The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal filed by Alan Gross, the U.S. contractor detained in Cuba for five years who had sued the U.S. government for negligence. Gross, who was released in December as part of the recent thaw in relations between the United States and Cuba, had sued in 2012. A…
(Reuters) — A day before his surprise election victory last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood against the backdrop of a construction site in Har Homa, a towering settlement in the occupied West Bank, and pledged to go on building. The next week, however, his office ordered local authorities to put the brakes on…
There is no proof that a Belgian insurance company refused to insure a Jewish kindergarten because it was deemed t0o risky, a Brussels-based watchdog on anti-Semitism said. The statement by the Belgian League Against Anti-Semitism, or LBCA, follows reports last week that an unnamed insurance company declined to insure a Jewish kindergarten in Brussels, citing…
A man has been arrested in connection with an attack on Bosnian Jewish leader Eli Tauber. Tauber was attacked by a man wielding a weighted chain at a cafe in central Sarajevo, in front of many witnesses. The attack, widely reported in the Bosnian media, occurred on March 21. It took place while journalists from…
President Obama promised to defend Israel in making his most comprehensive case yet for a diplomatic resolution of the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. In a lengthy interview Saturday with Thomas Friedman of the New York Times, Obama made his pitch for the framework accord reached Thursday in Switzerland to limit Iran’s nuclear activities in…
More than 75,000 people gathered at the Western Wall for the Priestly Blessing ceremony. The worshippers converged on Jerusalem’s Old City on Monday for the blessing, called Birkat Kohanim in Hebrew, during the second intermediate day of Passover. The blessing also is held on Succot and Shavuot, the other of the Shalosh Regalim, or pilgrimage…
The Israeli man who faked his own kidnapping said he did so because criminals were looking for him due to his massive gambling debts. Niv Asraf, 22, was found alive on Friday in Kiryat Arba. Asraf told interrogators, according to reports: “I got mixed up in gambling and owed tens of thousands of shekels. The…
Iran has sent tens of millions of dollars to Hamas to help rebuild the Gaza tunnels destroyed by Israel during last summer’s conflict, the Telegraph reported. Iran also is funding new missiles to replenish the supply used to attack Israel before and during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, the London-based newspaper reported citing unnamed intelligence sources….
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Sunday Israel had released frozen tax revenues to the Authority but that he had ordered the funds to be returned because money had been deducted to cover debts to Israeli utility companies. Israel started withholding around $130 million a month in tax and customs revenues in December. The…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the United States on Sunday to seek a better deal to curb Iran’s nuclear program and said he would press American lawmakers not give Tehran “a free path to the bomb.” Netanyahu, in the first of several appearances on U.S. Sunday news programs, said he has spoken with both…
Fans of a Bosnian soccer team chanted anti-Semitic epithets in Vienna prior to a match with the Bosnia-Herzegovina team. The some 50 fans wearing team colors were seen in a video on YouTube among several dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators at a central city plaza during a Tuesday protest, the Austrian newspaper Der Standard reported on Friday….
