The Orthodox Union board reportedly has opted for a consensus candidate, Martin Nachimson, to avert a showdown over its presidency. Nachimson, a senior vice president at the organization best known for running the largest kosher certifying operation in the world, is expected to be elected when the board meets next month in New York, The…
A correspondent for the Financial Times apologized for suggesting that Israel may have bribed Bulgaria to frame Hezbollah. “Sincere apologies and regret for ill-conceived tweet yesterday about Israel and Bulgaria,” Borzou Daragahi, the London-based newspaper’s Middle East and North Africa correspondent, wrote Wednesday on Twitter. The previous day Daragahi had tweeted, “I don’t doubt Hezbollah/Iran…
Israel risks sleepwalking into a crisis with its allies over relentless settlement-building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem unless it realises that the international anger is genuine and adjusts its course. The next few months may prove crucial if Israel is to avoid diplomatic disaster, with a new government forming around Prime Minister…
Ukraine’s three most generous philanthropists are all Jewish, according to a local business magazine. In ranking the country’s top ten charitable donors for 2012, the Lviv-based Galytski Kontrakty weekly recently gave the top slot to 46-year-old Rinat Akhmetov, a businessman born to a coalminer. Forbes Magazine estimated his fortune at $16 billion in 2012. He…
Silvio Berlusconi and his brother Paolo are getting heat over maverick Italy striker Mario Balotelli, with one accused of racism and the other of signing him for their club AC Milan only to win votes in this month’s national election. Paolo Berlusconi, AC Milan’s vice president, was lambasted in social media after calling former Manchester…
The convicted killer of Chandra Levy is set to appear at a federal court hearing amid questions about the sensational 2001 killing of the Jewish congressional intern. Ingmar Guandique, a Salvadoran immigrant, was convicted of killing Levy in 2010. He is serving a 60-year prison sentence. He is expected to travel from a federal prison…
A woman wielding a knife reportedly was arrested after threatening a student of the Toulouse Jewish school where an Islamist radical murdered a rabbi and three children nearly one year ago. According to Le Depeche, a French news site, the 51-year-old woman was arrested on Feb. 5 outside the Ohr HaTorah school after she brandished…
Israel’s shekel is at a 15-month high against the dollar, prompting speculation in the foreign exchange market that the Bank of Israel may intervene as it has in the past to protect the economy. But the shekel may have to strengthen quite a lot further and against a broader range of currencies to convince the…
A sign on the overpass of an abandoned automotive plant in Detroit reads in German “Work will make you Free,” evoking images of the sign on the gate of Auschwitz. The red letters on white pieces of paper in the windows of the overpass at the Packard Automotive Plant reads “Arbeit Macht Frei,” the Detroit…
Is President Obama’s plan to visit Israel a sign that he’s ready to take another shot at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking? The White House announced Tuesday that Obama would visit Israel in the spring, his first trip there as president. He did visit in 2008, when he was a candidate for the Oval Office. This trip also…
A French labor relations court agreed to hear designer John Galliano’s case against Christian Dior, which fired him for making anti-Semitic remarks. The decision to hear the case came in response to Galliano’s filing of an $18.7 million lawsuit against Dior. Monday’s hearing revealed that Galliano earned $7.7 million annually in several positions at Dior…
