It’s official. Pope Benedict’s handle on Twitter will be @pontifex. He already has 1.2 billion “followers” in the standard sense of the word but next week he will have another type when he enters what for any 85-year old is the brave new world of Twitter. The Vatican said on Monday that the pope will…
A gay Israeli couple was granted a divorce by an Israeli family court. The divorce of Tel Aviv University Professor Avi Even, the first openly gay Knesset member, and Dr. Amit Kama was granted on Sunday by the Ramat Gan Family Court, according to Haaretz, which ordered the Interior Minister to register their status as…
Britain and France on Monday weighed measures against Israel to protest at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to expand settlement building after the United Nations’ de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood. Germany urged Israel to refrain from expanding settlements and Russia said it viewed plans to put more new homes in the occupied West Bank…
Invitations to a fictitious club saying “Jews need not apply” were slipped under the doors of students living in the Harvard University dormitories. The flyers enclosed in the sealed envelopes discovered early Friday morning invited the students to the inaugural event of a new undergraduate social club, or finals club, called The Pigeon, the Harvard…
In 1988, Yehuda Evron received a memorable letter from Lech Walesa, the first post-communist president of Poland, on the eve of the country’s transition to democracy. “He wrote that within a few months we would get my wife’s property back,” recalled Evron, now 80. His wife was the only Holocaust survivor of a family that…
Prosecutors at the International Criminal Court said following the U.N. General Assembly vote to upgrade the Palestinians’ status that the court “will consider the legal implications of this resolution.” Israel was concerned that the Palestinians with the upgraded observer state status they were granted last week would ask the court to prosecute Israeli military officials…
A respected journalism watchdog group has demanded that Israel explain why it targeted journalists and buildings housing media during the recent conflict in Gaza. In a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it was “gravely concerned” over the attacks on journalists in Gaza, especially since they appeared to…
Around 10,000 Hungarians protested on Sunday against the far-right opposition Jobbik party, after one of its lawmakers triggered outrage and memories of Nazism by calling for lists of Jews to be drawn up. The rally outside Budapest’s parliament brought together leaders from governing and opposition parties in an unprecedented show of unity in the country’s…
Joyous crowds welcomed President Mahmoud Abbas back to the West Bank on Sunday and celebrated the United Nations General Assembly’s de facto recognition of Palestinian statehood. “Abbas, onwards, we are with you until liberation,” flag-waving Palestinian well-wishers chanted at their president, returning from the assembly which voted 138 to nine with 41 absentions on Thursday…
Finnish lawmaker Pertti Salolainen reportedly dismissed criticism of his references to “Jewish control” over U.S. politics as “a pure analysis of foreign policy.” According to YLE, Finland’s national broadcaster, Salolainen in an email sent to the broadcaster on Saturday denied that he had made anti-Semitic statements when he said a day earlier in a television…
Poland may need to changes its laws on animal welfare to preserve ritual slaughter there, the country’s Ministry of Agriculture said. The ministry statement on Friday came three days after a Polish court ruled that a 2004 government directive enshrining ritual slaughter was unconstitutional. “Immediately after the announcement of the decision, the Minister of Agriculture…
