— The Genesis Prize Foundation and the Jewish Funders Network launched a $3 million matching grant program to fund an initiative to promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in Jewish life. The “Breaking Barriers” program launched Monday in honor of 2016 Genesis Prize laureate Itzhak Perlman will promote the inclusion of people with disabilities in all…
British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn turned down an invitation by Israel’s opposition chief to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, a British newspaper reported. Corbyn responded to the invitation, made in the spring by Isaac Herzog, the head of Israel’s Zionist Union political list, several weeks later, saying his schedule was full and that…
An Israeli rabbi said the collapse of a parking garage under construction in Tel Aviv that killed six was due to lack of Sabbath observance. Rabbi Meir Mazuz, the head of the Tunisian Jewish community in Israel, made the comments during a lecture he delivered Saturday night in Bnei Brak, Ynet reported. “What happened, the…
Herzl Shaul, who died waiting for the remains of his son, Oron, to be returned by Hamas in Gaza, wrote a farewell letter to his son, who was killed in the 2014 Gaza war. The letter released Sunday by the family more than a week after Herzl Shaul’s death shows that he firmly believed his…
Israeli Supreme Court justices chastised the government for not implementing the government’s plan to create an ecumenical prayer section at the Western Wall. Monday’s hearing was in response to a 3-year-old petition complaining about the treatment of egalitarian worshippers at the site. At the hearing, the justices called for the plan to be implemented. The…
— J Street has called on the U.S Treasury Department to review the tax-deductibility status of groups that support settlement activity in the West Bank. The liberal Jewish Middle East policy group in a statement posted on its website and sent to journalists pointed out that the United States has “consistently opposed the construction and expansion…
JERUSALEM — A Jerusalem synagogue was vandalized with black crosses spray painted on its outside walls. The vandal attack occurred on Sunday night at a synagogue in the Katamon neighborhood in southern Jerusalem. The synagogue notified police of the possible hate crime on Monday morning. Police have opened an investigation into the incident. A police spokesman…
(JTA) — “Crazy Eddie” Antar, whose chain of eponymous electronics retail stores was a business and cultural phenomenon before he landed in jail on fraud charges, died Saturday at age 68. A cause of death was not disclosed. The grandson of Syrian Jewish immigrants, Antar advertised his chain with a series of antic late-night television…
Greta Zimmer Friedman, the Jewish refugee whose Times Square kiss from a sailor on the day World War II ended became an iconic photo, has died. Friedman, who had been living at an assisted living facility in northern Virginia, died Sept. 8, CBS reported, quoting her son, Joseph Friedman. She was 92. She will be…
Alan Gross, imprisoned for five years in Cuba for his efforts to assist its Jewish community, endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, citing in part her commitment to the Obama administration’s new openness to Cuba. “I support her commitment to continue and improve our new Cuba policy,” Gross, who was arrested in 2009 for distributing internet…
A private school in Australia said allowing a student to dress up as Adolf Hitler while students from a Jewish school visited was “an innocent mistake.” The Jewish students were present at an assembly on Wednesday when the boy was given a “best dressed” award for his Nazi costume, which a teacher at the private…
