This article originally appeared in Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. OSWIECIM, Poland – Tahel Goldsmith works in the darkest place in human history. As a volunteer. For the past four months, the 33-year-old doctoral candidate at the University of Chicago has been working at the Auschwitz-Birkenau memorial and museum, spending her nights sleeping…
One of the leading contenders to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer could be a demographic two-fer. Breyer, who announced Wednesday he was stepping down from the bench, was one of a handful of Jewish Americans on the Court. President Joe Biden has said he is committed to appointing the Court’s first Black female…
(JTA) — A Tennessee school board voted unanimously to remove “Maus,” Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about his father’s Holocaust experience, from its curriculum after board members raised objections about curse words, nude drawings and “not wise or healthy” content within it. Spiegelman, who won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize for the book, told CNBC that the…
(JTA) — Federal agents have arrested the man who they allege sold a gun to Malik Faisal Akram, who held a rabbi and three congregants hostage inside their Texas synagogue earlier this month. Henry “Michael” Dwight Williams, 32, was not aware of what Akram planned to do with the gun, according to a U.S. Department…
Israel’s Knesset speaker honored a German-American Holocaust survivor in Berlin Wednesday with an unusual present during commemorations for International Holocaust Remembrance Day: her paternal family tree, dating back to 1660. Inge Auerbacher, 87, who was deported with her parents when she was seven from Germany to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, met with Speaker…
(JTA) — Reports of antisemitic incidents in France increased by 75% in 2021, according to the French Jewish community’s main watchdog group. SPCJ recorded 589 hate crimes against Jews last year, including a 36% increase in physical assaults over 2020. The group released its annual report Wednesday. Incidents targeting people – as opposed to communal buildings…
(New York Jewish Week via JTA) — A recent fall meant Rose Girone spent her 110th birthday in a Long Island rehab facility. But nothing could stop her friends and family from giving her exactly the right gift: red wool and brand-new knitting needles. “Rose cannot imagine her life without knitting,” Girone’s daughter, Reha Bennicasa,…
WASHINGTON (JTA) — The Biden administration is naming 12 people to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Council, many of who have longstanding ties to advocacy for Holocaust survivors and for Holocaust education. Among those to be named Wednesday in a list obtained by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency is Stuart Eizenstat, who has for decades led…
(JTA) — From the halls of the United States Capitol to the streets of Europe, politicians and activists protesting against vaccine requirements have increasingly invoked the Holocaust. Some are wearing yellow stars, while others are sharing Nazi-era medical documents and comparing themselves to Anne Frank. The comparisons often draw sharp rebukes from Jewish groups and…
A teacher who says she was fired for identifying as an anti-Zionist online is suing a high-profile Reform synagogue, and dozens of Jewish leaders have signed a letter supporting her. In her complaint, Jessie Sander said she began teaching Hebrew language at Westchester Reform Temple’s religious school last July, and was fired three weeks later…
Robert Keith Packer, the man who wore a sweatshirt mocking the Holocaust during the riot at the United States Capitol last January, pleaded guilty Wednesday to illegally entering the building and protesting inside. Packer appeared by video in federal district court in Washington, D.C., for a brief hearing during which he acknowledged that he had…
דער בעל־שׂימחה האָט יאָרן לאַנג געדינט ווי דער רעדאַקטאָר פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָרווערטס.
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