Tunisia’s tourism minister has been summoned to appear before the country’s parliament to explain her decision to allow Israelis to enter the country on their passports for a religious festival. Tunisia does not have diplomatic ties with Israel; the lawmakers say that allowing the religious pilgrims to use their Israeli passports is tantamount to recognizing…
The United States would have to reconsider its assistance to the Palestinians if Islamist group Hamas and the Palestinian Liberation Organization form a government together, a senior U.S. administration official said on Thursday. Gaza-based Hamas – which is listed by the United States as a terrorist organisation – and President Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank-based PLO…
Five haredi Orthodox Jewish men were indicted for attacking a gay black man in Brooklyn. The five were charged Wednesday in New York state Supreme Court in Brooklyn with gang assault and other counts for the December attack, but not for hate crimes, WABC-TV reported. They were associated with a civilian neighborhood watch group, the…
Rabbi Aaron Landes, a Philadelphia congregational rabbi for decades and the longtime director of U.S. Naval Reserve chaplains, has died. Landes died on April 19 following a battle with leukemia. He was 84. He managed some 700 chaplains as head of the chaplains corps until retiring in 1989, according to the Jewish Exponent of Philadelphia….
Pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday confirmed they are detaining a U.S. journalist working with Vice News. The self-declared separatist mayor of Slaviansk told reporters the journalist, Simon Ostrovsky, had been detained for reporting what he said was false information that was “destabilising for us” but that he was being treated well. Mayor Vyacheslav…
The United States said on Wednesday it was disappointed by a unity pact agreed between the Gaza-based Islamist group Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and said it could seriously complicate peace efforts. “The timing was troubling and we were certainly disappointed in the announcement,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a…
Over 1,000 people have registered for the Moscow Limmud at a government-owned resort. Participants of the annual Jewish learning conference paid $300-$500 to attend the four-day event, which will open Friday at the Klyasma resort just outside the Russian capital, organizers said. The for-profit complex is owned by the Department for Presidential Affairs of the…
The New York Police Department has arrested four Hasidic men in the December beating of a black gay man in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, according to news reports. The NYPD confirmed to the Forward that four men were in custody, but had no information about what they were being held for. The December 1 attack took place…
Israel on Wednesday canceled a planned session of peace negotiations with the Palestinians shortly after a unity deal was signed in Gaza between Hamas Islamists and President Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestine Liberation Organisation. A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said: “Israel has cancelled a negotiations meeting that was expected to be held this evening,”…
The U.S. Embassy in Budapest called on the Hungarian government to resume dialogue with Jewish, national and international groups over plans for its Holocaust memorial year. In a statement issued Tuesday directed at the newly re-elected government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban, the embassy wrote, “As a fellow democracy, we continue to urge the government…
William Rapfogel, the ousted leader of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty in New York, reportedly will plead guilty for his role in a scheme to steal more than $7 million from the social service agency. Rapfogel, who had served as CEO and president of the Met Council from 1992, was scheduled to enter a…
