Pope Francis has strongly defended his wartime predecessor Pius XII against accusations he turned a blind eye to the Holocaust, saying the opening of Vatican archives will shed light on the controversy. In an interview published on Friday in the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, Francis condemned anti-Semitism, saying it was a “continuing” problem that was…
Approximately 4,000 Jews attended Moscow’s first “Festival of Judaism” which organizers planned as a celebration of the 50th birthday of Chief Russian Rabbi Berel Lazar. The festival was held on June 8, two days after Lazar’s birthday, at the Jewish Museum And Tolerance Center in Moscow and featured 50 stations where staff and volunteers presented…
Russia’s education ministry has agreed to provide Jewish students an alternative date for a matriculation exam which took place on the Shavuot holiday. The concession was announced last week in a letter addressed to Berel Lazar, a chief rabbi of Russia. “Students and graduates unable to take the Unified State Exam for religious reasons may…
The website of France’s far-right National Front party has resumed offering access to the blog of party founder Jean-Marie le Pen, after the deletion of his speeches because of their allegedly anti-Semitic references. The party’s website used to host directly videos of interviews on current affairs with Le Pen, but since Thursday its homepage features…
A bizarre case of blackmail by one rabbi on another has come to light in Cape Town, South Africa, according to the Afrikaans-language newspaper Rapport. The incident came to light at the end of April, when an emissary picked up a bag from Debra Suiza, the wife Rabbi Ruben Suiza, 61, head of Cape Town’s…
A sprawling New York state corruption trial could reportedly be seriously delayed or even derailed by some 300 recordings of an upstate Hasidic wheeler-dealer chatting in Yiddish. A federal judge is considering his options after defense lawyers for disgraced state Sen. Malcolm Smith complained that they had not had a chance to listen to the…
David Blatt, who guided Maccabi Tel Aviv to the Euroleague basketball championship, stepped down as the Israeli team’s coach to pursue opportunities in the NBA. Blatt made the announcement Thursday at a news conference in Tel Aviv. The Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly have contacted Blatt for their vacant head coaching post. New York, Minnesota and Golden…
Stanley Fischer, a former Bank of Israel governor, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. The confirmation vote on Thursday was 63-24, the Los Angeles Times reported. Fischer, 70, succeeds Janet Yellen, who was elevated to Fed chairwoman in February to follow Ben Bernanke. All three are Jewish. Last…
A rabbi rode a motor scooter to chased down a suspected burglar after spotting him outside of a Palm Beach, Florida Chabad house. Avrohom Ezagui, a Lubavitcher rabbi, became suspicious when he saw a man holding a bag of valuables, according to The Palm Beach Post. Ezagui assumed the valuables had been taken from Chabad…
Germany was ordered to pay the heirs of a Jewish department store chain nearly $68 million in restitution and interest for properties confiscated by the Nazis. The ruling by a Berlin administrative court for the heirs of the Schocken family was announced formally on Thursday, according to German news reports. The court had made its…
Yad Vashem recognized its first Righteous Among the Nations from Peru. Israel’s national Holocaust memorial on Thursday posthumously honored Jose Maria Barreto, a diplomat in Switzerland who used his position to attempt to rescue Jews during the Holocaust. A ceremony for Barreto will be held at a future date, Yad Vashem said in a statement….
