French Jewish groups, including Western Europe’s largest charity for Jews, signed a declaration of principles for coordinated efforts to provide relief for Syrian refugees. The declaration, initiated by French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia and published Thursday, states each of the six co-signatory groups will “act to accompany the refugees, each according to its competences and…
Rabbis from across the former Soviet Union and Israel gathered in the city of Saratov 450 miles southeast of Moscow to celebrate the opening of one of Russia’s largest synagogues. The opening ceremony on Sept. 6 of the new synagogue in Saratov came at the end of nine years of construction, according to the Russian…
President Barack Obama achieved perhaps the greatest foreign policy victory of his six years in office on Thursday, when a Republican-backed effort to kill the Iran nuclear agreement was narrowly blocked in the U.S. Senate, clearing the way for the deal’s implementation. Forty Democrats and two independents voted to block a resolution disapproving of the…
President Barack Obama told rabbis in a pre-Rosh Hashanah phone call that security talks with Israel had resumed and he hoped to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by early next month. On Thursday, in his annual pre-High Holidays call to the rabbis, Obama said that he was ready to meet with Netanyahu during…
The European Parliament passed a resolution calling on the European Union to issue labels for products imported to Europe from areas occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The European resolution issued Thursday, which would distinguish between products from Israel and from the occupied territories, sparked an angry response the same day from Israel’s…
A teenager has pleaded guilty to vandalizing a synagogue in his suburban Washington, D.C., hometown. Sebastian Espinoza-Carranza, 18, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Montgomery County District Court in Rockville to charges of defacing religious property and malicious destruction of property, the Montgomery Community Media reported. Espinoza-Carranza, whose sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 20,…
The city of Tel Aviv has partnered with Airbnb to create a guide to the city that includes layers of interactive content. Airbnb, which connects travelers with hosts in cities around the world, said in an announcement this week that it is the company’s first partnership with a municipality on a city guide. The company…
Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon walked back comments he reportedly made saying that Israeli military authorities know who is responsible for the arson attack that killed a baby and his parents. Security forces have a “general idea” of who perpetrated the attack on a home in the West Bank village of Duma, he told reporters…
(JTA) — The preserved remains of two Holocaust victims subjected to gruesome Nazi medical experiments finally received proper burial rites last weekend after being kept in a Nazi laboratory for 72 years. The remains — belonging to a Polish Jew named Menachem Taffel and another unidentified victim — were buried in the Strasbourg-Cronenbourg Jewish Cemetery…
Hillel International: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life has received a $16 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the largest grant ever awarded by the foundation. The grant, which will be paid out over five years, will assist Hillel in implementing its Drive to Excellence strategic plan, which is designed to help campuses and…
Israeli military authorities know who is responsible for the arson attack on a Palestinian home that left a baby and his parents dead, the country’s defense minister said. The perpetrators are not being indicted in order to protect the military’s intelligence sources, Moshe Yaalon told a closed meeting on Wednesday, . Reham Dawabsheh, 27, died…
