NEW YORK — The Jewish Theological Seminary received a $2.67 million grant from the Avi Chai Foundation to implement its strategic plan at the William Davidson Graduate School of Jewish Education. JTS announced the funding this week for a Davidson School plan that includes providing resources to U.S. Jewish day schools, educators and leaders in…
Angela Merkel laid a wreath at Dachau concentration camp on Tuesday, making her the first German chancellor to visit the death camp where Nazis killed more than 41,000 people in the Holocaust. Taking a pause in her campaign for a third term in office, the chancellor met survivors, including Abba Naor, an 85-year-old Jew whose…
A Jewish woman in suburban Atlanta was sentenced to four years in prison for lying to investigators about her husband’s shooting death, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday. Andrea Sneiderman, 37, of Decatur, Georgia, was found guilty on Monday of nine of 13 felony counts, including perjury, hindering the apprehension of a criminal and making…
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev approved a program to offer financial incentives encouraging Russian expats to move to the former Jewish autonomous region of Birobidzhan. The program hopes to bring about 2,000 people back to what once was a Jewish ethnic enclave, The Jerusalem Post reported. Birobidzhan was established in 1934 by Joseph Stalin in…
(JTA) — On Saturday, two weeks after Ethan Kadish’s 13th birthday, the members of his family will gather around a Torah scroll in the chapel of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for a small ceremony marking his entrance into adulthood. This was not the bar mitzvah that Scott and Alexia Kadish envisioned seven weeks ago when Ethan…
U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians will result in dramatic Israeli decisions, the chief Israeli negotiator predicted on Tuesday. Tzipi Livni coupled her forecast with acknowledgement that at least one partner in Israel’s right-wing coalition opposed the goal set by the United States, which is brokering the talks, to create a Palestinian state…
(JTA) — When Magda Haroun was out on the streets during the unrest now rocking Egypt’s capital, she saw someone standing over the body of a dead soldier. “Not even a Jew would do this,” she heard him say. Haroun, the president of the Egyptian Jewish community, doesn’t enjoy hearing anti-Semitic slurs on the street….
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel on Tuesday of having a hand in the Egyptian military’s overthrow of president Mohamed Mursi, making comments likely to further undermine efforts to restore Ankara’s strained ties with Israel. Erdogan, who has become one of the fiercest critics of the Islamist leader’s removal last month, also said he…
Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky turned over the keys to the Jewish school of Gondar, Ethiopia, to the town’s mayor. Monday’s handover ceremony of the school, which was funded and maintained by the Jewish Agency, comes as the final flight of Ethiopian immigrants prepares to leave for Israel. Some 2,500 Ethiopian children awaiting their immigration…
Polish photographer Lukasz Szczygielski has apologized for conducting a photo shoot with a half-naked model at the Jewish cemetery in the southern Polish town of Checiny. Szczygielski explained that he wanted to draw attention to the neglected cemetery. “I wanted to draw attention to the neglect of the place. The cemetery is forgotten, he told…
British rocker Roger Waters published an open letter calling on fellow musicians to join a boycott of Israel. The letter, which condemns Israel for apartheid and ethnic cleansing, has been expected for several months, according to the Electronic Intifada, which first reported on its existence. “I write to you now, my brothers and sisters in…
