Section: Jewish Telegraphic Agency (USA)
In Europe, a star rabbi pumps Christian money into Jewish exodus project
PARIS (JTA) — The summer drizzle that soaked the French capital did little to dampen Yechiel Eckstein’s enthusiasm as he arrived with his wife Joelle to the city’s Great Synagogue for a private tour of this epicenter of French Jewry. An Israeli-American Orthodox rabbi who grew up in Canada, Eckstein was in Paris in June to oversee a...
Firebombs hurled at Hasidic luminary’s grave in Ukraine
(JTA) – Unidentified individuals hurled firebombs at the gravesite of a Hasidic luminary in the central Ukrainian city of Shpola. The incident in the city located 120 miles south of the capital, Kiev, occurred on Sunday evening, according to Eduard Dolinsky, director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. Dolinsky wrote on Facebook Monday that the...
Polish officials rapped for perceived revisionism of Holocaust history
Michael Schudrich, Poland’s chief rabbi, reciting a prayer for the victims of the Jedwabne massacre at the town’s Jewish cemetery, July 10, 2016. (JTA/Cnaan Liphshiz) (JTA) — Several Jewish organizations condemned recent statements by Polish officials that the critics see as detrimental to historical accuracy on the Holocaust and...
Polish officials under fire for perceived revisionism of Holocaust history
Michael Schudrich, Poland’s chief rabbi, reciting a prayer for the victims of the Jedwabne massacre at the town’s Jewish cemetery on July 10, 2016. (JTA/Cnaan Liphshiz) (JTA) — Several Jewish organizations condemned recent statements by Polish officials, which the critics deemed detrimental to historical accuracy on the Holocaust and...
Brazilian Oscar-nominated film director Hector Babenco dies at 70
RIO DE JANEIRO (JTA) — One of Brazil’s most influential film makers, Hector Babenco, died in Sao Paulo at age 70. An employee of his film company told The Associated Press that he had a heart attack. Babenco, who died Wednesday, was nominated in 1985 for an Oscar for his film “Kiss of the Spider Woman.” Born in Buenos Aires to a Polish...
Canada’s Supreme Court shoots down appeal to deport Nazi death squad member, 92
(JTA) — The Canadian government must decide if it will try for a fourth time to deport a 92-year-old man who confessed to being a former member of a Nazi death squad after the nation’s Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of a lower court ruling in his favor. The high court’s decision last week, for which no reason was given, as...
Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate accuses Poles of persecuting Jews in Holocaust
(JTA) — A Belarusian Nobel Prize laureate has stirred controversy in Poland by saying that many Poles, including priests, participated in the persecution of Jews during the Holocaust. Svetlana Alexievich, who was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature, made the accusation last month during a visit to New York, the news website WPolityce...
Ukraine city names street for Lubavitcher rebbe, Menachem Schneerson
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, Chabad’s last rebbe, died on June 12, 1994 and is still highly revered in the community. (Wikimedia Commons) (JTA) – The city of Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine named a street after Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last and most prominent Lubavitcher rebbe, who fled the city in 1927. Communist agents...
Ukraine city names street for Chabad Rebbe Schneerson
(JTA) – The city of Dnepropetrovsk in eastern Ukraine named a street after Menachem Mendel Schneerson, a prominent Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi who fled the city after Communist agents arrested his father there in the 1930s. Menachem Mendel Schneerson Street was unveiled in Dnepropetrovsk Sunday by its chief rabbi, Shmuel Kaminezki, who is one of the...
Christian-funded group brings 1st large group of French immigrants to Israel
PARIS (JTA) — A major Israeli philanthropic group with Christian funding brought its first large group of French Jewish immigrants to Israel. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, which has an annual budget of over $100 million, put the 83 new immigrants on two airplanes Monday in Paris, following a ceremony led by the...
