A Hasidic police cadet who said he was fired from the New York Police Department because he would not trim his beard has sued to get his job back. Fishel Litzman filed a federal civil-rights lawsuit late last week against the New York City Police Department, the City of New York, and Police Commissioner Raymond…
Shortly after approving a deal which allows kosher slaughter in the Netherlands, the chief rabbi of Amsterdam called the agreement “flawed” and warned it could ultimately eliminate the practice. Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag made the charges in a letter dated June 13. The previous day, however, he approved the deal by declaring it did not violate…
Israeli Prime Minister announced that a planeload of illegal migrants would be returned to South Sudan, and he called the repatriation “orderly and dignified.” Migrants reportedly began boarding buses Sunday afternoon headed for Ben Gurion Airport where a plane load of 120 illegal migrants was scheduled to leave Sunday evening. “We have a Jewish tradition…
Mitt Romney told an audience of Christian conservatives that he would do the “opposite” of what President Obama has done when it comes to Israel. “I think, by and large, you can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite,” Romney said Saturday in an address by video to a…
The Justice Ministry is working on an arrangement for drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews, but not Arabs – angering ultra-Orthodox MKs who fear that this would prevent the formation of a Haredi-Arab coalition on draft deferrals. The Tal Law, which deferred military service for yeshiva students, was recently declared unconstitutional by the High Court of Justice. Deputy…
“Allah save Egypt,” said the banner running on the bottom of the screen of the Al Arabiya news channel. “It doesn’t matter who is elected. The main thing is that he’ll protect Egypt,” a fellah from the Dakahlia Governorate, northeast of Cairo, told a reporter from a state television channel. Then Hajja Fatma, a veil…
Israel owes its “deepest thanks” to President Obama, Israeli President Shimon Peres said, culminating a visit that included receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Obama “did more than he promised, contrary to what has been said, there was no request he didn’t take into consideration,” Peres said Thursday at a reception in his honor at…
A Michigan state lawmaker cited her Jewish faith in a floor speech on abortion law that got her silenced for a day because she used the word “vagina.” State Rep. Lisa Brown (D) spoke Wednesday in opposition to proposed laws that would add restrictions to clinics that provide abortions, including hikes in required insurance and…
Canada has joined an international campaign urging a moment of silence at the opening of the London Olympics to mark the 40th anniversary of the killing of Israeli athletes at the Munich Games. Canada’s House of Commons on Thursday unanimously passed a motion to commemorate the “tragic terrorist events of the 1972 Munich Olympics wherein…
Bolivian Cabinet ministers told the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives human rights subcommittee that they would look into the case of a jailed Brooklyn Chasidic Jew. Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) met this week in Bolivia with Minister of Government Carlos Romero and Minister of Justice Cecilia Luisa Ayllon. Jacob Ostreicher has been held…
At 95, Kirk Douglas has just released his tenth book and is prepping for his third bar mitzvah, which is scheduled for this coming December. The iconic actor appeared at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood on June 12 to launch the book and to reset his hand, foot and dimpled chin print in cement, at…
