Svetlana Alexievich, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature October 8, is a banned author in her homeland of Belarus, as she explained in a 2013 interview with Deutsche Welle, Germany’s international broadcaster. Her books are neither published nor discussed in the media there. Due to government persecution, she left Belarus from 2000 to…
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko criticized a Jewish regional governor for not keeping the country’s Jewish population “under control.” In a three-hour televised address on Wednesday, Lukashenko called out Semyon Shapiro, governor of the Minsk region, for not chastising Yuri Zisser, the Jewish head of the Tut.by website. Tut.by has criticized Lukashenko’s tax on those who…
The National History Museum of Belarus inaugurated an exhibition about Ariel Sharon. Titled “Profile of a Leader,” the exhibition on the late Israeli prime minister was launched Monday on the entrance floor of the state museum. The ceremony was attended by diplomats, Jewish community leaders and Israeli guests connected to Sharon’s life, including his youngest…
Israel’s foreign ministry disavowed statements by its ambassador in Minsk, who compared Palestinian terrorists to political prisoners in Belarus. The statement by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was published in Polish last week and concerned remarks that Ambassador Yosef Shagal made during an interview aired on Feb. 6 by the Russian RTVi television station, in…
One of Europe’s oldest functioning synagogues sustained heavy damage in a fire that broke out in the city of Grodno in Belarus. The flames erupted Tuesday night as a result of malfunctioning heating system and consumed the dining room and part of the second floor of Grodno’s Great Choral Synagogue, according to a report Wednesday…
The Belarus hometown of Shimon Peres marked the Israeli president’s upcoming 90th birthday. Among those on hand for the celebrations Wednesday in Vishnyeva was Peres’ oldest daughter, Tzvia. She was named for her father’s grandfather, Tzvi Meltzer, who was killed in the town by the Nazis. The events marking the landmark birthday, Aug. 2, included…
The government of Belarus announced plans to renovate one of the country’s oldest synagogues and turn it into a Jewish museum. The museum will be housed this year inside the restored ruins of the main synagogue in Bykhaw, a town located some 150 miles east of Minsk, Belarus’ minister of culture, Boris Svetlov, told the…
Prosecutors in Minsk dropped key charges from their indictment against Yuri Dorn, a leader of the Jewish community of Belarus. Dorn, who was president of the Union of Religious Jewish Congregations in Belarus at the time of his arrest last year, is no longer charged with bribery, a prosecutor in the case told the Central…
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