Misha Gurbachov, deputy director of the Jewish Community of Chisinau, and Limmud Maldova co-organizer Julia Seinman in Chisinau, May 23, 2014. (George Omen/Limmud FSU( CHISINAU, Moldova (JTA) — Standing opposite the house at Romana Street 13 in the Moldovan capital, a group of tourists is struggling to hear Irina Shihova’s account of the horrors that transpired here more than a century ago, but her voice is drowned out by a pop song playing… Read more »
Left to right, Mariano Schlez and Paola Salem, with Damian Beker and Maxi Klein, organized efforts to bring together Jewish Soccer fans at the World Cup's seven sites in Brazil. (Courtesy Paola Salem) (JTA) – When Argentina plays its opening-round matches in the World Cup, Mariano Schlez of Buenos Aires will be screaming his support from the stands. But taking in his home country’s matches in Brazil isn’t all that will be occupying Schlez for the first fortnight of the monthlong soccer… Read more »
Passersby look at the Holocaust-related and other memorabilia left by citizens protesting the monument to the 1944 German occupation, under construction behind sheeting across the street in downtown Budapest. (Ruth Ellen Gruber) BUDAPEST, Hungary (JTA) — It isn’t every day that Jewish organizations reject funding for Holocaust commemorations. But that’s what happened in Hungary this spring when Jewish groups refused nearly $1 million in special state grants to protest what they see as the government’s whitewashing of Hungarian complicity in the… Read more »
(JTA) — The World Jewish Congress called on the FIFA world soccer association to hold a tribute to the victims of the AMIA Jewish center terrorist attack before a match between Argentina and Iran at the World Cup in Brazil. A letter sent to FIFA President Joseph Blatter… Read more »
Supporters of the Greek ultra-nationalist party Golden Dawn attend a pre-election rally on May 2, 2014 in Athens, Greece. (Milos Bicanski/Getty Images) ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — The picture of Golden Dawn leaders being led away in shackles by masked policemen last September was supposed to be a defining image: Greek authorities cracking down on the country’s neo-Nazi party as a harbinger of its demise. Instead, soon there will be a new… Read more »
