Dima and Yuliia Lytvnenko spent their entire lives in Odessa. There, the married couple owned a restaurant, Mama Cassala (Ukrainian for “Mama Said”) and a sausage factory. Both were destroyed in 2022 rocket attacks during the ongoing war with Russia. Fearing for their safety, the Jewish family — they have three children, ages 15, 11 […]
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Pope Leo XIV included the 1997 Holocaust movie “Life Is Beautiful” among his four favorite films of all time. “Life Is Beautiful,” a melodrama by Italian filmmaker and comedian Robert Benigni, follows an Italian Jewish father and his son as they are sent to a Nazi concentration camp. There the father uses humor and misdirection […]
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Actor Gal Gadot has won the Genesis Prize, sometimes called the “Jewish Nobel,” for supporting Israel even as backlash against the country’s actions in Gaza rocked Hollywood. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Gadot has been an outspoken advocate for Israelis taken captive by Hamas. Calling herself “a proud Jew and a proud Israeli,” she said in […]
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ROSWELL, New Mexico — If it weren’t for an Ashkenazi Jew named Stanton T. Friedman, the world might have long ago forgotten what’s come to be known simply as the “Roswell incident.” Instead, countless books, documentaries and made-for-TV dramas have explored the 1947 discovery of mysterious materials found on a New Mexico ranch that Friedman […]
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The Vatican is investigating a member of its Swiss Guards, who protect the pope, for allegedly making a spitting gesture at two Jewish women. The women were part of an international Jewish delegation attending a conference with Pope Leo XIV on Oct. 29. The event marked the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, the landmark 1965 […]
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Comedian Gibran Saleem had never met a Jewish person until starting his graduate studies at New York University more than a decade ago. The child of Pakistani immigrants, Saleem was raised in a Muslim household in northern Virginia where, he said, he was mostly surrounded by people with a similar cultural background. “I knew about […]
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The head of BBC and its top news executive have quit amid allegations that the network misled viewers in coverage of President Donald Trump and the Gaza war. The BBC’s director general Tim Davie and CEO of News Deborah Turness resigned on Sunday after a leaked report by Michael Prescott, a former standards adviser to […]
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A Jewish Iranian-American man has been sentenced to prison in Iran for traveling to Israel 13 years ago for his son’s bar mitzvah, his family members have disclosed. Kamran Hekmati, 70, of Great Neck, Long Island, which is home to a large Persian Jewish population, traveled to Iran in May for what was supposed to […]
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Four people were arrested by French police late Thursday after protesters set off smoke bombs during a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris. Spectators who bought tickets attempted three disruptions during the concert on Thursday night, twice with smoke bombs, according to the Philharmonie de Paris. The protesters also clashed with other people […]
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After years of virulent antisemitic comments, the American rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, told an Orthodox rabbi on Tuesday in New York that he was ready to “make amends” for his actions. “I feel really blessed to be able to sit here with you today and just take accountability,” Ye told Rabbi Yoshiyahu […]
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