Category: World News

(JTA) — A number of major American Jewish organizations are urging a California-based professional rugby team to pull out of an international competition that disinvited an Israeli team. In a letter sent to the San Clemente Rhinos, the groups called on the team to “tackle this alarming problem by speaking out against this discrimination and […]

(JTA) — Ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming visit to London, the United Kingdom’s chief rabbi is calling for “Jewish unity” in Israel and around the world in response to dramatic protests against proposed changes to the Israeli judicial system. “I never thought that we would witness a time when citizens of Israel, […]

(JTA) — Weeks after the city of Frankfurt canceled a Roger Waters concert over his anti-Israel activism, the mayor of Munich says he cannot find legal standing to do the same. “We do not currently see any legally secure possibility … to reverse the decision already made,” said Mayor Dieter Reiter, according to Deutsche Welle. […]

(JTA) — After a warm meeting with his Polish counterpart on Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen declared that the years-long “crisis” in relations between the two countries was over. Meeting in Warsaw, Cohen and Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau signed an agreement stating that Israeli youth trips to Holocaust sites in Poland would resume […]

BERLIN (JTA) – Approximately 1,000 people — most of them Israelis living in Berlin — gathered Thursday at the iconic Brandenburg Gate here to show solidarity with protests against judicial reform in Israel. The protesters’ messages were intended for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in the German capital for meetings with German Chancellor […]

ISTANBUL (JTA) — Turkish Jewish leaders say they are taking action after students at Istanbul’s Üsküdar American Academy reportedly performed the Nazi salute during a soccer game against Istanbul’s sole Jewish day school. The students from the American Academy, considered one of Istanbul’s most elite, delivered the gesture at the game on Tuesday as a […]

(JTA) — After a century-old synagogue in Essen, Germany, was struck by two bullets last November, news reports connected it to the shooting at a synagogue in Halle three years earlier that had been perpetrated by a far-right German extremist. But authorities quickly connected the Essen shooting to a different kind of perpetrator: Ramin Yektaparast, […]

(JTA) — Bulgaria’s president was on hand on Friday for a ceremony marking the 80th anniversary of the country’s dramatic decision to save its 48,000 Jews from the Nazis. So were representatives of the Bulgarian Orthodox church whose predecessors instigated the rescue, as well as a prominent Bulgarian-born Israeli historian and politician, Michael Bar Zohar, […]

ORANJESTAD, Aruba (JTA) — One of Alberto Zeilicovich’s first duties as a Conservative rabbi was to officiate the funeral of a 20-year-old congregant, murdered by a drug cartel while enjoying a night out with his friends at a disco. It was the late 1980s in Medellin, Colombia, and Zeilicovich had entered the pulpit at the […]

MIAMI (JTA) —  Hours before Israel and the Dominican Republic were to take the field as competitors in the World Baseball Classic, players and management gathered at a local park to promote friendship between the two countries and to raise awareness for the common fight against hatred and antisemitism. Hosted by the Israel Association of […]