In the wake of last summer’s bitter Iran debate, the chief executive of Jewish Federations of North America urged its leaders to ensure their organizations are welcoming to people of various political and religious stripes. During the Iran debate, “too much of the language was vicious and beyond the pale, and has no place in…
The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday rejected claims by a French comedian that his right to speak freely was denied when he was convicted and fined in France for insulting Jews. The court said Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a provocative performer who has been repeatedly accused of hate speech and anti-Semitism, could not claim…
Byron Krieger, a two-time Olympic fencer, died when a havdalah candle sparked a blaze in his Florida retirement home. Krieger, 95, was severely burned when he fumbled the candle and it ignited his sweater and a curtain in his home in Boca Raton Monday, authorities said. His wife, Joyce, 92, suffered minor burns. They were…
The Anti-Defamation League has called upon the new Polish Defense Minister to apologize and retract 2002 comments about the anti-Semitic “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” On Monday, the ADL charged Polish Defense Minister-designate, Antoni Macierewicz, with making an offensive anti-Semitic response to a caller during a broadcast on Radio Maryja, a notoriously anti-Semitic radio…
A popular Brazilian singer has declared he will not perform again in Israel — prompting the Jewish community to accuse him of surrendering to anti-Semitism. Caetano Veloso declared he will not return to Israel due to the “oppression” of the Palestinians only a few months after performing in Tel Aviv in defiance of a strong…
Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said if given the opportunity he would kill Adolf Hitler as a baby. “Hell yeah, I would,” Bush told the Huffington Post in an interview previewed on Monday. “You gotta step up man.” Bush, the former governor of Florida, was responding to an interviewer’s question about the funniest or most…
There is still not enough evidence available to indict the Jewish extremists allegedly responsible for the firebombing of a Palestinian home that killed an infant and his parents, Israel’s defense minister said. Without the evidence, the military has placed several Jewish extremists in administrative detention, in which they can be held for six months at…
(JTA) — Growing up in a traditional Jewish household, Joan Cubell didn’t really know much about Reform Judaism. But after obtaining ordination a few years ago from a little-known rabbinical institute in suburban New York, Cubell decided to make her home in the Reform movement. First she got a job as the leader of the…
For the first time, London’s main rabbinical court and Britain’s chief rabbi have published the name and photo of a recalcitrant husband, and are calling for him to be banned from synagogues and publicly shunned. In a notice published in the London Jewish Chronicle, the London Beth Din calls for congregations to bar John Abayahoudayan,…
Archaeologists discovered a centuries-old mikvah underneath a vaulted cellar in the former East Germany. The ritual bath in the town of Schmalkalden is located near “Judengasse,” or “Jews’ Lane,” where a 17th-century synagogue stood until it was destroyed in the Kristallnacht pogrom exactly 77 years ago on Monday, the day the discovery was announced. The…
A Jewish assistant principal in a New York City public school has filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was harassed by his co-workers because of his religion. David Possner filed the suit in federal court in Manhattan against his colleagues at M.S. 226 in South Ozone Park, in the Queens borough, the New York Post…
