Section: Jewish Telegraphic Agency (USA)
Belarussian Jews celebrate JDC ex-leader’s 100th birthday
VITEBSK, Belarus (JTA) –Russian-speaking Jews in Belarus celebrated the 100th birthday of Ralph Goldman, former leader of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and a central figure in Israel’s establishment. The birthday party for Goldman, who lives in Jerusalem, was held as part of the opening gala of the Belarus conference of...
Defying Western isolation of Belarus, Jerusalem announces visa-waiver with Minsk
VITEBSK, Belarus (JTA) – Jerusalem and Minsk are set to sign a visa-waiver program, Israel’s ambassador to the internationally ostracized former Soviet republic of Belarus said. Ambassador Yosef Shagal announced the signing on Friday to 700 participants at the Limmud FSU conference in Vitebsk, the former Soviet country’s third-largest...
Hundreds of Jewish families remaining in eastern Ukraine for High Holidays
(JTA) — Hundreds of Jewish families are staying in the flashpoint eastern Ukraine cities of Donetsk and Mariupol and will spend Rosh Hashanah there. The families are hoping for an extended calm after the signing of a cease-fire agreement reached last week between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian militias, said the chief rabbi of Donetsk, Pichas...
Ukrainian Jew killed in Donetsk attack
(JTA) — A Ukrainian Jewish man and his guard were killed during an armed attack in Donetsk, a local Jewish group said. George (Eliyahu) Zilberbord, 47, was shot dead on Aug. 30 by men who raided the area around his home on the outskirts of the embattled city, where pro-Russian separatists are fighting with Ukrainian government troops, the Vaad...
Ukrainian court nixes controversial Jewish heritage projects in Lviv
(JTA) — A Ukrainian supreme court forbade the Municipality of Lviv from going ahead with controversial plans for commemorating Jewish heritage sites. The Supreme Economic Court of Ukraine issued its ruling Wednesday against the city’s plans to design and build projects that would commemorate three Jewish sites instead of restoring them. In...
For ‘hardcore’ Jews displaced by Ukrainian fighting, Israel beckons
Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, meeting with Jews who fled eastern Ukraine, July 2014. (Olivier Fitoussi) For ‘hardcore’ Jews displaced by Ukrainian fighting, Israel beckons By Cnaan Liphshiz (JTA) — Each time he dispatches a car into Lugansk, Rabbi Shalom Gopin readies...
150 Jews who fled Ukraine fighting expected in Israel
(JTA) — At least 150 Jews who fled fighting in eastern Ukraine are expected to land in Israel next month in one of the largest group of arrivals of its kind this year. Many of the would-be immigrants, who will arrive aboard three flights chartered by the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, are staying at a Jewish summer camp in...
Spain suspends arms sales to Israel over Gaza operation
(JTA) — The Spanish government “provisionally suspended” arms sales to Israel over its operation in Gaza. The country’s Interministerial Regulatory Board on Foreign Trade and Defense made the decision last week in Madrid, the Spanish daily El Pais reported Monday. Spanish arms sales to Israel are limited, and were more...
Moroccan jailed for killing Jewish physician in Ukraine
(JTA) — A Moroccan man who killed a Jewish physician in Ukraine was sentenced to 15 years in jail after a court of appeals reversed his acquittal. Shakeeb Otman from Casablanca was sent to jail on July 22 for the premeditated murder of Leon Fraierfeld, an orthopedic surgeon from the city of Lviv in western Ukraine on Oct. 19, 2012. The July...
Sole Israeli national on downed Malaysian airliner was son of evangelical Christian
Ithamar Avnon, the sole Israeli national aboard the downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, pictured in Jerusalem in 2008. (Shai Penn Eisenman) AMSTERDAM (JTA) — A few hours before he departed Amsterdam for Australia on July 17, Ithamar Avnon was praying for peace with his parents at their home in the Netherlands. That evening, pro-Russian...
