An Israeli policeman was spared jail and sentenced to community service on Wednesday for beating an American teenager of Palestinian descent during disturbances in Jerusalem last year, an incident that had prompted U.S. concern. Tariq Khdeir was visiting from Tampa, Florida, as protests erupted over the abduction and killing on July 2, 2014, of his…
The body of an Israeli transgender activist will be cremated as she requested in her will, despite objections by her haredi Orthodox mother. The Jerusalem District Court ruled Wednesday that the body of May Peleg will be cremated, the Hebrew-language news website Walla! reported. Peleg, 31, committed suicide, according to a statement released from the…
University students in the Netherlands redesigned the dorm room of a Jewish classmate with motifs from a Nazi death camp during the Holocaust, Dutch media reported. The incident at Leiden University, which was reported by the Dutch daily Volkskrant, involved members of the prestigious Minerva Society, the oldest student association in the Netherlands. Several seniors…
A former executive of the Kabbalah Centre, a spiritual group rooted in Jewish mysticism and known for its celebrity devotees, went on trial on Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by a follower who says he plied her with alcohol and drugs, then groped her. Yehuda Berg, 43, son of the late rabbi who founded the…
The birthrate of Jewish and Arab women in Israel is about even, according to new Israeli figures. Jewish women in Israel had a birthrate of 3.11 children and Arab women had a birthrate of 3.17 children at the end of 2014, according to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics. The figures were released Tuesday, ahead of…
Attempts to compare the European Union’s settlement labeling guidelines to the Nazi boycott of Jewish goods and stores cheapens the memory of the Holocaust, the EU envoy to Israel said. The attempt to draw parallels is a “distortion of history and a belittlement of the crimes of the Nazis and the memories of their victims,”…
A Dutch municipality where a local school had segregated Jewish pupils from members of the royal family decided to erect a monument commemorating Holocaust victims. The municipality of Baarn near Utrecht, 25 miles from Amsterdam, announced last week it would erect the monument near its central station in January 2016 at a cost of $13,000,…
Ten Jewish groups are among 81 joined in a letter to every member of Congress urging them not to roll back plans to accept Syrian refugees into the United States. “To turn our back on refugees would be to betray our nation’s core values,” said the letter sent Tuesday, as Congress began considering measures which…
The ultra-Orthodox mother of an Israeli transgender woman who killed herself is battling the woman’s lawyer over plans to cremate the body. May Peleg, 31, an activist in Israel’s LGBT community, filed a will with attorney Yossi Wolfson the day before her suicide stating her desire to be cremated, Haaretz reported Tuesday. The Israeli newspaper…
The Palestine Red Crescent Society acted with impartiality and professionalism in the case of the terror attack on a family driving in the West Bank that left two dead, its parent organization said. The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement issued on Tuesday that the Palestine Red Crescent Society, or PRCS,…
(JTA) — Babette and Sasha Bergman lead what many would consider a charmed life. Both Jewish high-tech professionals in their 30s — they met while working at Google’s European headquarters in Ireland — the Bergmans settled in this capital city shortly ahead of the birth of their now 4-year-old daughter, Daniella. On weekends, they enjoy entertaining…
