Section: Jewish Telegraphic Agency (USA)
Alleged Nazi war criminal who moved to Canada dies at 93
MONTREAL (JTA) — Vladimir Katriuk, a native Ukrainian who avoided deportation from Canada for 64 years after hiding his Nazi past to move there, died peacefully in Quebec. Katriuk, who was 93, died on May 22, according to his lawyer. For years Katriuk was second on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of “most wanted” Nazi war criminals. As a...
U.S. Holocaust museum concerned over new Ukrainian legislation
(JTA) — The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum expressed concern over two legislative initiatives adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament. One measure adopted last month establishes an official government commemoration of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which murdered thousands of Jews in the 1940s. Another bans Communist and Nazi propaganda and symbols....
At Times Square, Russian Jewish vets celebrate victory over Nazism
NEW YORK (JTA) — Dozens of Jewish war veterans who fought with the Soviet Red Army in World War II gathered at Times Square to celebrate the Hebrew date of Victory Day. Accompanying the 50-odd veterans — who wore their Soviet uniforms and WWII medals — on Thursday were local rabbis and leaders from New York’s Jewish community, organizers...
Anti-Semitic incidents in Czech Republic rose sharply in 2014
PRAGUE (JTA) — The number of anti-Semitic incidents in the Czech Republic rose by more than 200 percent last year, according to an annual report on anti-Semitism. Prague’s Jewish community released the report on Monday. In 2014, 46 such incidents were registered across the country, compared to 13 incidents the previous year. An escalation...
Ukrainian aliyah triples in first quarter of 2015
(JTA) — Immigration to Israel under its Law of Return increased in the first quarter of 2015 by 41 percent over the corresponding period last year. Approximately a third of the 6,499 newcomers who landed at Ben Gurion Airport in the first three months of 2015 were from Ukraine, and more than half were from the former Soviet Union, according to an...
Journalists win B’nai B’rith awards for stories on Ukraine, anti-Semitism
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A print journalist who reported extensively on the plight of Jews in eastern Ukraine and a television journalist who reported on rising anti-Semitism in Europe were winners of a B’nai B’rith World Center journalism award. Sam Sokol of The Jerusalem Post and Nadav Eyal of Israel’s Channel 10 won the 2015 Award...
At Bergen-Belsen memorial, warnings and worry on Holocaust remembrance
A woman at a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany, April 26, 2015. (Alexander Koerner/Getty Images) LOHHEIDE, Germany (JTA) — At the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, hundreds of survivors, along with their children and grandchildren, stood together last weekend...
Some 28,000 young Jewish adults to visit Israel this summer on Birthright
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Some 28,000 young Jewish adults will visit Israel through the Taglit-Birthright Israel program this summer, the organization announced. Also during the summer, the 15-year-old program will welcome its 500,000th participant. Prior to 2000, about 1,500 Jewish American young adults visited Israel each year, according to...
Facebook bans pejorative for anti-Russia Ukrainian Jews
MOSCOW (JTA) – Facebook has taken down dozens of pages containing a Russian-language phrase that combines a Ukrainian pejorative for “Jew” with the name of a nationalist whose troops murdered Jews. The removal of pages containing the phrase “Zhidbanderovets” occurred on April 22 after it was deemed by Facebook to violate the social...
Kiev Jewish community gets $100,000 from EJC for security infrastructure
(JTA) — The European Jewish Congress has given $100,000 to the Jewish community of Kiev in order to strengthen security. The money will allow for around-the clock security at Jewish institutions and sites in the Ukrainian capital, Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, a Ukraine chief rabbi, said, according to the Jerusalem Post. “As an integral part of the...
