Biden and Netanyahu speak as world leaders pledge support for Israel after Hamas attack

(JR) — Political leaders from around the globe have condemned Hamas’ sweeping attack on Israel and pledged their support for Israel. U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, following earlier conversations between National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Israeli National Security Advisor Tzachi Hanegbi. The United States “unequivocally condemns the unprovoked […]

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Amid Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Armenian synagogue defaced as local anger over Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan grows

(JR) — Vandals threw red paint on an Armenian synagogue on Tuesday, in the latest sign of increasing tensions between Armenia and Israel as Israeli arms sales have fueled Azerbaijan’s offensive in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. The paint was smeared on the Mordechay Navi Jewish Religious Center in Yerevan, what is thought to be the […]

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As nationalism rises in Serbia, a Holocaust education seminar for teachers gets more popular

ŠABAC, Serbia (JR) — On a recent morning in the Serbian town of Šabac, 69-year-old Borka Marinković sat around a table with half a dozen schoolteachers, none of them Jewish, and opened up about her complicated life as the daughter of Holocaust survivors. Marinković’s mother was interned at a concentration camp on the Croatian island […]

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A chance discovery connected US soccer star Matt Turner to his Jewish roots

(JR) — Unexpected events converged not only to forge Matt Turner’s career as a professional soccer player. They enabled him to find Jewish roots he never knew he had. Turner, 29, the starting goalkeeper for the U.S. men’s national team and Nottingham Forest in England’s Premier League, discovered those roots in finding his paternal great-grandmother’s […]

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85 years after Kristallnacht, Germany to begin rebuilding grand synagogue in Hamburg

(JR) — More than 80 years after one of Germany’s most prominent synagogues was destroyed on Kristallnacht, the Jewish community of Hamburg has taken ownership of the building’s site and is set to begin rebuilding it. The site of the Bornplatz Synagogue, a neo-Romanesque building dedicated in 1906 that had a 1,200-seat sanctuary and was […]

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A Jewish cemetery in Belarus was destroyed by Nazis. Now its headstones are being made into a memorial.

(JR) — Earlier this year, the local Jewish community of Brest, Belarus received a call from a young couple who had just purchased a fixer-upper house and needed some help with a difficult situation: Their basement was built from old Jewish gravestones. For nearly two decades, the Jewish community — and in recent years, the […]

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Why most Asian Jews use imported etrogs on Sukkot even though their countries grow the fruit

TAIPEI, Taiwan (JR) — Rebecca Kanthor, a member of a progressive Jewish community in Shanghai, knows that she can easily order lulavs and etrogs in a few clicks online. Kanthor, who belongs to Kehilat Shanghai, simply logs onto Taobao, China’s equivalent to Amazon. Etrogs, important components of a ritual for the Sukkot holiday, are known […]

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