The author of a fraudulent Holocaust memoir has been ordered by a Massachusetts appeals court to pay back $22.5 million to her publisher. Misha Defonseca’s “Misha: A Memoir of the Holocaust Years,” published in 1997, claimed to tell of her experiences as a young Jewish girl fleeing the Nazis during World War II. The best-selling…
Four leading rabbis will be honored for their work in applying halachah, or Jewish law, to modern life. The Katz Award 2014 recipients were announced Sunday. They are Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi of Britain; Rabbi Zvi (Herschel) Schachter, rosh yeshiva of Yeshiva University; Rabbi Zalman Nehemiah Goldberg, the rosh yeshiva of…
Embattled Los Angeles Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling said he was set up to make racist comments in a taped recording that led the National Basketball Association to ban him for life from the sport, CNN reported on Monday. “Yes, I was baited,” Sterling, 80, told CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 in an interview to be broadcast…
Two weeks ahead of Pope Francis’s trip to the Holy Land, the Roman Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem said vandal attacks by suspected Jewish extremists “poison the atmosphere” of the papal visit. Patriarch Fouad Twal, the Church’s senior cleric in the Holy Land, described the so-called “price tag” attacks as acts of “terror” and called on…
Iran’s nuclear programme is a clear and present danger and the country cannot be allowed to get the capability to make nuclear arms, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Monday described as “stupid and idiotic” Western expectations for his country to curb its missile development, taking…
French Chief Rabbi Michel Gugenheim denied allegations that he had helped extort $120,000 from a woman who needed his signature to get a religious divorce. The family of the woman, who was not identified, on March 18 filed a deposition containing the allegation against Gugenheim and two members of his rabbinical court at a police…
More members of the controversial haredi Orthodox sect Lev Tahor appear to have left Canada — and are living in a shack in Guatemala. Eight sect members – two adults and six children – fled Ontario to Guatemala in March ahead of a court hearing to determine whether the children should be placed in foster…
Los Angeles Clippers Owner Donald Sterling, who was banned for life from the NBA over racist comments, has apologized and asked for forgiveness in his first public statement since the controversy began last month, CNN said on Sunday. In an interview to be broadcast on Monday, Sterling told CNN he made a terrible mistake but…
Two Maryland teens were arrested and charged with painting anti-Semitic messages on a synagogue, a home and buses. The targets of the anti-Semitism were located in Potomac and Rockville, Maryland suburbs near Washington, D.C. Police believe the teens, both 16, are responsible for other incidents in April, Bethesda Now reported. The teens were arrested May…
A West Bank-based organization filed a police complaint charging Israeli author Amoz Oz with incitement to racism. The complaint by the Samaria Residents Committee was filed in the West Bank settlement of Ariel two days after Oz called Israelis who carry out “price tag” attacks “Hebrew neo-Nazis,” the Times of Israel reported Sunday. Oz made…
Sol Adler, the disgraced former executive director of Manhattan’s 92nd Street Y, has hanged himself in his Brooklyn home, the New York Post reported Sunday. His wife discovered his body on Friday morning, according to police. Adler, 60, had been fired from his position at the Y in 2012 after serving as director for two…
