JERUSALEM – Israel confirmed on Thursday it was planning to appropriate a large tract of fertile land in the occupied West Bank, close to Jordan, a move likely to exacerbate tensions with Western allies and already drawing international condemnation. In an email sent to Reuters, COGAT, a unit of Israel’s Defence Ministry, said the political…
The Israeli flag that flew over the SS Exodus carrying Holocaust refugees to Palestine reportedly was donated to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The flag was delivered to the museum by one of the donors, Bill Silverstein of Chicago, on Tuesday, the New York Times reported. Some 4,500 Holocaust survivors and other refugees were on…
David Keyes, a human rights activist, will become Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s English-language spokesman. The plan to appoint Keyes was first reported this week in the Jerusalem Post, which cited unnamed senior government sources. He will replace Mark Regev, who will become Israeli ambassador to London in March. The Prime Minister’s Office has not…
Unidentified individuals wrote a statement accusing Israel of terrorism and praising Allah on the wall of a Turkish synagogue. The sentence “Terrorist Israel, there is Allah!” was discovered recently on the exterior walls of the Istipol Synagogue in Istanbul’s Balat neighborhood, which earlier this month opened for a prayer service for the first time in…
Israel made a “mistake” in naming former settler leader Dani Dayan as its ambassador to Brazil, a Brazilian official said. “I think it was a misstep by the Israeli government,” Marco Aurelio Garcia, diplomatic adviser to the Brazilian president, told Brazilian public television on Friday, a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said publicly…
A Florida synagogue has voted to leave the Reconstructionism over the movement’s decision to allow rabbis to marry outside the Jewish faith. The members of Kol Haneshamah synagogue in Sarasota, Florida, voted by a 63-to-35 margin to end its Reconstructionist affiliation and become an independent congregation not affiliate. Twelve members abstained and 13 votes were…
A professor at Kent State University with a history of anti-Israel activity is under FBI investigation for ties to the Islamic State. The FBI confirmed that Professor Julio Pino is being investigated, the Akron Beacon Journal reported Tuesday night. The Cuban-born Pino, a convert to Islam who is also known as Assad Jibril Pino, has…
Israel has arrested two Jewish youths for anti-Christian graffiti scrawled on a Jerusalem monastery, police said on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered an investigation into the latest in a wave of hate crimes. The 16- and 15-year-old males were suspected of involvement in Hebrew curses like “Christians go to hell” that were written…
An American Jewish billionaire philanthropist in Chicago has donated $2 million to establish what is believed to be the first chair of transgender studies at a university. Jennifer Pritzker, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel who is believed to be the only transgender billionaire in the world, made the gift through her Tawani Foundation to…
U.S. and European criticism of Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank have drawn a furious response from Israel this week, including a former official dismissing the U.S. ambassador to Tel Aviv as a “little Jew boy.” Although the concerns expressed by Israel’s closest allies were partly cloaked in diplomatic language they struck a nerve…
Anti-Semitic incidents in France decreased by five percent in 2015 over the previous year, while anti-Muslim attacks tripled in volume, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said. In an interview published Tuesday by the French daily La Croix, Cazeneuve said his ministry recorded 806 anti-Semitic incidents last year compared to 851 reported in 2014, and 400…
