Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Friday Iranian president-elect Hassan Rouhani had shown his true face after he was quoted as saying Israel was a “wound” that must be removed. Netanyahu said Rouhani, due to take office on Sunday, was no less anti-Israel than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and said the world must not…
If you want to lead a major Reform Jewish organization, here’s a piece of advice: Go to the Westchester Reform Temple. With this week’s announcement that Rabbi Aaron Panken will be the new president of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, the temple in suburban New York now has produced two major Reform leaders in…
Ontario’s legislature won praise from Jewish groups for its refusal to permit the annual Al-Quds Day protest, traditionally held on the grounds outside the legislature building in Toronto. The legislature’s sergeant-at-arms, Dennis Clark, informed B’nai Brith Canada and the Centre for Jewish and Israel Affairs that this year’s permit was refused for reasons of “public…
Anyone who has gotten a look at the work environment around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent years will have easily seen that it has been almost totally devoid of women. The entire cadre of senior managers that Netanyahu has appointed to his bureau since returning to the Prime Minister’s Office in 2009 has…
The last thing that Rachel Rosenfeld expected when she arrived in Israel four weeks ago was to find herself at the center of an uproar around gender segregation on public transportation that would cause ultra-Orthodox protesters to smash bus windows in angry protests. “It’s been a big shock that this little thing that happened to…
President Barack Obama spoke separately by phone on Thursday to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the White House said, as the United States seeks to keep up the momentum for peace negotiations. The calls came days after Israeli and Palestinian negotiators broke a three-year lull in talks and met in…
German industrialist Berthold Beitz, who rescued Jewish workers in occupied Poland by employing them during World War II, has died. Beitz’s death Tuesday at the age of 99 was announced by the foundation he headed, the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Stiftung. In 1942, Beitz was working in Borislaw, Poland, as commercial director for…
The construction of an 80-story office tower – Israel’s tallest building – has been approved as part of a larger project by the Tel Aviv Planning and Building Committee. The tower will go up on a 38-dunam (9.4-acre) lot between Shaul Hamelech Boulevard and Menachem Begin Road not far from the main railway station. A…
In a New York City mayoral race marked by scandal and the clear absence of a front runner, wealthy tech entrepreneur Jack Hidary sees an opening for another candidate – one with a sweeping vision for the city’s future. “The message across the board is, thank God someone else is in the race,” Hidary said…
Sweden’s third-largest city, Malmo, has seen a near tripling of reports of anti-Semitic attacks, according to official figures. According to the Sydsvenskan local daily, Swedish police recorded 60 hate crimes against Jews in 2012, up from an average of 22 in 2010 and 2011, and during the first six months of 2013, police reported 35…
When the outspoken Polish priest Wojciech Lemanski returned with his parishioners to his church near Warsaw after holding a prayer vigil at the Treblinka Nazi death camp in early July, a dismissal notice awaited him. The Warsaw diocese of the Roman Catholic Church sacked Lemanski as parish priest in the small village of Jasienica for…
