World

(JTA) — Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who has described Jews as “hook-nosed” and blamed Israel for the unrest in the Middle East, has resigned. Mohamad, the world’s oldest leader at 94, submitted his resignation to the country’s king Monday, AFP reported. He had agreed to step down and… Read more »

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) – The Auschwitz Memorial has condemned the new Amazon mini-series about Nazi hunters. The museum said in a tweet that the human chess game invented for “Hunters,” in which the inmates of the Auschwitz camp were the game pieces and were killed when their piece was… Read more »

(JTA) — A hard-line student group in Iran has threatened to destroy the Tomb of Esther and Mordechai in the north of the country in revenge for the Trump administration’s peace plan. The Basij group in Hamadan province, where the tomb is located, earlier this month said it would… Read more »

PARIS (JTA) — The U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism implicitly criticized the decision in France not to try a man who killed his Jewish neighbor. Elan Carr referenced the decision on the killer of Sarah Halimi during a conference Monday on anti-Semitism organized by the European… Read more »

(JTA) — The institutions of the Jewish community of Milan are in lockdown, along with other faith communities and others, following the discovery of coronavirus cases in the Italian city. “Schools are out, including ours,” Claudia Bagnarelli, a founder of Milan’s Jewish school, which has 500 students, told the… Read more »

This is a developing story. NEW YORK (JTA) — More than 50 Jewish community centers in 23 states have received emailed bomb threats since Saturday. None of the threats have been found to be credible, though local law enforcement agencies have been notified. Officials do not know who sent… Read more »

(JTA) — Joseph Gluck received a $20,000 reward for his role in apprehending the suspected Monsey synagogue stabber. But it didn’t come from two Jewish groups that had offered the award for information leading to an arrest. Gluck told News 12 Brooklyn last week that after consulting with his… Read more »

(JTA) — The niece of the late Princess Diana is converting to Judaism to marry a Jewish fashion tycoon. Kitty Spencer,  a 29-year-old model, is engaged to Michael Lewis, 61, who chairs the Foschini Group. It will be the second marriage for Lewis, a South Africa native whose fortune… Read more »

(JTA) — Two contestants were kicked off a Swedish reality show after having a conversation in which one said she hates Jews, while a third who remains has previously expressed support for neo-Nazi ideas on social media. The comments, made during a live airing of the popular show “Big… Read more »

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — Poland’s Jewish history museum has chosen a new director, ending the controversy over its leadership. The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews has been without a director for months since the country’s culture minister, Piotr Glinski, refused to accept the reappointment of Dariusz… Read more »

(JTA) — A 101-year-old woman living in the United Kingdom has revealed that Adolf Hitler was her next-door neighbor. Alice Frank Stock lived next to the Nazi leader in Munich on Prinzregentplatz Street in the 1920s and early ’30s, she told the news agency SWNS. “There were two entrances,… Read more »

(JTA) — The two leading Jewish community newspapers in the United Kingdom are planning to merge but will continue to publish their own publications. The Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish News, both based in London, will merge under a charitable trust in an effort to secure their financial futures… Read more »

(JTA) — A former Hasidic Jewish couple is suing the Quebec province and school system, claiming the government did not make sure they received a complete education. The trial opened Monday in Quebec Superior Court and is expected to last about two weeks. Yohanan and Shifra Lowen filed the… Read more »

(JTA) — A London borough’s City Council has voted unanimously to oppose a national Holocaust memorial in a park next to the Parliament building. The Westminster City Council said it is committed to building a national Holocaust memorial and education center and locating it near Parliament, just not in… Read more »

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) – The former director of the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews was chosen last year to return to the position he held for six years. But Dariuz Stola says he won’t take back the post due to a stalemate that his rehiring has… Read more »

(JTA) — The United Nations published its list of companies doing business in settlements — what it calls “Occupied Palestinian Territory,” or the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released the list on Wednesday following delays to its… Read more »

BERLIN (JTA) – A surveillance video of the Yom Kippur attack on a synagogue in Halle, Germany, has raised questions about police response and readiness, leading to an investigation by the state government there. Concerns were triggered after German news organizations examined the synagogue’s security video. The state parliament… Read more »

JERUSALEM (JTA) — Dozens of cars were vandalized and racist graffiti was painted on the wall of a mosque and other buildings in an Arab-Israeli town in northern Israel. Israeli news reports said as many as 170 cars had their tires slashed in Jish. The vandalism was discovered on… Read more »

WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — Outside one of this city’s many brutalist apartment buildings, passersby stop to stare at and photograph a London-style taxi emblazoned with large Star of David symbols. Some seem puzzled by the out-of-place sight. Others look delighted to encounter something they’ve seen or heard about in… Read more »

CHISINAU, Moldova (JTA) — Fifteen Christian seventh-graders at the City Theater School in this capital city sit in a circle listening attentively while two Jewish teenagers visiting their classroom talk about Jewish traditions. “What do you think a Jew looks like?” asks Arina Andriuschenko, standing at the blackboard with… Read more »