World

BERLIN (JTA) – A Jewish man working as a driver for the German Chancellery in Berlin has reported being subjected to anti-Semitic harassment. An unnamed source told the daily Bild am Sonntag newspaper that the man, who comes from Lebanon and worked in the Chancellery’s motor pool, reported that… Read more »

(JTA) – A week before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Pope Francis renewed his condemnation of anti-Semitism, decrying its “barbaric resurgence.” Francis was addressing a delegation from the Simon Wiesenthal Center that met with him at the Vatican on Monday. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed in Italy and throughout… Read more »

(JTA) — A transgender woman in England has given up her legal fight to see her five haredi Orthodox children. The woman has not seen the children, whom she fathered when she was living as a man, since leaving a haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, community in Manchester in 2015. At a… Read more »

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) – Argentina’s new president will travel this week to Israel as his first official foreign visit. Alberto Fernandez, who was sworn in as president last month, is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday to participate in the Fifth World Holocaust Forum at Yad Vashem,… Read more »

(JTA) — In a survey about anti-Semitism in France, nearly a quarter of 1,027 Jewish respondents said they had experienced a physical anti-Semitic assault. The results of the survey, carried out this year by the IFOP for the American Jewish Committee, were published Tuesday in Le Parisien. In addition… Read more »

(JTA) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leading a congressional delegation to Poland and Israel to commemorate 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz, laid a wreath at the former Nazi camp on Tuesday. Pelosi joined her Polish counterpart, Elzbieta Witek, the speaker of the Sejm, the lower house of… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Shortly after her capture by the Nazis in 1944, Dutch resistance fighter Selma van de Perre was transferred from a regular prison to the worst concentration camp in the Netherlands. Van de Perre arrived at the infamous Camp Vught about five months after its commander, Adam… Read more »

(JTA) — The United Kingdom designated the entire Hezbollah organization as a terrorist group and froze its assets. The Finance Ministry move, which was announced Friday, is part of the implementation of the UK’s Terrorism and Terrorist Financing rules, Reuters reported. Until now, only Hezbollah’s military wing was subject… Read more »

(JTA) — The Chelsea soccer club in Britain marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day with a commemorative mural of Jewish players and prisoners of war who were sent to a Nazi camp. The mural was unveiled Wednesday on a wall outside of the West Stand at Stamford Bridge and is… Read more »

(JTA) — Ukraine’s parliament for the first time commemorated the Holocaust ahead of the international date in memory of the victims. The Verkohvna Rada in Kyiv held a memorial ceremony on Thursday ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Jan. 27. The date was designated in 2005 by the… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish organization in Ukraine said that the number of anti-Semitic incidents documented there last year decreased by 27 percent over 2018. The United Jewish Community of Ukraine, one of several groups representing Ukrainian Jewry, said in a report published Monday that it has documented 66 anti-Semitic… Read more »

(JTA) – Police in the northeast Italian city of Trieste analyzed security videos to identify and arrest a man suspected of vandalizing the city’s synagogue twice in the past few months. The suspect was accused of breaking two windows “for the purposes of ethnic-religious hatred,” police said. A statement… Read more »

WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump warned the three European parties to the Iran nuclear deal that he would impose high tariffs on automobile exports if they did not confront Iran over its increased uranium enrichment. The Washington Post on Wednesday reported the threat, which was made a week… Read more »

(JTA) — Five hundred rabbis and other Jewish leaders from around the world are calling for climate change action. The letter released earlier this month was signed by rabbis and leaders spanning the denominational spectrum — from Orthodox to Reform and secular — and from countries including the United… Read more »

(JTA) — A Jewish organization in Ukraine said that the number of anti-Semitic incidents documented there last year decreased by 27 percent over 2018. The United Jewish Community of Ukraine, one of several groups representing Ukrainian Jewry, said in a report published Monday that it has documented 66 anti-Semitic… Read more »

(JTA) — An appeals court ruling that a man who killed a Jewish woman in her home while shouting Quranic verses is unfit to stand trial is prompting outraged reactions from French Jews who fear it sets a dangerous precedent that will undermine the fight against anti-Semitism. Kobili Troare admitted… Read more »

(JTA) — Graffiti featuring a Star of David and “9 11” was painted on buildings on several streets in North London. The graffiti, discovered on a synagogue and store windows in Hampstead and Belsize Park on Sunday morning, seems to refer to a conspiracy theory that Jewish people were… Read more »

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — The leader of the second-largest party in the Netherlands called for expelling from the country an International Criminal Court prosecutor for attempting to try Israelis for war crimes. Geert Wilders called Thursday for the expulsion of Fatou Bensouda over her Dec. 20 report alleging that both… Read more »

(JTA) — The 2010s were nothing if not turbulent. The decade brought us unprecedented political polarization, war and increasing conflict in Israel, dozens of horrific mass shootings, and a new age of election hacking and private data collection enabled by the proliferation of social media. It was capped by… Read more »

(JTA) — For many Jews around the world, there’s probably no love lost for 2019. As the year draws to a close, the Jewish community continues to grapple with the continued rise of global anti-Semitism — one major community in Europe is facing the possible election as prime minister… Read more »