A German recluse’s pledge to give his billion-dollar hoard of Nazi-looted artworks back to their rightful owners was welcomed on Thursday but also met with scepticism about how it would work in practice and whether all of it would actually be returned. The legal custodian of Cornelius Gurlitt, who inherited the paintings drawings and sculptures…
Sari Nusseibeh, the president of the Palestinian Al-Quds University, resigned three days after a rally in support of Hamas at its eastern Jerusalem campus. Nusseibeh will step down at the end of the academic year, according to an announcement on the university’s website. The announcement said that Nusseibeh announced his decision on Wednesday at a…
A German-born Internet tycoon who is fighting extradition from New Zealand to the United States for racketeering is under fire for admitting he owns a rare signed copy of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. Kim Dotcom, whose actual name is Kim Schmitz, is the founder of MegaUpload, a file-transfer website that U.S. authorities shut down in 2012….
The Obama administration condemned the latest Holocaust denial by Iran’s supreme leader. “Unfortunately, these statements are nothing new,” Marie Harf, the State Department spokeswoman, said at the Wednesday briefing for reporters. “They’re inflammatory. They’re, quite frankly, abhorrent. And it’s insulting to the millions of people who died in the Holocaust.” On March 21, in a…
Uruguay’s Jewish community has reacted with concern to President Jose Mujica’s decision to accept inmates from Guantanamo Bay. The five prisoners selected to receive refugee status in Uruguay include four Syrians and one Palestinian, who can not return to their home countries due to their political situations, according to the Pan Am Post. The men…
Berel Lazar, a chief rabbi of Russia, criticized Ukrainian Jewish leaders for condemning Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. “The Jewish community should not be the one sending messages to President Barack Obama about his policy or to President Putin or to any other leader,” Lazar said Monday during a joint interview with JTA and The Jewish…
Rabbi Andy Bachman announced today that he will step down as Senior Rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim to pursue service outside the Jewish community. In a statement posted to his personal website, Bachman, 51, thanked the Brooklyn congregation for his three terms as their rabbi, adding that he would not be seeking a fourth contractual…
A prayer book developed for use by Jews in the U.S. military will be released this week. Reform, Orthodox and Conservative rabbis cooperated in creating the prayer book, which was commissioned by the JWB Jewish Chaplains Council. The prayer book is the first of its type published since World War II. The chaplains council, a…
A liberal Jewish group has broken away from Berlin’s main Jewish body in the latest signs of the shattering of the postwar unified Jewish community. Calling itself Bet-Haskala, the independent congregation reportedly is launching with 20 official members and is applying for membership in the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany. A new Orthodox community,…
A British soccer fan was arrested for making anti-Semitic remarks at a game in London. The man, 57, a fan of the Southampton Saints, made the remarks Sunday during a Premier League match against the host Tottenham Hotspurs, which has many Jewish supporters who sometimes call themselves the “Yid army.” However, the term often is…
A haredi Orthodox man from London visiting New York for his grandson’s wedding was attacked. The 65-year-old man had his face smashed into the sidewalk early Tuesday morning in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Borough Park as he left the wedding reception, the New York Daily News reported. His lip was split and a tooth was…
