Category: World News

BERLIN (JR) — When Adi Amit stood in front of Dortmund City Hall, addressing a gathering far from her home in Israel, she felt the eyes of her great-great-grandfather Paul Hirsch looking over her shoulder. Figuratively, that is. On Nov. 30, the city of Dortmund unveiled a giant banner depicting Hirsch, who was mayor of […]

(JR) — Isaac Arazi, who as former president of Lebanon’s tiny Jewish community led the rehabilitation of Beirut’s abandoned Magen Avraham synagogue, died Tuesday. He was 80. A lawyer for the community, which numbers less than 30, confirmed his death to Agence France-Presse. Arazi headed the Lebanese Jewish Community Council, which represented the remnant of […]

(JR) — In September, Egyptian authorities re-inaugurated Cairo’s historic Ben Ezra synagogue, which had undergone a year-long renovation. Despite having maintained the synagogue for years, Egypt’s few remaining Jews were conspicuously not invited. In February, according to a Haaretz report, a genizah — a trove of once disregarded sacred texts — was discovered during excavations […]

(JR) — As a child, Mauricio Avayu wasn’t allowed to pursue art — his father thought he should study something more practical, like math or engineering. Avayu grew up in the conservative Jewish community of Santiago, Chile, the capital city home to most of the country’s 18,000 Jews. But by now, Avayu has seen his […]

PORTO, Portugal (JR) — In an apartment overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, 95-year-old Marilyn Flitterman habitually sits at her piano to play tunes by George Gershwin and Irving Berlin — long ago committed to memory — while looking back at the past 50 years of her life in Porto. Born in Brooklyn, she moved to the […]

(JR) — A narrow window is open now through Dec. 31 for Lithuanian Holocaust survivors and their descendants to apply for restitution, under the terms of a law passed last year. A similar law enacted in Latvia has also taken effect, giving Holocaust survivors from that country the chance to secure one-time payments of about […]

(JR) — British Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced that extremist Israeli settlers would be banned from entering the United Kingdom, following a similar announcement by the United States last week. The ban comes amid a reported increase in settler violence in the West Bank during the Israel-Hamas war, including physical assaults and attacks preventing Palestinians […]

(JR) — Vladimir Putin said Russia hopes to reach an agreement to free Evan Gershkovich, the American Jewish journalist it imprisoned in March. “It is not that we have refused to return them,” Putin told reporters in a produced four-hour news conference on Thursday, referring to Gershkovich and United States Marine Paul Whelan, who has […]

(JR) — When 18-year old South African cricket player David Teeger was recognized with a “rising star” honor at a Jewish awards ceremony in October, he dedicated the accolade to Israel. “Yes, I’ve been [given] this award, and yes, I’m now the rising star, but the true rising stars are the young soldiers in Israel,” […]

(JR) — A Hanukkah celebration in the Dutch town of Enschede took a bitter turn after its mayor refused to be seen near the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands. Jaap Hartog, chairman of the Enschede synagogue, invited Mayor Roelof Bleker to a celebration of Hanukkah and the synagogue’s 95th anniversary on Monday night. He reserved […]