Category: World News

(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 […]

(JTA) — The BBC announced Monday that it would return top sports broadcaster Gary Lineker to the air Saturday after the network briefly suspended the soccer host for a tweet comparing a British policy to Nazi Germany’s. Britain announced a new immigration package last week that includes an agreement with France on a new migrant […]

KYIV (JTA) — In a historic building in the most industrial part of Podil, the hipster district of Kyiv that once was the heart of the Jewish trading community, a senior and passionate Esther seduces a much younger Ahasuerus. She flirts with the handsome king to the raucous giggling of the audience, which breaks into […]

(JTA) — The film producer Daniel Dreifuss has only one surviving photo of a distant relative: his grandfather’s cousin, who fought for Germany in World War I and died in combat two days before the war’s end. He has a few more photos of his grandfather, who also wore the German uniform in WWI — […]

(JTA) — Starting tonight, many Jews around the world will celebrate Purim in the same ways: by reading the story of the heroic Queen Esther, dressing in festive costumes and drinking alcohol. For many of the 900 or so Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina, it will be the first of two annual Purim celebrations. Since […]

BERLIN (JTA) — A plan to get Germany’s non-Orthodox rabbinical schools back on track after nearly a year of tumult has hit a snag: the country’s main Jewish organization says it can’t fund the group that took control of the schools in January. The Jewish Community of Berlin had announced in a surprise move that […]

(JTA) — Albania’s prime minister announced plans to open a museum in Tirana dedicated to the stories of its citizens who saved Jews during the Holocaust.  The museum will also honor Jewish history and culture, Prime Minister Edi Rama announced while on a state visit to Jerusalem on Wednesday. The Besa Museum will be named […]

(JTA) — Roger Waters, the Pink Floyd bassist who is a leading proponent of the movement to boycott Israel, has been blocked from performing in Frankfurt after the city called him “one of the world’s most well known antisemites.” Waters had been scheduled to perform May 28 at Frankfurt’s Festhalle, which during the Holocaust was […]