An exterior view of the Zhokuvka Jewish Community Center. (Courtesy of
The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia)
In Zhukovka, an ultra-wealthy suburb of Moscow, a luxurious Jewish community center opens its doors. A JTA report from Russia, December 2015.… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, with his French
counterpart, Manuel Valls, at the United Nations Climate Change
Conference in Le Bourget, France, Nov. 30, 2015. (Thierry Orban/Getty
Images)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — During last week’s climate summit outside Paris, the 195 delegate countries — including Israel — committed to implementing plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improving their goals every five years. The aim: Keep Earth from warming more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end… Read more »
Circa 1660, Dutch philosopher Benedicto De Spinoza (1632 - 1677). (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) – More than 350 years after this city’s Portuguese Jewish community excommunicated Baruch Spinoza and banned his writings for eternity, the philosopher’s books are for sale at the souvenir shop of the community’s synagogue. Spinoza, a Dutch-born Jewish philosopher who laid the intellectual foundations of the Enlightenment… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with President Xi Jinping of China at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, May 9, 2013. (Kim Kyung-Hoon/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, sat kiddy-corner in armchairs at this week’s international climate summit near Paris, talking and laughing. “We have the best of relations, and they can be made even better,” Netanyahu told Modi at the meeting. To… Read more »
Sara Lieberman is a New York native who moved to Paris a year ago. (Krystal Kenney)
PARIS (JTA) — They say not to take the bikes with the seat turned around. But I take the bike with the seat turned around. Before I know it, I am riding fiercely across town on Rue Saint-Lazare with a loose pedal. This can’t be good, I… Read more »
A young wedding guest at the Synagogue des Tournelles in Paris, Nov. 15, 2015. (Alain Azria)
PARIS (JTA) — Watching the Belgian countryside fly by, I reflected on the previous time that I was aboard a high-speed train bound for Paris to cover a horrendous terrorist attack. It had been less than a year since France-born Islamists killed 17 people in Paris: 12… Read more »
People place flowers and candles on the pavement near the scene of the Bataclan theater terrorist attack in Paris, Nov. 14, 2015, a day after the attack. (Jeff Mitchell/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Before Friday’s bloodbath at the Le Bataclan concert venue in Paris, this centrally located hall from the 19th century had received numerous threats over pro-Israel events hosted there. From at least 2006-2009, Le Bataclan was the venue for the annual fundraising gala of Migdal, the French Jewish… Read more »
A demonstration in Madrid in support of Western Sahara's self-determination, Nov. 11, 2006. (Wikimedia Commons)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — To Israel and many of its supporters, the new European Union regulations requiring separate labeling for settlement goods are discriminatory measures reminiscent of Europe’s long history of institutionalized anti-Semitism. In a harshly-worded statement Wednesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said that by ignoring other territorial disputes around… Read more »
(L.A. JEWISH JOURNAL) — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto praised the Jewish community of the United States for supporting the rights of Hispanic immigrants. “You have raised the banner of this cause,” he said. The president addressed 150 Jews from North and South America at a gala dinner Tuesday… Read more »
: Edward Boarland, sous chef at Le Rafael in Paris, on Nov. 3, 2015. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA)
PARIS (JTA) — With 84 Michelin-certified restaurants and a combined total of 115 stars, the French capital offers a dazzling gastronomic selection to anyone willing to stomach the bill. Anyone but observant Jews, that is. For years, the kosher-keeping community has been limited to budget pizzerias or moderately priced… Read more »
Dutch rabbis in the Amsterdam suburb of Buitenveldert, the site of a planned center to house migrants from the Middle East. (David Serphos)
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — In Buitenveldert, a quiet residential area of the Dutch capital, special forces soldiers are watching over a Jewish school from inside unmarked cars. About half of the Netherlands’ 40,000 Jews live here and in the adjacent suburb of Amstelveen, the only areas of the country with… Read more »
Gilad Millo, left, with DJ HYPNOTIQ and Kiptoo 'k4' Kirwa at a Nairobi recording studio, Oct. 14, 2015. (Courtesy of Gilad Millo)
(JTA) — Zipping between meetings at Nairobi’s five-star hotels wearing a suit and tie, Gilad Millo looks every bit the ex-diplomat he is. But looks can be deceiving: Though he may be balding and slightly pudgy, Millo is one of Kenya’s hottest pop stars. He’s so popular,… Read more »
Money: Some of the Holocaust money in the collection at the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University. (Courtesy of Clark University)
WORCESTER, Mass. (JTA) – In the 70 years since the fall of the Third Reich, the trappings of Nazi power have become infamous icons of evil — think of the swastika flag, the yellow badge or the striped concentration camp uniform. But have you ever heard of “Holocaust money,”… Read more »
Simon Plosker, top left, managing editor of HonestReporting.com, directing his monitoring team at his organization's Jerusalem headquarters, Oct. 13, 2015. (Joe Hyams/HonestReporting)
(JTA) — At an Israeli bus station, several uniformed officers surround an Arab woman before opening fire on her, dropping her to the ground. Standing over her motionless body, a Border Police officer toting an automatic rifle speaks into a radio while another officer chases away a bystander documenting… Read more »
alestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 30, 2015, and Oct. 1, 2015 respectively. (Both Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas took plenty of shots at each other. But in their dueling dueling speeches to the United Nations General Assembly, the Israeli prime minister and Palestinian Authority president directed much of their fire at the same target: the assembled world leaders.… Read more »
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at the U.N. General Assembly at United Nations headquarters in New York City, Oct. 1, 2015. (Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
(JTA) – All anyone attending the United Nations General Assembly opening seemed to want to talk about was the threat posed to the world by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. That was much to the consternation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who argued in his speech… Read more »
Pinhas Slobodknik center, with staff at a Moscow event serving kosher food in 2014. (Courtesy Pinhas Slobodnik)
MOSCOW (JTA) — At Russia’s largest kosher food factory, owner Pinhas Slobodnik welcomes his Muslim workers with a greeting in Arabic that he pronounces in a thick Russian accent. Some 120 workers, most from the predominantly Muslim republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, are employed at the factory — a… Read more »
Natan Sharansky, left, head of the Jewish Agency, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the latter's Jerusalem office, June 18, 2013. (Kofi Gideon/Flash90)
TEL AVIV (JTA) — With a budget reaching $300 million, it was conceived as a broad partnership between the Israeli government and leading Diaspora Jewish groups. Its goal: to create a stronger connection between global Jews and Israel. But nearly two years after its launch was announced with much… Read more »
A dinghy carrying refugees arriving at a beach on the island of Lesbos in northern Greece. (Boaz Arad/IsraAid)
LESBOS, Greece (JTA) — As the small rubber dinghy crowded with Syrians and Afghans emerged from the midnight-black sea to land on a desolate pebble beach, the first people to greet the bewildered and frightened refugees were two Israelis. “Does anyone need a doctor?” Majeda Kardosh, 27, a nurse… Read more »
Hans Breuer at his pasture near Vienna, March 2015. (Courtesy of Hans Breuer)
(JTA) — Even at his remote sheep pasture in the Austrian countryside, Hans Breuer was too disturbed by the plight of the Syrian refugees streaming into his country to go about his daily routine. Especially troubling to Breuer, a 61-year-old Jewish shepherd and singer of Yiddish songs, were the… Read more »
