Category: World News

(JTA) — After Russian President Vladimir Putin reunited with his Jewish high school teacher on an official visit to Israel in 2005, he bought the elderly widow an apartment in Tel Aviv. That’s according to a widely circulated story based on an interview that the former teacher, Mina Yuditskaya-Berliner, gave to an Israeli news outlet in 2014. At […]

(JTA) — A former principal at an Australian school for Orthodox girls has been convicted on 18 counts of abusing students, including a charge of rape, in a case that strained relations between Australia and Israel. The conviction came more than two years after Malka Leifer was extradited from Israel, where she had fled in […]

(JTA) — Backers of a law that would bar the Democratic Republic of Congo’s only Jewish politician from becoming president are trying again to get it passed, in a move decried by Jewish leaders abroad. The law, reintroduced to the African nation’s parliament in Kinshasa this week, would bar anyone without two Congolese parents from […]

(JTA) — Indonesia has been stripped of its hosting rights for the upcoming FIFA Under-20 Men’s World Cup, after the country objected to Israel’s participation. FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, announced the decision Wednesday, saying Indonesia was removed as host “due to the current circumstances,” without providing further clarification. The Football Association of Indonesia may […]

MONTREAL (JTA) — Vandals defaced Quebec province’s oldest synagogue building with Nazi swastikas over the weekend, prompting a Canadian Jewish watchdog to call on Montreal mayor Valérie Plante to do more to fight antisemitism. Leaders of the Bagg Street Synagogue — located just off of Saint Laurent Boulevard in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough, at the former […]

(JTA) — A Jewish member of Finland’s parliament said that he was assaulted in a Helsinki subway station on Saturday, where an assailant punched him in the face and hurled antisemitic insults. Ben Berl Zyskowicz, a member of the conservative-leaning National Coalition Party, said that in addition to the antisemitic comments, the assailant blamed him […]

(JTA) — For Michal Stamova, the challenge of translating Passover’s core text into Ukrainian started with the title. The haggadah — the book containing the Passover story — starts with an “h” sound in both Hebrew, its original language, and English. In Russian, the primary language of organized Jewish life in Ukraine until recently, there is no […]

(JTA) — Greek authorities arrested two men on Tuesday who were planning mass terrorist attacks on Jewish sites in Athens, including a Chabad outpost and a Jewish restaurant, according to reports. The Mossad, Israel’s spy agency which contributed to the investigation, told the Associated Press that the men, who are Pakistani nationals, are also part […]

This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives. TORONTO (JTA) —  At a time of declining synagogue affiliation rates and following a pandemic slump, one of North America’s largest Conservative congregations gained 900 new members […]

(JTA) — A year and a half after representatives of 37 European nations made commitments to combat antisemitism, only 16% of European Jewish leaders said they felt their countries had fully implemented those promises, a report released by the World Jewish Congress revealed on Tuesday. The pledges were made at the Malmö International Forum on […]