– In an unusual gesture, the president of Poland published a long statement eulogizing a Holocaust survivor who was among a handful of people to have escaped the Sobibor death camp in the country’s east. Andrzej Duda published his 650-word eulogy of Filip Białowicz on the president’s official website on Friday. “We are saying goodbye to…
— An association of hundreds of predominantly African-American churches in Missouri condemned the recent platform of the Black Lives Matter movement labeling Israel an “apartheid state” and accusing it of genocide. In a statement published Sunday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Bishop Lawrence Wooten, president of the St. Louis chapter of the Ecumenical Leadership Council…
— Jewish swimmer Anthony Ervin became the oldest Olympic gold medalist in an individual swimming event, at 35 capping a comeback from burnout and drug use in the aftermath of his gold medal at 19. Ervin edged France’s Florent Manaudou by one one-hundredth of a second in the men’s 50-meter freestyle race Friday night in Rio….
— The Israeli Border Police officers filmed taking away a Palestinian girl’s bicycle will not face criminal prosecution. The conduct of the officers, who were filmed in July by the human rights group B’tselem tossing the bike in bushes, was “inappropriate and unprofessional,” the Justice Ministry’s Police Investigations Department said Monday, according to The Times of Israel….
— Reform Jews are preparing to kick off a nationwide initiative aimed at facilitating voter participation in the black community and beyond in the 2016 presidential election. The voting rights initiative of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism is scheduled to begin on Thursday in Raleigh, North Carolina in cooperation with NAACP and PICO…
— The men’s clubs of the Reform and Conservative movements agreed on a “historic” collaboration. The agreement between the Men of Reform Judaism and the Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, announced last month on the blog of the Union for Reform Judaism, emphasizes that the agreement is not a merger. But the groups have agreed…
— The father of top Israeli model Bar Refaeli was placed under house arrest for allegedly assaulting police officers who came to his home to investigate a neighbor’s noise complaint. Rafi Refaeli was arrested Saturday at his home north of Tel Aviv, Ynet reported Monday. He and a friend are accused of assaulting the officers outside the…
— The son of slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin said Donald Trump’s “ugly” campaign rhetoric is threatening American democracy and creating an atmosphere similar to the one in Israel leading up to his father’s assassination. In a USA Today op-ed on Sunday, Yuval Rabin wrote that the recent call by Trump to “Second Amendment…
— Bambi Sheleg, a trailblazing Israeli journalist who left a mark on Israeli society with investigative reports published in the magazine she founded and elsewhere, has died. Sheleg, a native of Chile, died Monday following a prolonged illness, the news site Srugim reported. She was 58. A leader of the settler movement and a founder of the…
The Israeli branch of the U.S. Republican party began a campaign on Monday to get American voters living in Israel to cast absentee ballots in favor of Donald Trump. According to the Israeli chapter of the Republican party, around 300,000 Americans are eligible to vote in the November presidential elections. They live in Israel or…
Jordan’s King Abdullah II vowed to fight against “repeated violations and attacks carried out by Israel and extremist groups.” The king accused Israel of attempting to “violate the sanctity and compromise Al-Aqsa mosque,” and added, “Our responsibility towards the Muslim holy places in Jerusalem is our top priority in the international arena, and we use…
