Author: Jesse Orine

(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 […]

(JTA) — Several Israeli philanthropists have helped bring to Abu Dhabi dozens of asylum seekers, including female athletes, fleeing Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The rescue operation led by Aaron G. Frenkel, an aviation professional who had helped airlift thousands of Jews out of the Soviet Union, ended on Sept. 6, as 41 asylum seekers from […]

(JTA) — A Torah scroll that the Nazis stole from for their planned museum on Judaism in Prague will return to use there on Simchat Torah, a holiday that falls later this month and celebrates the seminal Jewish text. Memorial Scrolls Trust, a London-based nonprofit that preserves Torah scrolls and other scripture, on Sunday said […]

(JTA) — Local Jewish leaders are fuming about repeated security breaches at a large Jewish cemetery in the Buenos Aires area. Just before Yom Kippur last week, three vandals were caught trying to make off with 223 of the cemetery’s gravestones — the third such robbery in the past month. Over 100 headstones were smashed […]

(JTA) — Amsterdam has a new Holocaust memorial that contains over 100,000 names of Dutch Holocaust victims and was designed by the famed Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind. The Holocaust Memorial of Names, unveiled Sunday where it stands near the city’s Jewish Cultural Quarter, is made up of separate walls of bricks with the names of […]