A painting by Italian Jewish artist Amedeo Modigliani sold at auction in Jerusalem for $8.6 million, despite not actually being in the country. It is believed to be the most expensive piece of art ever sold in Israel. Its sale tops that of a painting by Camille Pissarro which once sold in Israel for $1.2…
The Statue of Liberty will re-open on July 4 after being closed for eight months due to damage incurred from Hurricane Sandy, but Ellis Island remains closed. The national monument has been largely off-limits to the public for more than a year and a half. After undergoing a $30 million renovation for much of 2012,…
Fireworks burst over Cairo’s Tahrir Square, the centre of protests against Mohamed Mursi, and across the Egyptian capital after the army suspended the constitution and appointed a new, interim head of state on Wednesday. “The people and the army are one hand,” protesters cheered in the square, amid the roar of horns and chanting, a…
Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi’s national security adviser said a military coup was under way on Wednesday after an army deadline for the Islamist leader to yield to street protests passed without any agreement. In a show of force, several hundred soldiers with armoured vehicles staged a parade on a main road near the presidential palace,…
Israeli archaeologists have found ruins they believe are the site of one of the two Roman legions based in the country between 120 and 300 C.E. Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Yotam Tepper had long suspected that the site in the Galilee was the base of the Legio Sexta Ferrata, the 6th Roman Legion, also known…
Egypt’s army commander and Islamist President Mohamed Mursi each pledged to die for his cause as a deadline neared on Wednesday that will trigger a military takeover backed by protesters. Military chiefs, vowing to restore order in a country racked by demonstrations over Mursi’s Islamist policies, issued a call to battle in a statement headlined…
A court in the Polish city of Bialystok has asked the Polish Constitutional Tribunal to rule on whether the country’s ban on ritual slaughter is compliant with the constitutional freedom of religion. The case is connected to the ritual slaughter of one cow which took place in March in Tykocin. Beginning on Jan. 1, Poland…
Gay prisoners will be allowed conjugal visits with their partners under the same circumstances they are granted to heterosexual ones, the Israel Prison Service has said. In response to a query by Dan Yakir, the legal adviser for the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the prison service said gays and lesbians would not be…
An Israeli study has demonstrated that listening to the music of Mozart is more conducive to the development of premature babies than is exposure to Bach. Many studies have demonstrated the benefits of classical music to the development of babies. But the Ichilov Hospital research, led by Prof. Dror Mandel director of the Neonatal Intensive…
A German court rejected a German newspaper’s bid to view files related to Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, ruling they should remain classified. The Bild Zeitung newspaper, which sued in 2011 to see the files, could try to appeal the June 28 decision by the Federal Administrative Court to Germany’s Supreme Court, according to reports….
The Egyptian opposition senses that the time has come. 24 hours before the end of the military’s ultimatum, the activists believe it is time to continue mixing it up. When, at noon, the report came in that President Mohamed Morsi met with army commanders in his palace, the crowd in Tahrir square cheered loudly, convinced…
