(JTA) — Academy Award-winning director Roman Polanski, who fled the United States some four decades ago after being convicted of sexually assaulting an underage girl, has been accused by another woman of sexually assaulting her when she was 10. Some 16,769 people have signed an online petition set up by artist Marianne Barnard calling on…
The co-director of a new Netflix documentary about ultra-Orthodox Jews who leave their communities has apologized for making inaccurate comments about the Holocaust. Academy Award-nominated documentarian Heidi Ewing said in a Thursday interview on PBS that “The vast majority of Hasidic Jews were exterminated in the Holocaust, partly because they refused to blend in. They…
Posters with swastikas and anti-Semitic messages were posted overnight at several locations at Cornell University, one of the most prestigious universities in the country. The posters proclaimed “Just say no to Jewish lies!” and showed a snake encircling the world. They also told people to “Join the White Gang!” and promoted a group called the…
(JTA) — Weightlifter Isaac Berger is considered one of the best featherweights in American history. The New Yorker, whose father was a rabbi in Israel, was a two-time world champion and an eight-time national champion. He broke several world records in his weight class (maximum of about 132 pounds) and won a gold medal at…
(JTA) — Israeli-American chef Alon Shaya says he was fired from his namesake New Orleans restaurant for alleged sexual harassment at the famed eatery and other affiliated restaurants. Twenty-five current and former employees were interviewed for the expose in NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune about a culutre of harassment. Shaya spoke up in support of the women. He…
VIENNA (JTA) — Austria’s far-right Freedom Party will “probably be a part of the coalition” despite pleas by Jews to keep it out, the president of the Jewish Community of Vienna said. Oskar Deutsch made the prediction last week in the aftermath of Oct. 15 elections that saw the Freedom Party finish third behind the…
A Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia that was vandalized in February is now fully repaired, according to a statement from the Jewish Federation of Philadelphia, which led the restoration. The $145,000 restoration project fixed damage to the nearly 275 tombstones found toppled and broken earlier this year. The funds came out of $288,000 donors gave to…
Officials in the New York State county of Rockland want local or state officials to shutter an Orthodox Jewish day school in the village of New Hempstead over its failure to connect its trailer classrooms to water and electric facilities, the Journal News reported. The school, Ateres Bais Yaakov Academy, had received a temporary certificate…
(JTA) — Thirty-eight women have accused director and writer James Toback of sexual harassment in a Los Angeles Times report spurred by the account of an incident by a rabbi’s daughter. Toback, 72, who is Jewish and received an Oscar nomination for writing “Bugsy,” denied the allegations to the Los Angeles Times. He also said…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel Police wrote numbers on the hands of more than two dozen haredi Orthodox protesters who were arrested during riots, spurring a comparison to Nazis. The demonstrators, among 120 arrested Thursday during rallies against the arrest of haredi draft dodgers that blocked roads in Jerusalem and other cities, refused to identify themselves. The…
Israel accused Hezbollah on Monday of orchestrating shelling across the Golan Heights frontier in order to stoke Israeli-Syrian fighting, and called on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his big-power ally Russia to curb the Lebanese guerrillas. Twice last week, mortar rounds or rockets launched from Syria hit areas of the Golan that Israel has held…
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