WASHINGTON — Four liberal Jewish groups have joined a drive calling on President-elect Donald Trump to rescind the choice of Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, citing the general’s hostility to Islam and his retweeting an anti-Semitic tweet. “He has written that ‘fear of Muslims is rational’ and said that ‘Islam is a political ideology’…
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed coalition politics for the delay in implementing a deal reached earlier this year to create a designated prayer section for non-Orthodox worshipers at the Western Wall. “Anti-Semitism is a fringe element in the United States,whether on the right or the left,” said Netanyahu. “I don’t think it…
Ben Shapiro, the 32-year-old right-wing pundit and leading target of online anti-Semites, won over a crowd of mostly Orthodox students at Yeshiva University with jabs at transgender people, liberals and non-Orthodox Jews. Shapiro spoke of the importance of being a mensch, but was less kind when it came to describing his televised encounter with a…
— A Jewish studies lecturer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, said a stranger asked him if he was Jewish and then performed a Nazi salute and said “Heil Hitler.” The unnamed lecturer said the man approached him in a vehicle last month near the campus Hillel building, The Daily Northwestern reported Monday. The director of Northwestern Hillel,…
Britain’s Union of Jewish Students could soon have a leader who supports the boycotts, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel (BDS). That’s if Eran Cohen, an activist linked to the Palestinian cause and the country’s Labour Party, wins the body’s presidential election to be held later this week. “I support it because I believe it…
(JTA) — Responding to legislation deemed harmful to efforts to return privately owned Jewish property in Warsaw, a major restitution group said it was building a database to facilitate claims. The World Jewish Restitution Organization, or WJRO, announced the new tool Monday, three months after regulations went into effect that drastically limited the window for filing claims for…
— The Orthodox Union has started an online petition calling on President-elect Donald Trump to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. The move would recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s “chosen capital,” the O.U. petition on Change.org says. It also notes that June 2017 will mark the 50th anniversary of the reunification…
(JTA) — Hillel International is receiving $38 million, its largest gift ever, from a foundation established by the co-founder of Home Depot. The Marcus Foundation, established by Bernard Marcus and his wife, Billi, said Monday it would make the multi-year donation to a new Hillel staffing initiative, Talent Grants. The initiative seeks to “recruit, train…
BERLIN — The firing of the director of the Polish Cultural Institute in Berlin has led to a diplomatic brouhaha in the German capital after some assert that she focused too much on Jewish topics. The Jewish Museum also has become involved in defense of Katarzyna Wielga-Skolimowska, who was let go last week by the Polish Foreign Ministry, ostensibly…
A gilded statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, dubbed “King Bibi” by its creator, stirred condemnation from Israel’s culture minister and was toppled by an onlooker after a brief public appearance on Tuesday. Sculptor Itay Zalait told reporters he had placed the four meter (13 foot) tall effigy of Netanyahu on a white pedestal in…
Poland’s supreme court on Tuesday upheld an earlier verdict that Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski cannot be extradited to the United States over a 1977 child sex conviction, bringing a definitive end to the Polish case. The top court’s verdict marks a defeat for Polish Prosecutor General and Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who wanted to hand…
