Jewish News

First Haredi School to Teach Core Subjects

A first ultra-Orthodox educational institution teaching core curriculum subjects is set to open in Jerusalem in about three months ahead of the new school year.The school will be established for students of the small haredi yeshivot, aged 13 to 16.The move is seen as exceptional on the backdrop of the harsh criticism directed at the haredi sector, which usually fails ...

Grandson of Alfred Dreyfus Asks Not to Auction Off His Letter

A grandson of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army captain wrongly accused of treason over a century ago, on Monday urged a private collector not to allow a letter penned by his grandfather to go under the hammer in Paris this week, AFP reports.Written to the interior ministry in 1895, a month after Dreyfus was sentenced for treason, the letter is expected ...

OU Lends Hand to Oklahoma Aid Network

The Chabad Community Center of Southern Oklahoma, which is on the ground organizing relief efforts for the communities hit hard by last week’s devastating tornado, has received $15,000 in disaster-relief funds from the Orthodox Union. The funds were received just before the Jewish Sabbath, and are being distributed over the Memorial Day weekend and throughout the week.“On behalf of those ...

Nearly 500 U.S. Rabbis Urge Obama to Press for Sudanese Peace

Nearly 500 rabbis of all streams urged President Obama in a letter to name a new special envoy to Sudan, saying the work there is not yet complete.The May 24 letter was initiated by Ruth Messinger, president of American Jewish World Service, and Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. It was signed by 492 rabbis ...

Could Germany have a Jewish Chancellor?

A new novel about a neo-Nazi plot to assassinate Germany’s first Jewish candidate for Chancellor has shed a timely light on the right-wing extremist violence that has plagued the country since 1990 and was swept under the carpet for years.Political thriller “The Jewish Candidate” by British journalist David Crossland has been published just as Germany’s September election campaign is heating ...

Israelis Report Anti-Semitism at Berlin Concert

Israelis attending a Beyonce concert in Berlin over the weekend were met with anti-Semitic chants from the audience, the Yisrael Hayom newspaper reported on Sunday.The incident took place when a group of eight Israelis, including two soldiers on leave, arrived at Germany’s O2 stadium for the concert.The group managed to arrive early and succeeded in seating themselves in the first row, to ...

Lubavticher Yeshiva Celebrates Tanya Printing

This year on Chof-Daled Teves, Lubavitcher Yeshiva Crown Street launched a historical project– printing of a Tanya by tomchei temimim crown st. accompanied by a Tanya B’al Peh initiative to mark and honor the 200th anniversary yahrtzeit of the Alter Rebbe, Baal Hatanya. Children at every grade level stepped forward with a personalized commitment of how many lines in the ...

Little Bits of the Dead Sea Scrolls Put Up for Sale

Nearly 70 years after the discovery of the world’s oldest biblical manuscripts, the Palestinian family who originally sold them to scholars and institutions is now quietly marketing the leftovers — fragments the family says it has kept in a Swiss safe deposit box all these years.Most of these scraps are barely postage-stamp-sized, and some are blank. But in the last ...

‘Israel Backing Hungary to Chair Holocaust Forum’

The Foreign Ministry is backing Hungary’s quest to assume the chairmanship of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2015, Hungarian prime ministerial chief adviser Zsigmond Perenyi told The Jerusalem Post.During an interview at the King David Hotel on Wednesday, Perenyi – who was heading a diplomatic delegation to Jerusalem dealing with issues pertaining to the rise of the anti-Semitic far ...

Merkel Accepts European Jewry Prize

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was given the Lord Jakobits Prize for European Jewry at a ceremony at the Great Synagogue of Europe in Brussels.During the acceptance speech, Merkel said her government was a strong supporter of Israel and a two-state solution to the Mideast conflict.“We hope that Israel and its neighbors can live in security and peace,” Merkel said. “Germany ...

Paris Museum Opens Exhibit of Palestinian ‘Martyrs’

A Paris museum subsidized by the French government opened an exhibition of photos of Palestinian suicide bombers, which the museum calls freedom fighters.The exhibition of 68 photos entitled “Death” by Ahlam Shibli opened on May 28 at the Jeu de Paume museum of contemporary art in Paris.The museum’s website describes suicide bombers as “those who lost their lives fighting against ...

NY Jews See Dramatic Rise in Poverty

Poverty has risen dramatically in the New York Jewish community since the previous study in 2002, according to UJA-Federation of New York’s “Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011 Special Report on Poverty”, released this week.More than 560,000 people in approximately 200,000 Jewish households are poor or near-poor, and 45% of the children in Jewish households now live in poor ...