(JTA) — Rabbi Barry Freundel was known to the Washington Jewish community as a champion of moral rectitude. But on Tuesday, the spiritual leader of Kesher Israel congregation for the past 25 years, was charged with the most intimate of transgressions: voyeurism. Freundel, 62, was taken away Tuesday in handcuffs, after uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives…
A blizzard and avalanche in Nepal have killed more than a dozen trekkers, including at least two Israelis. Extreme weather conditions spurred by the remains of Cyclone Hudhud struck the mountainous country on Tuesday, killing 17 hikers, including the Israelis, according to a report by the French news agency AFP. Other reports have varied, with…
A watchdog on anti-Semitism vowed legal action against a French municipality that named a street after Marwan Barghouti, a popular jailed Palestinian leader. The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, on Wednesday prepared to motion an administrative court to void the move by the municipality of Valenton near Paris, BNVCA founder Sammy Ghozlan…
A British man known as the British Oskar Schindler will receive the Czech Republic’s highest civilian honor. Sir Nicholas Winton, 105, saved 669 Czechoslovak children from the Nazis while serving as a British diplomat. The mission was known as the Czech Kindertransport. The saved children have more than 5,000 descendants. Winton is scheduled to receive…
The controversial lead witness against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg died in July at 92. The death of David Greenglass, who was Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, was not immediately reported because he changed his name and his family did not publicize his passing. Greenglass provided testimony that led to the conviction and 1953 execution of the Jewish…
Bernard Kouchner, the previous foreign minister of France, said that former president Nicolas Sarkozy was widely disliked because of his Jewish origins. Kouchner made the assertion during an interview Tuesday for RMC radio in responding to the interviewer’s question about Kouchner’s observations about Sarkozy in Kouchner’s newly published book, “Crossed Memories.” In the book, which…
(Haaretz) — Just how progressive is your local Orthodox synagogue? Probably the best way to find out is to pay a visit during Simchat Torah, the holiday that starts at sundown on Wednesday, and take note: Are women sitting behind the mechitza – the partition that separates them from the men – looking bored and…
Religious leaders and elected officials in New York City denounced two recent attacks in Brooklyn — against a deli and a JCC executive. A news conference was held Tuesday at Brooklyn Borough Hall three days after dozens of teenagers were caught on tape vandalizing a Hasidic Jewish-owned deli in the Crown Heights neighborhood. The store…
Facebook Inc Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, would donate $25 million to the Centers for Disease Control Foundation to fight Ebola. “We need to get Ebola under control in the near term so that it doesn’t spread further and become a long-term global health crisis that we…
A British lawmaker from heavily Jewish northwest London sacrificed his post as parliamentary private secretary in order to vote against a motion recognizing Palestine as a state. The measure passed by a eye-opening 274-12 margin, although many lawmakers abstained, incuding Prime Minister David Cameron. House of Commons protocol requires ministers and parliamentary private secretaries to…
A British Parliament member defended his reference to a “Jewish lobby” during a House of Commons debate on a symbolic motion to recognize Palestine statehood. On Tuesday, Andrew Bridgen of the Conservative Party stood by his statement during discussion of the motion a day earlier that “the political system of the world’s superpower and our…
