The eldest son of the Vizhnitz Hasidic sect’s grand rabbi died unexpectedly at age 67. Rabbi Pinchas Shulem Hager, whose father Rabbi Mordechai Hager is international grand rabbi of the Vizhnitz Hasidic sect, died Thursday morning following back surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan. Hager, known for officiating at many Vizhnitz weddings, served as…
Acting at the request of pro-Palestinian groups, the deputy dean of a Brazilian university urged faculty to list Israelis working or studying on campus. Jose Fernando Schlosser, deputy dean of the Federal University of Santa Maria in Brazil’s south made the appeal in a flyer he sent out on May 15, the online edition of…
(JTA) — To Israel’s supporters, the decision by the French telecommunications giant Orange to dump its Israeli affiliate is not only a politically motivated divestment by a major multinational corporation, but a sign that European policymakers are being impacted by efforts to boycott the Jewish state. Citing the French government’s ownership of a quarter of Orange’s…
White House officials met with members of Breaking the Silence, an Israeli group which collects soldiers’ testimonies to expose abuses. The meeting, the first of its kind, dealt with testimonies that the organization had collected on alleged human-rights violations by the Israel Defense Forces during last summer’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Haaretz…
Shlomo Riskin, the chief rabbi of Efrat, filed a $260,000 countersuit against a resident of the West Bank settlment who had sued Riskin for libel. Riskin’s lawsuit, which he filed Wednesday in the Jerusalem District Court, alleges that Samuel Wasserman, also a resident of the Efrat settlement in the West Bank, conspired with others to…
Rabbi Berel Lazar’s mother was eager for grandchildren. So she gave her 25-year-old son an ultimatum: He could return to his beloved Jewish outreach work in Russia if — and only if — he got married. His yeshiva classmates jokingly said he was already wed, “to the idea of going to Russia,” said Lazar, the…
France opposes boycotts against Israel but will not intervene if the Orange communications giant drops its Israeli affiliate, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. Fabius’ statement on Friday was in reaction to the announcement the previous day by Orange S.A., which is partly controlled by the French state, that it would terminate its presence in…
Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt asserted his innocence in his first public comment since the publication of a New York Times article about his habit of inviting young males to join him for naked heart-to-heart talks in the sauna. In a letter sent Thursday to congregants of his Orthodox synagogue, the Riverdale Jewish Center in New York,…
(JTA) — The City of Tel Aviv invited Caitlyn Jenner to be a guest of honor at its Gay Pride Week celebration. Jenner, 65, the former reality show star and Olympic gold medal-winning decathlete, has not responded to the invitation announced Thursday. She has garnered the media spotlight with her recent transition to become a…
A District of Columbia judge on Thursday granted a new trial to the man convicted of killing federal intern Chandra Levy in 2001, a case that contributed to a politician’s downfall. Superior Court Judge Gerald Fisher ordered the retrial for Ingmar Guandique, 34, after prosecutors dropped their opposition to defense lawyers’ request for a new…
The organizer of a May event in Texas highlighting cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed said on Thursday that she was the target of a man who federal prosecutors said had intended to behead police officers in Boston. However, Boston Police Commissioner William Evans said it did not seem that Usamaah Abdullah Rahim had developed a…
דער מחבר איז אַן אַמעריקאַנער־געבוירענער ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט, פּאָעט און איבערזעצער אין בערלין.
