World

(JTA) — The outbreak of the coronavirus in northern Italy forced Claudia Bagnarelli to make a painful choice. “To keep visiting my 94-year-old mother, I needed to stop seeing everyone else in my life,” Bagnarelli, a Jewish ballet teacher from Milan, said Monday. To avoid the risk of infecting… Read more »

Ruben Golran had studied for a year and a half in anticipation of his bar mitzvah, when 600 of his relatives and friends were supposed to converge on Milan to celebrate. First he planned to have a ceremony Tuesday, Feb. 25, when he would put on tefillin, a Jewish… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — Like the rest of the world, the Jewish world is reeling as the novel coronavirus spreads. We’ll be tracking the latest developments here. Have an idea or question? Reports of coronavirus in your community? Send us an email. A cluster of cases involves New York… Read more »

NEW YORK (JTA) — For the past three years, Esther Possick and her son have avoided the hassle of hosting Passover at their Long Island home by traveling to kosher hotels in foreign locales. In 2017, they spent the holiday at a resort in Stresa, a resort town on… Read more »

RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — Three attackers assaulted a kippah-wearing Jewish man walking on a street in Brazil while yelling anti-Semitic slurs. They held down the 57-year-old victim, broke his teeth and tore his kippah with a pocketknife on Thursday in Jaguariuna, a city of 50,000 located in southeastern… Read more »

(JTA) — Aboud Dandachi isn’t Jewish. Or Israeli. Or Italian. Or sick with coronavirus. He’s a Muslim from Syria living in Canada. But when he read the Jewish Telegraphic Agency story about an Italian boy whose bar mitzvah was curtailed because of the rapidly spreading virus, Dandachi responded in… Read more »

MAUTHAUSEN, Austria (JTA) — Under a bright blue sky, with Austria’s snow-capped Alps in the distance, Racheli Kreisberg set foot for the first time in her life inside Mauthausen — the sprawling Nazi concentration camp that held nearly 200,000 prisoners between 1938 and 1945. Fewer than half of the… Read more »

(JTA) — The Vatican unsealed its secret archive relating to the controversial Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII. Critics accuse Pius of having turned a blind eye to Jewish suffering, and researchers hope the archive will reveal why the pope did not intervene to help the Jews during the Holocaust. The… Read more »

(JTA) — The Auschwitz Memorial and Museum has called on organizers of trips to the historical site to refrain from bringing visitors from countries that have been affected by the coronavirus. In a statement posted last week on its website, the museum said it is “monitoring this issue on… Read more »

(JTA) — A second carnival in Spain has referenced the Holocaust with Nazi and concentration camp prisoner uniform costumes. The theme was “the same.” The Holocaust-themed display at the Feb. 23 event in Badajos occurred amid debate on the appropriateness of festive parades apparently making light of the murder… Read more »

(JTA) — An association of Italian rabbis has urged congregants to pray for the well-being of the hundreds of people there and beyond infected with the coronavirus. “We wish to express our empathy, and that we share the pain for the victims and pray for the healing of the… Read more »

(JTA) — Answering criticism of a float that depicted Holocaust victims dancing with Nazis alongside crematoria, the Spanish town that hosted the parade said the display was allowed only because its creators had described it as a form of commemoration. The municipality of Campo de Criptana offered the explanation… Read more »

(JTA) — A drunken man broke into a synagogue in western Ukraine and assaulted a congregant after shouting about “beating up the kikes.” The incident occurred Tuesday in Vinnytsia, according to a Facebook post by Eduard Dolinsky, the director of Ukraine’s Jewish Committee. The man, who was identified by… Read more »

AALST, Belgium (JTA) — I probably spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about the Holocaust. Partly as a consequence of covering Jewish news in Europe at a time of rising anti-Semitism, Holocaust associations often come to mind in my daily life — on crowded trains, for example. But… Read more »

PARIS (JTA) – A secret network of Jews influences global political and economic affairs. That’s the feeling among a fifth of the 16,000 respondents to a survey among Europeans from 16 countries. The same number also agreed with the statement that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own needs.”… Read more »

PARIS (JTA) — The French municipality of Marseille described Tel Aviv as part of “former Palestine” in an official letter to a resident who was born in the Israeli city. Mayor Jean-Claude Gaudin signed the letter, which was sent on Feb. 5 informing the resident that he was registered… Read more »

(JTA) — At a carnival procession in Spain, participants dressed like Nazis and Jewish concentration camp prisoners while dancing next to a float evoking crematoria. The Israeli Embassy in Madrid on Tuesday protested the display this weekend at the annual carnival procession in Campo de Criptana, a town situated… Read more »

(JTA) — A Montreal-area home contains a clause in its deed preventing its sale to a Jewish person. It is the second home near that Canadian city in Quebec discovered to contain such a “servitude clause” barring sale to anyone of Jewish origin, CTV News reported. In January, it… Read more »

(JTA) — Employees of the Dutch national railways sang for train passengers a soccer song about Jews that the state-owned company said was “wholly inappropriate.” Nederlandse Spoorwegen, or NS, apologized on Sunday for the incident, which happened just after midnight aboard a train heading from a parade in the… Read more »

(JTA) — Seventy-four Jewish groups have expressed solidarity with Chinese Americans amid the coronavirus outbreak, saying in a letter that they are “concerned about rising xenophobia aimed at Chinese people in this country and abroad.” On Friday, the groups sent the letter with those sentiments in English and simplified… Read more »