(JTA) — Leaders of various faiths in Montana wrote statements in support of the Jewish community in local publications. “As leaders of Montana communities of faith and practice, we are called to respond to the recent surge of white supremacist and neo-Nazi activity in our state. Distribution of pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic flyers in Missoula and intimidation…
(JTA) — A German public broadcasting station must apologize to a survivor of Auschwitz for calling the Nazi death camps “Polish death camps.” An appeals court in Krakow, Poland, announced the ruling on Thursday. Ninety-five year old Polish Holocaust survivor Karol Tendera filed the lawsuit against the ZDF broadcaster over a 2013 promotional trailer for a…
After New Zealand was one of four countries to sponsor a resolution in the United Nations Security Council condemning Israel, the country’s Jewish community has called on the governments of New Zealand and Israel to work together to keep the Israeli Embassy in Wellington open. The plea follows the recall to Israel of its ambassador…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — About 1,000 Jewish pilgrims visited Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus in an area of the West Bank that is under the exclusive military and civilian control of the Palestinian Authority. The visit on Sunday night, the second Hanukkah light, lasted until just before dawn on Monday morning, under Israeli military escort. Residents of…
(JTA) — Pope Francis said he hopes for peace between Israel and the Palestinians during his Christmas message. “Peace to women and men of the beloved Holy Land, the land chosen and favored by God,” Francis said Sunday at noon from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. The pope called on Israel…
British singer George Michael, who became one of the pop idols of the 1980s with Wham! and then forged a career as a successful solo artist with sometimes sexually provocative lyrics, died at his home in England on Sunday. He was 53. In the mid-1980s, “Wham! was one of the most successful pop duos ever,…
Hollywood actress Carrie Fisher was in stable condition, her mother Debbie Reynolds said on Sunday, after the “Star Wars” star suffered a cardiac episode two days earlier on a flight from London to Los Angeles. “Carrie is in stable condition. If there is a change, we will share it. For all her fans and friends,…
The 103-year-old Rabbi Aaron Yehuda Leib Shteinman, considered the leading sage in the non-Hasidic (Lithuanian) Haredi community, was hospitalized in Bnei Brak on Sunday after he had felt unwell for several days. Doctors suspect he has pneumonia. Ma’ayanei Hayeshua Medical Center director Prof. Moti Ravid told Haaretz that Shteinman was conscious and had been admitted as…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday summoned the U.S. ambassador to Israel on Christmas Day to discuss the U.S. abstention in a U.N. Security Council resolution demanding an end to settlement-building. As a diplomatic crisis swirled, Netanyahu reportedly told cabinet allies that the U.S. might go further by allowing a declaration of principles of…
(JTA) — About 2,000 Jewish families in Moscow will receive free tickets to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center located in the Russian capital. The families, subscribers to the PJ Library, a program providing free Jewish children’s books to families, which last year expanded to Russia, starting on the second day of Chanukah, or Monday, Dec. 26, will…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli man was stabbed and moderately wounded while walking on the main street of the West Bank settlement of Efrat. The man, in his 50s, was walking with his wife after the start of Shabbat on Friday evening, when a Palestinian assailant stabbed him three times in the settlement located in…
