Georgetown University will create a permanent program on the forensic study of the Holocaust using a new $10 million gift. The donation to the Washington, D.C., school is from Norman and Irma Braman, a Florida couple who have made large gifts to other universities and hospitals. Norman Braman is founding chairman of the Holocaust Memorial…
(JTA) — Two months before they were deported from the Netherlands to Auschwitz, Louis Barzelay and Flora Snatager invited a few guests to their wedding in Amsterdam. Instead of the yellow star he was legally required to wear, Louis wore a white flower on his lapel as he posed with Flora in a doorway for…
President Barack Obama signed a bill that punishes the BDS campaign against Israel, but said he will not apply a segment that extends protections to West Bank settlements. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, aimed at removing unfair barriers to competitive U.S. trade, passed the U.S. House of Representatives in December and…
The Riverdale Jewish Center’s Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, who has been under fire for having sauna chats with boys from the synagogue, reportedly has resigned from his position at the synagogue. Rosenblatt told the Riverdale Jewish Center on Wednesday that he will step down from his position as Senior Rabbi of the congregation, the Times of…
Jewish student leaders at Oberlin College in Ohio pushed back against an alumni effort to “defeat” the Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment movement against Israel. “We as students want to have meaningful, nuanced conversations about Israel,” Oberlin students Eli Hovland, Emily Isaacson and Sarah Keller wrote in an Op-Ed published this week on the website of…
At an event to promote awareness of the challenges facing refugees in Europe, actor Jude Law read aloud a German-Jewish author’s Holocaust-era letter. The British actor, whose recent films include “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” read Lion Feuchtwanger’s 1935 open letter to the Nazis occupying his Berlin home, The…
A haredi Orthodox man rioted on an El Al flight home from Poland after complaining that the in-flight movie was “immodest.” The passenger, 36, from Beit Shemesh, damaged two viewing screens and attacked the cabin crew during his rampage on Wednesday, the Hebrew-language news website Walla reported. Police, who were waiting for the man when…
A haredi Orthodox lawmaker in Israel reportedly compared the Reform movement to a mentally ill person. Israel Eichler of the United Torah Judaism party made his remarks Tuesday in the lead-up to a Knesset debate the next day on the Supreme Court’s decision that non-Orthodox converts can immerse in a public mikvah, according to the…
Oscar-nominated celebrities were urged on Wednesday to skip a $55,000 trip to Israel offered as part of an awards gift bag. Two U.S.-based groups campaigning for an end to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian Territories made the plea in a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times that appeared five days before the Academy Awards…
A 26-year-old Orthodox Jewish man killed himself by driving the wrong way on the Florida Turnpike days after saying on Facebook that he had already tried to do so. Tzvi Yeheskel Ference of Miami Beach was killed on Sunday night when his car driving north collided head-on with a tractor trailer in the southbound lanes…
A French-Jewish teacher who in November told police he had been assaulted by Jihadists was arrested on suspicion that he lied about the attack. Rabbi Tsion Saadon was taken into custody Wednesday following the discovery of inconsistencies in his account of the alleged Nov. 18, 2015 attack, which prompted passionate condemnations by police and even…
