Section: Jewish Telegraphic Agency (USA)
Facing extradition, Israeli ‘sex rabbi’ tells Dutch daily he survived Holocaust
AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A rabbi born in pre-State Israel fighting extradition from Holland over alleged sex crimes told a Dutch daily that he is a Holocaust survivor. Eliezer Berland, a charismatic rabbi from Jerusalem who fled Israel after several women and one minor complained he sexually assaulted them, made the claim in an interview with the Dutch...
Politics, Putin cast shadow over Auschwitz liberation anniversary
Holocaust survivor Marek Halter, left, and performers at a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, which was held at the Terezin Memorial near Prague on Jan. 27, 2015. (Cnaan Liphshiz/JTA) PRAGUE (JTA) — When they announced the ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Polish...
EU official: Tensions with Russia must not obfuscate Holocaust record
PRAGUE (JTA) — Political tensions with Russia must not be allowed to obfuscate the historical record on the Holocaust, a senior European Union official said. Frans Timmermans, the first vice president of the European Commission — the E.U.’s executive branch — made the plea Monday at an event in Prague commemorating the 70th anniversary of...
Russia slams Polish FM for saying Ukrainians liberated Auschwitz
(JTA) — Moscow condemned as “sacrilegious” the Polish foreign minister’s suggestion that Ukrainians, not Russians, liberated Auschwitz. Polish Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna in an interview Wednesday with Polskie Radio, addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s absence from a ceremony scheduled to take place at the...
Ukrainian Jewish businessman found shot dead
(JTA) — A Ukrainian Jewish businessman was shot dead in Lviv. The body of Felix Vrotslavsky, 56, was found Tuesday on Zelenoy Street, on the city’s southeastern edge. The murder was first reported by the news site zik.ua, citing an unnamed police source. A witness told police that Vrotslavsky’s body was thrown out of a car at around 8...
Will Russia’s economic woes burst bubble for Jews?
Actor Boris Smolkin, left, and a volunteer at St. Petersburg’s Choral Synagogue, Nov. 30, 2014. (Cnaan Liphshiz) ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (JTA) — In the basement of one of Europe’s largest synagogues, 100 Jews are waiting to meet local film star Boris Smolkin. The crowd applauds enthusiastically as the 66-year-old funnyman, who gave his...
Seeing need, Yechiel Eckstein’s Jewish-Christian fellowship gets into aliyah game
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein arriving in Israel with the first group of immigrants brought by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Dec. 22, 2014. (International Fellowship of Christians and Jews) (JTA) — Citing failures by the organization traditionally responsible for bringing Jews to Israel, the founder of a Jerusalem-based interfaith...
Czech Jewish community decries Putin invitation for Shoah commemorations
(JTA) — The Czech Jewish community has protested as “inappropriate” an invitation to Russian President Vladimir Putin to ceremonies marking the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Czech Republic President Milos Zeman issued the invitation last month. Putin has neither accepted nor rejected the invitation, according to the French news...
Research team uses imaging to study Shoah killing sites in Ukraine
KIEV, Ukraine (JTA) — An international team of researchers launched a study of Holocaust-era killing sites in the Kremenets region in western Ukraine. The project was initiated this year by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA, whose April report on killing sites ruled out conducting archeological digs in such locales as this...
Record-breaking French aliyah dwarfs immigration from North America
(JTA) — Jewish immigration from France to Israel reached an all-time record of 6,655 newcomers, in the first 11 months of 2014. The figure, which appears in a Jewish Agency document compiled this month, may guarantee that France will be this year’s number one source for aliyah, or immigration by Jews and their relatives to Israel. The...
