Category: World News

(JR) — Soccer players in Italy will no longer be permitted to wear the number 88, which has a secret antisemitic meaning among neo-Nazis, thanks to a joint initiative announced Tuesday between Italy’s government and the Italian soccer federation. The number 88 has been used by neo-Nazis as a coded antisemitic symbol meaning “Heil Hitler,” […]

PARIS (JR) — After graduating from an American rabbinical program this month, a French woman has likely become her country’s first Orthodox female rabbi. Myriam Ackermann-Sommer, 26, has since last year been running Ayeka, one of Paris’ only Modern Orthodox congregations, with her husband Emile Ackermann. He also earned a rabbinical degree this month from […]

(JR) — For months, Christie’s auction house has faced blowback for a $202 million sale of a jewelry collection tied to Nazi plunder. Now, a group of Holocaust survivors that has taken Christie’s to task for the sale is turning its attention to the relationship between the auction house, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and […]

BERLIN (JR) — Violent antisemitism is on the rise in Germany, according to a report released today by a Berlin-based watchdog organization with branches around the country. According to the report on “Antisemitic Incidents in Germany 2022” from the Federal Association of Research and Information Centers on Antisemitism (RIAS), while the overall number of incidents […]

LONDON (JR) — Daniel Korski, the only Jewish candidate in the London mayoral race and a political figure who was just beginning to come to the British public’s attention, has been accused of assaulting a woman during a meeting at Downing Street a decade ago. Television producer Daisy Goodwin wrote in The Times, the British […]

TAIPEI (JR) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced during a meeting with U.S. lawmakers in Jerusalem that he will soon make a diplomatic visit to China, stressing that he notified the Biden administration of the invitation from Beijing a month ago. “Prime Minister Netanyahu stressed to the members of Congress that the security and […]

BERLIN (JR) — Jewish leaders are reacting with alarm to a local election in the former East German state of Thuringia, where for the first time in Germany a far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) candidate has won the top political post in his district. Robert Sesselmann won Sunday’s district council run-off election in Sonneberg, with 52.8% of […]

BERLIN (JR) — Germany’s largest Jewish center since World War II and one of the largest of its kind in the world opened on Sunday in Berlin with a dedication ceremony that included diplomats and communal leaders from around the world. The Pears Jewish Campus, which covers over 80,000 square feet and cost $43.7 million […]

Eli Khanukayev, an Azerbaijani Jew who works in information technology, spent a recent Sunday immersed in the Jewish culture of his native country. The 23-year-old was among several dozen volunteer organizers at Limmud Baku 2023 — an all-day festival for Jews that drew some 300 people to a hotel overlooking the Caspian Sea in Baku, […]

(JR) — A Moscow court has upheld an extended detention for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who must remain in jail on espionage charges until at least August 30. Gershkovich, 31, is the son of Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union, and has been in Russia’s Lefortovo prison since late March. He is being […]