Six Israelis set a world record for open-water relay distance swimming. The swimmers completed their 236-mile trek on Saturday, crossing the eastern Mediterranean from Cyprus to Israel in 123 hours, 10 minutes, according to the website of the World Open Water Swimming Association. The previous record was 228 miles set by a team of U.S….
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon criticized Israel for building in the settlements and condemned “provocations” at holy sites in Jerusalem. Ban visited met Monday in Ramallah in the West Bank with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. The meeting came a day after the Gaza rebuilding conference in Cairo, where Ban announced that he…
More than 1,350 academics from universities and colleges from around the world have signed a petition opposing faculty or student boycotts of Israel. The online petition of the Faculty for Academic Freedom was posted on Oct. 5. “We, the undersigned academics, vigorously support free speech and free debate but we oppose faculty or student boycotts…
The remains of the commander of World War I’s Jewish Legion have been brought to Israel in fulfillment of his wish to be buried in Israel alongside his former soldiers. The ashes of Lt.-Col. John Henry Patterson and his wife, Frances Helena, were brought to Israel for interment, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a…
Women of the Wall launched an ad campaign on public buses in Jerusalem to promote bat mitzvah ceremonies for girls at the Western Wall. The ads unveiled on Sunday evening feature Israeli girls ages 11 to 14 wearing a prayer shawl and holding a Torah scroll in front of the Western Wall. The ad reads…
British foreign policy towards Palestine will not change, even if lawmakers on Monday vote in favor of a motion stating that the government should recognize it as a state, Prime Minister David Cameron’s official spokesman told reporters. Britain does not class Palestine as a state, but says it could do so at any time if…
Women are permitted to dance with a Torah scroll on the Simchat Torah holiday, a national-religious rabbinical organization has ruled. The Beit Hillel organization posted the religious ruling on its website. The ruling also encourages synagogues to be more inclusive of the elderly, the youth and people with disabilities during the holiday celebration, which includes…
The mayor of Rome condemned a public commemoration in the city for the late Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke. Ignazio Marino called Saturday’s event downtown a “vulgar provocation” that “wounds the entire civic community and represents a real slap in the face to the city of Rome, which played a fundamental role in the Italian…
The editor of The Lancet wrote in the British medical journal that he regrets the polarization caused by the publication of an open letter accusing Israel of a “massacre” in Gaza, but did not retract it. “At a moment of unbearable human destruction in Gaza, the unintended outcome of the Manduca et al letter was…
A new website on convicted Soviet spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg provides access to a collection of more than 500 letters between the couple while they were imprisoned. The website was launched last week by the Howard Gotlieb Archival Center at Boston University. Maintaining their innocence until the end, the Rosenbergs were executed on conspiracy…
The Swiss art gallery named as the sole heir of reclusive German art collector Cornelius Gurlitt is to accept his bequest of masterpieces which include works looted by the Nazis from Jews, a Swiss paper reported on Sunday. Gurlitt, who died in May aged 81, had secretly stored hundreds of works by the likes of…
