MyHeritage, an-Israel based genealogy website, will now include in its database the archives of the Jewish Chronicle and two Israeli historical databases. In a release, the website, based in Or Yehuda in central Israel, said the London-based Chronicle’s archive included “over 200,000 pages and millions of names, and dates back to 1841.” “Based in London…
Nearly half of Israelis surveyed said Israel’s Chief Rabbinate should officially recognize Reform and Conservative Judaism. In the survey of 500 adults, 49 percent “strongly feel that the Chief Rabbinate should officially recognize the Reform and Conservative streams of Judaism,” Walla.com reported, because this “will in turn strengthen the connection with American Jews.” The poll,…
Aron “Ezzy” Kestecher, a former Chabad-Lubavitch youth leader in Melbourne who was accused of child sex crimes, died in a suspected suicide. Kestecher, 28, was found dead in his apartment Thursday. He was accused of multiple allegations of child sex abuse against minors and was due to face court in June, police confirmed Friday. Rabbi…
A Danish zoo’s slaying of healthy animals proves that animal welfare concerns are a false justification for Denmark’s recent ban on ritual slaughter, a prominent European rabbi charged. Citing the need to make room for new animals and prevent inbreeding, the Copenhagen Zoo killed four healthy lions earlier this week and a healthy giraffe last…
Leaders of national Jewish groups resumed a dialogue with mainline Christian churches ruptured by a call in 2012 by some Christian leaders to consider cutting U.S. assistance to Israel. “We affirm a strong commitment to continue working together on domestic and international issues of common concern,” said the joint statement issued by the groups Thursday…
A 19th century parochet, or ark cover, originally from a Czech synagogue was returned to the Prague Jewish Museum. The piece of cloth was discovered last year in a box of artifacts delivered to Sotheby’s auction house in New York to be sold, according to the Czech News Agency. It had been missing from the…
A British coroner said on Thursday he could not be sure if exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky killed himself at his former wife’s British home or was the victim of foul play. Berezovsky, a sworn enemy of President Vladimir Putin, was found dead in March last year with a scarf tied around his neck in…
James Schlesinger, who served three U.S. presidents, Republican and Democrat alike, in the top posts at the Central Intelligence Agency, Pentagon and Energy Department in the 1970s, died on Thursday at age 85. A serious thinker on national security and an executive determined to get things done, Schlesinger headed the CIA and the Defense Department…
Ehud Olmert’s former bureau chief Shula Zaken agreed to testify against her ex-boss in the Holyland graft case. Zaken, who has been convicted of graft in another scandal involving the former prime minister, signed a plea agreement Thursday with the state prosecutor’s office, which then asked the court to postpone the verdict in the Holyland…
The King’s College London Student Union voted to endorse the boycott, sanctions and divestment movement against Israel. The 15-point motion passed Tuesday night at the students general meeting by a vote of 348-252. Following the vote, the college’s administration distanced itself from the measure, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. The motion calls for researching the…
Phil Baum, the former executive director at the American Jewish Congress, died at home in Riverdale, N.Y. Baum, who served in senior positions at the AJC for more than five decades, died in his sleep on Wednesday night. He was in 90s. He began at the Jewish advocacy organization in the late 1940s shortly after…
