Jewish community leaders in Australia have virtually abandoned support for the governing Labor Party, with most privately hoping the conservative Liberal Party wins the federal election next weekend. The near consensus in favor of Tony Abbott to replace Kevin Rudd as the nation’s next PM comes as the Liberal Party reportedly plans to upgrade relations…
A former coach of a Maccabi basketball team in Australia was sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually abusing four girls more than a decade ago. Shannon Francis, who is not Jewish, was sentenced Wednesday by County Court of Victoria Judge Meryl Sexton. Francis must serve at least 5 1/2 years before he is…
The Labor government’s new policy of banishing asylum seekers who arrive here by sea has left some Jews fuming, many of them survivors of the Holocaust and their descendants who also arrived here as boat people. Like Israel, Australia holds asylum seekers, most of them from Africa, in detention centers. Australia’s centers are on the…
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called new elections for September 7, avoiding a clash with Yom Kippur. Before Julia Gillard was ousted in late June from the top job, she had declared September 14 – Yom Kippur – as the date of the election. But soon after Rudd replaced her he said the clash…
A man suspected of organising a bus bombing in the Bulgarian Black Sea city of Burgas last year flew to Lebanon two days before the attack that killed five Israelis and their driver, Polish news website tvn24.pl reported. Bulgaria said last month it believed the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah was behind the July 18, 2012,…
David Kramer, a former teacher at the Yeshivah College day school in Melbourne, Australia, has been sentenced to three years and four months in prison for sexually assaulting four students. Kramer, however, could leave prison after a little more than three months because he has been in prison while awaiting his sentence, according to Australian…
Australian Jews scored the Maccabi movement for continuing to employ officials responsible for the deaths of four Australians at the 1997 Maccabiah Games. As this year’s games launched in Israel this week, Peter Wertheim, of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, said: “It is hard to believe that a Jewish organization would behave with such…
An American-born teacher who pleaded guilty to child molestation at a Jewish school in Melbourne was assisted in fleeing to Israel by his employer. In a pre-sentencing hearing at the County Court of Victoria Wednesday, the prosecution argued that David Kramer should receive the maximum sentence of five years in prison when he is sentenced…
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