The United States and Iran inched closer to a political deal that would set the stage for a landmark nuclear agreement, but a U.S. official warned on Monday that Iran must make tough choices to allay fears about its atomic ambitions. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held…
The Central Conference of American Rabbis, the rabbinical arm of the Reform movement, installed its first openly gay president, Rabbi Denise Eger. Eger, 55, was inaugurated on Monday morning at the CCAR’s annual convention in Philadelphia. She succeeds Richard Block. The founding rabbi of the Kol Ami synagogue in Los Angeles, Eger has been on…
(Reuters) — Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has opened a 10 percentage point lead in his re-election bid against Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, an opinion poll on Sunday showed, though his challenger received a hard-won labor union’s endorsement that could bring in campaign cash and volunteers. The Chicago mayor’s race went to an unprecedented run-off when well-funded…
Swastikas and anti-Semitic slurs were discovered drawn on the campus of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan. The hate messages discovered last week also included racist and homophobic messages, WCBS-TV in New York reported. The college’s vice president, Lynette Cook-Francis, met with representatives of the groups that were targeted in the hate…
Swedish police posted officers at a Jewish cemetery in Malmo after mourners said they had been intimidated there by passers-by. The alleged intimidation occurred on March 10 at Malmo’s Ostra, or eastern, Jewish cemetery, the online edition of the Expressen daily reported Saturday. Two police officers stationed at the cemetery saw two cars speed off…
(Reuters) — Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a final bid to shore up right-wing support ahead of a knife-edge vote on Tuesday, said he would not permit a Palestinian state to be created under his watch if he is re-elected. Trailing his center-left opponent Isaac Herzog in opinion polls, the three-term leader has sought…
The Greek city of Thessaloniki remembered its nearly 50,000 Jews sent to Nazi death camps during World War II. A memorial marking the 72nd anniversary of the roundup and deportation of Thessaloniki Jews was held Saturday. Participants placed flowers on train tracks where the Jews were taken away in cattle cars headed for Auschwitz-Birkenau, The…
The Yeshiva University board of trustees issued a statement in support of President Richard Joel after the undergraduate faculty overwhelmingly passed a no-confidence resolution against him. Board chairman Dr. Henry Kressel, in a letter accompanying the board’s message issued Friday, called the vote that day of the faculty of Yeshiva College at Yeshiva University “an…
Actor Michael Douglas spoke out against anti-Semitism in an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times. Douglas recalled that last summer his son, Dylan, was verbally assaulted at a pool at a resort in southern Europe because he was wearing a Star of David necklace. “Afterward, I sat down with my son and said: ‘Dylan, you…
The bat mitzvah girl whose celebration in Copenhagen ended abruptly after the shooting death of a volunteer synagogue guard was feted in Israel. Hannah Bentow, 13, on Sunday night in Jerusalem had a ceremony and a dance party for girls and women with a DJ. The party took place at the headquarters of the Matan…
(Reuters) — Robert Durst, scion of one of New York’s largest real estate empires, has been arrested in New Orleans on a murder warrant issued by Los Angeles County, the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said. Durst, born in 1943, is known for life twists that led him to be questioned but not charged in the mysterious…
