The grave of a daughter of the Breslover movement’s founder, Rabbi Nachman, was set on fire and daubed with a swastika. The 1831 grave in the central-Ukraine city of Kremenchuk was set ablaze sometime after the completion last month of its renovation by the Oholei Tzadikim association, which works to restore Jewish burial sites throughout…
Israel’s mayor of Jerusalem and his security guard wrestled a Palestinian attacker to the ground near city hall on Sunday after an ultra-Orthodox Jew was stabbed with a knife at a busy intersection. Security camera footage showed mayor Nir Barkat, in a white shirt, walk towards the suspect together with his bodyguard and lunge at…
Israel has signed a contract to buy 14 additional F-35 fighter jets from the United States for about $3 billion, the Defense Ministry said on Sunday. The deal, approved by an Israeli cabinet committee in November, follows Israel’s purchase in 2010 of 19 F-35s, manufactured by Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N). In a statement, the ministry…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it “astonishing” that nuclear talks with Iran are proceeding despite a report saying that Iran is hiding military components of its nuclear program. On Sunday, Netanyahu at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting also reiterated his intention to travel to the United States next week to deliver an…
Israel’s ambassador to Germany reiterated that Jews who feel unsafe in Europe due to recent anti-Semitic attacks should “come to [Israel] at any time” – an approach recently rejected by the head of Germany’s Jewish community. In an interview published Sunday in the Berlin daily Tagesspiegel, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman echoed last week’s invitation from Israeli Prime…
The Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage has turned down a request to support the renovation of a historic synagogue in Przysucha in southern Poland. The titleholder of the synagogue, the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland, has rejected the decision, and is working to convince federal officials to change their…
A senior Chabad rabbi was delisted as an emissary from the New York-based organization as the fallout continues from Australia’s Royal Commission into the child sex abuse scandal. Rabbi Yosef Feldman, a former director of Sydney’s Yeshivah Center, which houses the headquarters of Chabad there, was delisted last week after his controversial comments to the…
A Ukrainian Jewish soldier who died last month amid Russian-backed separatist fighting was buried in Kiev. Yevgeni Yatsina, who was almost 26, was brought to burial in the capital on Friday following the discovery of his body, which was covered by debris since he died in an explosion last month in the country’s east, the…
Several hundred people gathered at a Norwegian synagogue to support Jews at an event which drew praise but also criticism because of an organizer’s anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements. The event Saturday night featured a human chain around Oslo’s main synagogue by more than 1,000 people, many of them Muslim, who had gathered there at the…
Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday expressed concern about the viability of the Palestinian Authority if it does not soon receive tax revenue which has been withheld by Israel. The funds have been held back from the Authority since last month in retaliation for Palestinian moves to join the International Criminal Court (ICC). The…
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez accused the judiciary on Saturday of launching a political battle after state lawyers organized a march to demand justice for a dead prosecutor who had been investigating her. The protest, known as 18F, drew tens of thousands into the streets of Buenos Aires on Wednesday, a month after state prosecutor Alberto…
