Section: Jewish Telegraphic Agency (USA)
Polish web surfers decry post of offensive photo of Majdanek
WARSAW, Poland (JTA) – Polish internet users criticized a Facebook post by a Ukrainian teen who lives in Poland, which shows an offensive gesture directed toward a memorial at Majdanek. The 17-year-old, identified as Wladyslaw, posted the photo on Facebook which shows him holding up his middle finger in the direction of the Monument to Struggle...
Dutch Supreme Court allows extradition of wanted Israeli rabbi
(JTA) — The Dutch Supreme Court authorized the extradition to Israel of a rabbi wanted there for alleged sex crimes. The court made its ruling Tuesday on Eliezer Berland, a Breslov Hasid who is suspected of sexually assaulting several of his female followers, including one minor. It is not known when he will be deported. Berland denies the...
Ukraine office to help prospective immigrants to Israel prove Jewishness
(JTA) – Rabbis from Israel and Ukraine opened an office in eastern Ukraine that will help prospective immigrants to Israel prove they are Jewish. The office, which opened last week in Dnepropetrovsk, aims to facilitate the process for people who seek to immigrate to Israel under its Law of Return for Jews and their kin and is the joint initiative...
Kiev Holocaust memorial defaced again with swastikas
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The monument commemorating Jewish victims of the Babi Yar massacre in Kiev was desecrated for the fifth time in about a year. Swastikas drawn on the monument were discovered last week by a delegation from the Shorashim organization, which helps immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union clarify their Jewish status in...
Worldwide Jewish population nears pre-Holocaust numbers
(JTA) — The worldwide Jewish population is approaching the size it was before the Holocaust, a new report by an independent Jerusalem-based think tank says. The report, compiled by the Jewish People Policy Institute, indicates that there are 14.2 million Jews worldwide as of early 2015. Add in various “subgroups” (such as immigrants to Israel and...
Separatist leader from Ukraine recorded making anti-Semitic statements
(JTA) — A separatist leader from Ukraine made anti-Semitic statements at a public address, the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress said. Igor Plotnitsky, head of the breakaway, Russian-backed region of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine, during a lecture in Russia last week linked Ukrainian Jews to the revolution that last year swept from power the...
Vandals paint swastika on Ukrainian Holocaust monument
(JTA) — A Holocaust monument in Ukraine was vandalized with a red swastika that the perpetrators painted over a Star of David symbol. The vandalism in Nikopol, an eastern Ukrainian city located 60 miles from Dnepropetrovsk, occurred on June 16, according to a report Tuesday by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine. Alexander Taratuta,...
Greek official slammed for saying ‘victims become bullies’ in Holocaust speech
(JTA) — A Greek official is accused of abusing the memory of the Holocaust by mentioning Gaza during a speech about the genocide, and saying that “victims become bullies.” The criticism by The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a watchdog group, was over a speech that Panagiotis Sgouridis, a deputy minister of rural development, gave on June 7 in the...
Canadian Jewish leaders, East European officials talk restitution
TORONTO (JTA) — Holocaust survivors and Jewish community leaders from Canada met with representatives of central and eastern European countries in an effort to speed restitution of war-era property. Over two days in Ottawa earlier this week, meetings took place with ambassadors or delegates from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Slovenia, Romania, Serbia,...
A Russian chief rabbi stands by his strongman, aka Putin
Rabbi Berel Lazar, right, with congregants at an unfinished synagogue in Sevatopol, Crimea, July 14, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) MOSCOW (JTA) – Rabbi Berel Lazar’s mother was eager for grandchildren. So she gave her 25-year-old son an ultimatum: He could return to his beloved Jewish outreach work in Russia if — and only if — he got married. His...
