A Brooklyn fishmonger was arrested for throwing a cup of bleach in the face of a Chasidic rabbi who advocates for victims of sexual abuse in the haredi Orthodox community. Meilech Schnitzler, 36, of Williamsburg, turned himself in to police on Wednesday afternoon, the New York Times reported. He was charged with felony assault, misdemeanor…
David Harris is leaving his job as president of the National Jewish Democratic Council. “With the confidence of knowing that I’ve accomplished key goals here at NJDC that are central to our mission, I’m very much looking forward to new professional challenges and directions,” Harris said in a statement released Wednesday after he announced his…
Former Democrat Joe Lieberman used his last speech on the U.S. Senate floor on Wednesday to call for bipartisanship and get in a last dig over the controversial result of the 2000 election, when he was the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Lieberman, 70, announced in January 2011 that he would retire when his fourth term…
England’s Jewish population has remained stable over the past decade, bolstered by Orthodox Jewry’s growth, according to an analysis of government data. Data released Dec. 11 by Britain’s Office for National Statistics showed 263,346 Jews living in England and Wales, a figure that can be adjusted upward to approximately 284,000, according to an analysis by…
The German Parliament passed a law protecting the right of Jewish and Muslim parents to choose a ritual circumcision for their sons, after months of heated debate over efforts to ban the practice. In all, 434 legislators voted Wednesday for the new law proposed by the federal government; there were 100 votes against, and 46…
A Bolivian appeals court refused to release New York businessman Jacob Ostreicher, who has been jailed without charges for 18 months, instead sending his case back to a lower court. Ostreicher, a haredi Orthodox father of five and grandfather of 11 from Brooklyn, N.Y., was arrested in June 2011 by Bolivian police after it was…
The man who confessed to killing Etan Patz – the 6-year-old boy who vanished from his New York neighborhood three decades ago – was due in court on Wednesday and expected to enter a plea in the child’s murder. Pedro Hernandez, 51, of Maple Shade, New Jersey, admitted in May he lured the boy and…
France will deport foreign-born imams and disband radical faith-based groups, including hardline traditionalist Catholics, if a new surveillance policy signals they suffer a “religious pathology” and could become violent. A French Islamist shooting spree last March that killed three soldiers and four Jews showed how quickly religiously radicalised people could turn to force, Interior Minister…
Descendants of an Aboriginal elder who staged a unique protest against the Nazis in 1938 re-enacted his famous march to the German consulate in Melbourne. William Cooper, an elder of the Yorta Yorta tribe, led a delegation to the German Consulate in December 1938 to protest the “cruel persecution” of the Jews. He was denied…
An Israeli government environmental agency challenged the Defence Ministry in court on Wednesday over a section of the controversial West Bank wall that threatens an ancient Palestinian farming community. A letter of support from the Nature and Parks Authority was part of a petition heard by the High Court to order the ministry to reroute…
With public acceptance of same-sex marriage growing, liberal Jewish groups are hoping the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down the Defense of Marriage Act that they have long opposed. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases related to same-sex marriage: an appeal of a federal court ruling that struck down a California ballot…
