Author: Jesse Orine

(JTA) — Germany’s pivotal national election takes place on Sunday, and one thing is sure: After 16 years in office, Chancellor Angela Merkel will not be at the helm any more. Who comes next? Pundits predict a new three-way coalition of center-left and moderate parties — most likely the Social Democrats, led by current Vice […]

BERLIN (JTA) — Rising antisemitism, Germany’s relationship with Israel, pensions for aging Soviet immigrants — these are just some of the issues Jewish voters across Germany are considering before casting their vote in Sunday’s federal election. The nation is replacing the retiring Chancellor Angela Merkel after a monumental 16 years in the position. The latest […]

(JTA) – A female police officer allegedly wrote fawning letters to the imprisoned gunman who attempted to attack a synagogue in Halle, Germany on Yom Kippur in 2019. The unnamed officer, a police commissioner in the Dessau-Roßlau district, has been suspended pending a further investigation, according to the German news agency DPA. The gunman, Stephan […]

(JTA) – At a political rally in Berlin in June, a young Jewish gay man wearing a turquoise kippah launched his campaign to represent one of Germany’s most ethnically diverse constituencies in parliament. The man, 34-year-old Marcel Yaron Goldhammer, promised to stoke the “embers of unity, justice and freedom” during his announcement speech in front […]

(JTA) — Mervyn Taylor, who was reportedly the first Jewish person to serve as a cabinet minister in Ireland, has died at the age of 89. Taylor, who died of cancer in London Thursday, served for about four years as equality and law reform minister between 1993 and 1997, under Ireland’s Labour party. In total, […]

(JTA) — Several church groups in Norway are organizing a photo exhibition from the West Bank, to be displayed in a cathedral, whose text states that Palestinians undergo “daily crucifixions.” The exhibition, which has prompted protest by the country’s Jewish community and a pro-Israel group, is part of Church Week for Peace in Palestine and […]

(JTA) — After a German court criminalized the nonmedical circumcision of boys in 2012, Angela Merkel did something very out of character for the “rule-of-law chancellor,” as she has been nicknamed. Merkel said the ruling, which was brought against a person who circumcised a Muslim child, put Germany at risk of becoming a “laughingstock.” Her […]

(JTA) — A translator for a Nazi death squad died at home in Ontario at the age of 97, ending a decades-long effort to deport him from Canada for his role in the murders of tens of thousands of Jews. Helmut Oberlander, who was born in Ukraine in 1924, had long said that he was […]

(JTA) — Ukraine’s parliament has passed a law stating that “antisemitism and its manifestations are banned” in that country. The law, which passed on Wednesday thanks to a majority of 283 lawmakers out of 450, is unusual in that it also proscribes antisemitic sentiment as illegal. Most countries with laws against antisemitism, such as Germany, […]

(JTA) — A Jewish aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky survived an assassination attempt near Kyiv on Wednesday. Several shots were fired at the car of Sergey Nachmanovich Shefir, a former television producer whom Zelensky appointed as his top aide. Shefir was not injured but his driver was hit by three bullets in his leg […]