Section: Jewish Telegraphic Agency (USA)
How a single mom revolutionized Moldova’s Jewish community
Olga Levus (Courtesy of JDC) BERSHAD, Ukraine (JTA) — Olga Levus didn’t set out to revolutionize the Jewish community of her native Moldova when she opened its first-ever support group for single mothers. Unemployed and living in the city of Chisinau, she was mostly concerned 17 years ago with feeding and clothing her three boys in one of...
Fan of Nazi collaborator to represent Ukraine at Paris Holocaust symposium
(JTA) — Ukrainian Jews protested the attendance at an international symposium on the Holocaust by a state historian who praised a Nazi collaborator whose troops killed Jews. Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee, last week condemned the planned attendance of Volodymyr Vyatrovych, director of Ukrainian National Memory...
Yiddish-Cuban opera to premiere in Havana
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — A new opera based on an 86-year-old Yiddish poem about a Taino indigenous chief who resisted the Spanish invaders will have its premiere in Havana next month. “Hatuey: Memory of Fire,” will first be performed in Havana on March 3, reported the New York Times. Composed by Frank London of the Klezmatics, the opera, “Hatuey:...
‘Holocaust tourism’ is probed in a compelling documentary
A scene from “Austerlitz,” a documentary that chronicles the tourist experience at two former concentration camps. (Courtesy of Austerlitz/Loznitsa) NEW YORK (JTA) — How do people behave when they visit a concentration camp or a Holocaust memorial? Do they act as if there are in place of reverence or mourning? Or do they behave as crowds do at...
French Jewish scholar’s hate speech trial leaves anti-racism activists bitter, divided
Georges Bensoussan, right, at a talk with Mino Chamla in Milan, Italy, Sept. 16 2014. (Moked/Federico Valente) (JTA) — The hate speech trial of a prominent French historian charged with calling Arabs innately anti-Semitic is dividing French Jews and sowing dissent within the local equivalent of the Anti-Defamation League. It is all happening over...
Rabbi’s expulsion rattles Russian Jews fearful of Kremlin crackdown
Rabbis Ari Edelkopf, with black beard, and Berel Lazar, right, listen to a speech at a reception of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia in Sochi, Russia, Feb. 9, 2017. (Courtesy of Federation of Jewish Communities) (JTA) — Three years ago, Rabbi Ari Edelkopf and his wife, Chana, worked around the clock for weeks to show off their...
British Jews open safe space for Syrian women in Turkey
Syrian women attending a lesson at the Women’s Support Center in Islahiye, Turkey, Nov. 25, 2016. (Tanya Freedman/World Jewish Relief) ISTANBUL (JTA) — In a region awash with half a million Syrian refugees and the predators they attract, home used to be the only safe space for Samiyeh Hilo and her infant son, Mohammed. A teacher of English...
Russian chief rabbi, Reform dissident in London for event for ex-Soviet Jews
LONDON (JTA) — Hundreds of Russian-speaking Jews from across Western Europe convened in the British capital for a conference on learning whose organizers at the Limmud FSU group said was the largest of its kind. The weekend event — the first entry into Western Europe by the Limmud FSU group for Russian-speaking Jews in the former Soviet Union and...
List of Auschwitz commanders and guards posted online
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) – A list of the names of Nazi SS commanders and guards who served at the Auschwitz concentration camp was published online. The list, believed to be the most complete ever, went online Monday at the website http://en.truthaboutcamps.eu/. The list was prepared by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance in cooperation with...
Refugee ban puts Jewish asylum seekers in limbo
Demonstrators at JFK airport in New York protesting Donald Trump’s executive order banning immigrants from certain countries, Jan. 28, 2017. (Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images) (JTA) — A year after they submitted their application for asylum in the United States, Shahi and his mother expected to be let in. As Iranian Jews who applied for...
