SYDNEY (JTA) — Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull paid an unexpected visit to Sydney’s Central Synagogue to join its Friday night service and menorah lighting, telling the congregation that Australia stands “shoulder to shoulder” with Israel. Turnbull called the synagogue’s rabbi, Levi Wolff, Friday afternoon in honor of Hanukkah. During the call, Wolff, invited Turnbull to attend…
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Among his last official acts, outgoing President Barack Obama has signed a bill affixing the name of Tibor Rubin to the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Long Beach, California. Rubin, a Hungarian-born child survivor of the Holocaust, had to wait 55 years until his valor in the Korean War was recognized with…
(JTA) — A large menorah in the front yard of an Arizona family was twisted into the shape of a swastika. The Hanukkah candelabra was made of gold spray-painted PVC pipes and solar-powered lights. Mom in Arizona had to tell her kids: “People hate us for no reason.”https://t.co/fIeD7I0bzj pic.twitter.com/HGP7yfy06N — Julie Zauzmer (@JulieZauzmer) December 30, 2016…
(JTA) — An entertainment company in Greece canceled a game in which players use clues to escape from a room themed around the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. The Rubicon agency, which is located in the northern Athens suburb of Galatsi, in recent weeks advertised the Auschwitz “escape room” on social media. Jews and non-Jews complained it…
(JTA) — Joel Sollender, a World War II prisoner of war who appeared in television ads for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, has died. The cause of his death on Tuesday evening was congestive heart failure, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported Thursday. Sollender, who was Jewish, was 92. “He had a great patriotic feeling about this…
Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday denied allegations of wrongdoing published by local media outlets, who say the attorney-general will launch a criminal investigation against the prime minister next week. A statement issued by a Netanyahu spokesman said the probe would fail to uncover any evidence against him. “All the supposed affairs will turn out to…
(JTA) — Argentine former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is on trial over corruption charges, is to be probed also on allegations that she had covered up evidence from the bombing of a Jewish community building in exchange for Iranian oil. In the 249-page ruling by a Buenos Aires appeals court, which was handed…
(JTA) — In a rare move, a Spanish municipality voted to nullify a resolution it had passed earlier this year endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. Santa Eulalia, a town on the island of Ibiza 300 miles southeast of Madrid, last week nullified in a vote the pro-BDS resolution it passed in…
Hungarian-born Jewish philanthropist George Soros says the United States under “would-be dictator” Donald Trump will not protect the European Union from an unraveling engineered by Russian premiere Vladimir Putin. “I find the current moment in history very painful,” Soros writes in an essay published this week. “Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of…
Carnegie Deli will serve its last mile-high pastrami sandwich today at midnight, despite a late offer from a former dishwasher to buy the restaurant for $10 million. Upper West Side restaurateur Sammy Musovic washed dishes for a year at the deli in the 1970s. He said he offered the money to save a landmark “that…
Ahmed Khalifa is winning recognition from the community after helping chase down a homeless man who slapped an Orthodox Jewish woman in the face on December 27. “It was a very hard slap, I almost could feel the slap. He was 6-foot-6, and a very big, big guy,” said the 17-year-old Muslim high school student,…
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