LUBLIN, Poland (JTA) — When German air force pilots took aerial photographs of western Ukraine in 1941, they did it to help Nazi Germany defeat the Soviet Union in a war that saw the genocide of 6 million Jews. But in a twist of fate, the German government has… Read more »
Tagged FRONTTOP
A 1939 phone book could be the key to unlocking millions in Polish Holocaust restitution payments
WARSAW (JTA) — In the small park behind the only synagogue in this city to have survived World War II, Yoram Sztykgold looks around with a perplexed expression. An 82-year-old retired architect, Sztykgold immigrated to Israel after surviving the Holocaust in Poland. He tries in vain to recognize something… Read more »
New shinshiniyot bring love of song, theater to Tucson
Recent Israeli high school graduate Ron Benacot’s get-to-know-you video for the Tucson Jewish community is rich with sight gags: see her jump up and down as she plays fetch with her impassive dog, or step up to hefty barbells only to lift the lighter weights they conceal (see www.bit.ly/ronvid).… Read more »
Pro-Israel stalwart Ben Cardin aims fire at Trump and Netanyahu in J Street talk
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Ben Cardin, a pro-Israel stalwart in the Democratic Party, lashed out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a J Street conference, breaking with a party tradition of avoiding confrontations with Israel’s leaders. Cardin, D-Md., in his speech Monday stood by his bill that would… Read more »
ISRAEL AT 70: An American Holocaust survivor recalls fighting in Israel’s War of Independence
TEANECK, N.J. (JTA) — Mordechai Schachter didn’t know he would soon be a soldier when he traveled from his native Romania to prestate Israel in 1948. He was a 17-year-old with a passion for Zionism, leaving behind a country that was becoming increasingly anti-Semitic a few short years after at… Read more »
A tour guide uncovers Passover secrets in the Met Museum’s Egyptian wing
NEW YORK (JTA) — I have roamed the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Egyptian wing many times, marveling at sarcophagi, statues of Horus and Ra, and portraits of young men on ancient panels who gaze back at visitors, looking shockingly familiar and contemporary. But on a Sunday just before Passover,… Read more »
Poland’s prime minister said some Jews collaborated with Nazis. Scholars say he distorted history.
(JTA) — The row between Poland and Israel about the Holocaust reached new heights this week after Poland’s prime minister said that the genocide had not only Polish, Ukrainian and German perpetrators, but Jewish ones as well. Addressing a new law that criminalizes blaming Poland for Nazi crimes, Mateusz Morawiecki said… Read more »
Bring senses to dying well, says speaker for next Wool seminar
Dr. BJ Miller seeks to change the way we die. This preeminent speaker will share his thoughts on maximizing quality of life and minimizing unnecessary suffering at the Ninth Annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar on Humanism in Healthcare on Thursday, March 29. An expert on patient-centered, palliative, and end-of-life… Read more »
A century-old Siberian synagogue was built by abducted child soldiers. It’s back in Jewish hands.
TOMSK, Russia (JTA) — When two strange men approached 8-year-old Herzl Tsam in an alley of his hometown in what is now Ukraine, he knew that he had to run as fast as his legs could carry him. In 1851, as a Jewish boy from a poor family in… Read more »
Will Abbas’ explosive comments kill the peace process?
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Oslo Accords? “Killed,” the Palestinian Authority president says, blaming Israel. The Israeli prime minister says the Palestinians are now “unmasked” — but naturally he blames the Palestinians. Notably, the United States is silent. The P.A. president, Mahmoud Abbas, delivered a rambling address of more… Read more »
What Israel and the Palestinians make of Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem
JERUSALEM (JTA) – Amid the global controversy over President Donald Trump’s recognition last week of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state, Israeli and Palestinian leaders actually found rare consensus: They agreed that the development was a win for Israel and a loss for the Palestinians. To be… Read more »
Trump recognizes Jerusalem as Israel’s capital
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, but emphasized that he was not pre-empting negotiations over the final status of the city. “It is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,” Trump said in a televised address from the… Read more »
In Belarus, some Jews don’t mind a dictator
MINSK, Belarus (JTA) — At the age of 36, Yishai Malkin and his family are leading what millions of people in the former Soviet Union would consider a charmed life. A web designer, Malkin and his wife, an event manager, earn a combined monthly salary of $2,000. That’s comfortable… Read more »
Jon Ossoff’s secret weapon in tight Georgia race: Jewish moms and daughters
JOHNS CREEK, Ga. (JTA) — Clad in knee-length, loose fitting shorts, wicking T-shirts, baseball caps and sensible shoes, they cluster and clutch water bottles and exchange war stories awaiting the candidate’s arrival. Some bring their daughters — almost always their daughters. Sons exist, if a reporter probes, but it… Read more »
Abbas’ meeting with Trump may be his chance to shine. Does he have what it takes?
WASHINGTON (JTA) — President Donald Trump wants a deal with Israel and the Palestinians. The Israeli and Palestinian leaders say they want Trump to make the deal. What could go wrong? For all the good cheer guaranteed when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meets Wednesday with Trump at the… Read more »
Preparing for Passover in Ukraine’s last shtetl
BERSHAD, Ukraine (JTA) — At first glance, this drab town 160 miles south of Kiev seems nearly identical to the settlements that dot the poverty-stricken district of Vinnitsa. Shrouded in a seemingly permanent cloud of smoke from wood fires — still the standard means of heating here — Bershad, population… Read more »
Despite losing Amona, Israeli settlers expect to win war for West Bank
AMONA, West Bank (JTA) — In a dramatic clash with the settlement movement at this hilltop outpost, the state seemed to have won. Over two sometimes violent days, Feb. 1 and 2, security forces evacuated the residents of Amona, along with hundreds of protesters, as ordered by Israel’s High Court of Justice. Yet… Read more »
At Auschwitz, a Jewish journalist confronts his anti-Polish bias
OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — I did a shameful thing on my first visit 20 years ago to the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau. In a guestbook outside an Auschwitz museum exhibit featuring information on 70,000 Polish non-Jews who were murdered here, I downplayed the significance of their deaths… Read more »
‘Accidental actor’ to speak on award-winning film, Holocaust
Despite receiving critical acclaim for masterfully portraying the lead role in the Academy Award-winning film “Son of Saul,” Hungarian-born Geza Rohrig does not identify as an actor. “I’m an accidental actor. I’m a writer, that’s what I do. It gives me much more freedom, because I can write whatever… Read more »
Why I light my menorah in the window — and you should, too
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In the weeks before Hanukkah, with anticipation of the holiday brightly filling my mind, the darkening news of rising anti-Semitism in the U.S. began to filter in. As I pictured our menorahs burning in their usual place — the front windows of our home —… Read more »