Spying on Venezuelan Jewish community

Venezuela's secret service, SEBIN, is spying on the country's Jewish community, according to leaked documents said to be from the spy agency.

Last week, Analisis24, a right-leaning Argentinean news website, released 50 documents attributed to the Venezuelan intelligence agency containing private information on prominent Venezuelan Jews, local Jewish organizations and Israeli diplomats in Latin America. The Anti-Defamation League, among others, believes the documents are authentic based on the wealth of detailed and private information included.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/31/3118346/report-venezuela-is-spying-on-jewish-community

Increasing divorce rate

Data on Jewish divorce in Israel in 2012 released Tuesday showed a 5% increase in the divorce rate. According to Rabbi Zev Mendelson, a marriage counselor, the figures show that Western culture is damaging Israeli family life.
...“The cultural behavior in the Western world is around self-fulfillment,” he continued. “We look for what is easy and feels right for ourselves. In a relationship, you need to mold yourself to the other’s needs – and the two do not go together.”
Continue reading: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164719

The Holocaust hoax claim

A key figure in Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi's government called the Holocaust a hoax cooked up by U.S. intelligence operatives and claimed the 6 million Jews who were killed by Nazis simply moved to the U.S.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/29/aide-to-egyptian-president-morsi-claims-holocaust-us-hoax/#ixzz2JOdOkzCK

Formally censured

A Liberal Democrat MP summoned to meet his party whips following comments accusing "the Jews" of failing to learn the lessons of history has been formally censured for his remarks.
Read more: http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/101172/david-ward-formally-censured-lib-dems-over-jews-and-holocaust-slur

Vil-nor Goen

 Eliyahu Stern discusses Jewish genius and the Gaon of Vilna at Slate.

Agreement on Jewish center bombing probe

Argentina and Iran reached a breakthrough Sunday in the investigation of a Jewish center bombing that killed 85 people in Buenos Aires 19 years ago, agreeing to establish an independent international "truth commission" led by a jurist "with high moral standing and legal prestige" to examine Argentina's worst terrorist attack.
Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/01/27/argentina-iran-agree-on-bombing-probe/1868281/

Berlusconi praises Mussolini

Former Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi praised Benito Mussolini for "having done good" despite the Fascist dictator's anti-Jewish laws, immediately sparking expressions of outrage as Europe on Sunday held Holocaust remembrances.
Continue reading: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/27/berlusconi-except-for-anti-jewish-laws-mussolini-did-much-good-defends-support/

Israeli rabbi killed in car crash

A leading Israeli rabbi with a large family was killed in a car crash in Israel, according to hospital officials in Israel.


Rabbi Yehuda Haimov of the Israeli city of Sderot, has died from injuries sustained during a car crash on Thursday night. Rabbi Heimov was seriously injured in the accident, which occurred at an intersection a short distance from Sderot, Israel.
Continue reading: http://www.yourjewishnews.com/Pages/25339.aspx

Mulling an appeal

German-Jewish leader Stephan Kramer is mulling an appeal after the state prosecutor determined that a verbal attack against him was not a case of anti-Semitism.
Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said on his Facebook page that he would ask his attorney to inspect the case files to see if an appeal is possible.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/24/3117651/attack-against-german-jewish-leader-not-anti-semitism-prosecutors-decide

Man caught on camera throwing brick

A man was caught on video throwing a brick through a California synagogue window, according to video uploaded to the internet.

Now, Long Beach, California police have asked for the public's help in identifying the suspect who threw the brick through the window of a Jewish temple earlier in the month.
Read more: http://www.yourjewishnews.com/Pages/25306.aspx

Debbie Wasserman-Schultz reelected

After a successful election where the Democrats held onto the presidency and picked up seats in the House and Senate, Rep. to a second term as chair of the Democratic Party.

Responding to her reelection, Wasserman Schultz said she was "humbled" that President Obama has her continued confidence.
Continue reading: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34222_162-57565249-10391739/debbie-wasserman-schultz-reelected-chair-of-democratic-party/?tag=socsh

Chopped liver, anyone?

Traditional Jewish recipes at The Telegraph.

Senator Hagel meets with Jewish leaders

President Barack Obama's nominee for defense secretary, former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), sat down at the White House Friday with Jewish leaders to discuss his views on Iran and the U.S.-Israel relationship, several Jewish groups said in a brief joint statement.
The hour-long session was "an important opportunity for a serious and thorough discussion of key issues of importance to all of us," said leaders of the Jewish groups, which included the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/politico44/2013/01/hagel-met-jewish-groups-154855.html

Rare posters up for auction

A collection of rare posters seized from a Jewish collector by the Nazis is up for auction.
Hans Sachs started collecting posters as a teen and became Germany's leading private collector with 12,500 posters. The Nazis seized the collection in 1938.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/rare_posters_seized_by_nazis_up_5LN7K6ETPHMLCgg5VAegLJ

The numbers don't add up

A German-based airliner crash evaluation center lists Finnair is the “safest” airline in 2012. El Al's safety rating is at 24, and Lufthansa is at 11 – but the numbers don't seem to add up.

The rankings, listed in the “Traveller” column published on January 10 in The Age and written by William Mace, were cited by the Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre ( JACDEC).
Read more: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164370

Gone bankrupt

A Turkish construction firm that sponsored an antisemitic film and has featured the film’s actors in advertisement campaigns has gone bankrupt.
Read more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/18/turkish-construction-firm-goes-bankrupt-sponsoring-antisemitic-films/

Tokyo mikveh dedication

A new mikvah was dedicated in Tokyo four years after the Jewish ritual bath there ceased operation.
The mikvah, which was dedicated last week, was planned and funds were raised by Chabad-Lubavitch of Tokyo.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/17/3117171/mikveh-dedicated-in-tokyo

Dear Abby dies

Pauline Phillips, known to millions of advice-seekers around the world as the original "Dear Abby," has died. She was 94.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/01/17/169625513/dear-abby-dies-pauline-phillips-was-adviser-to-millions

Pauline Phillips (aka. Abigail Van Buren) (July 4, 1918 - January 16, 2013) was an American advice columnist and radio show host who began the "Dear Abby" column in 1956. Pauline Esther Friedman and her identical twin sister, Esther Pauline Friedman were born in Sioux City, Iowa to Russian Jewish immigrants.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauline_Phillips

U.S. imposes court fine on Russia

The Foreign Ministry has expressed outrage after a US court imposes a fine on Russia for its refusal to comply with a 2010 court order to return a collection of religious documents to a prominent US-based Jewish organization.

­The move comes shortly after the Magnitsky Act, which saw US legislators attempting to exert pressure on Russia’s judicial system. A court in Washington is now attempting to penalize Russia for its possession of a collection of books, manuscripts and other Judaic documents.

According to the ruling, Russia would be required to pay $50,000 a day to Chabad Lubavitch, an Orthodox Jewish movement headquartered in New York City, until it releases the Schneerson Library, of which the Jewish group claims rightful ownership.
Read more: http://rt.com/politics/russia-us-chabad-lubavitch-schneerson-184/

Targeting a Jewish genius

Click here to read Obama's DOJ targets Jewish genius by Pamela Geller.

Dutch writer's refusal to pay taxes

A Dutch writer has declared that he will not pay taxes in protest of his country’s financial support of Egypt.

  Leon de Winter, who is Jewish, wrote in a recent editorial that he was disgusted by Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi’s comments that Jews are the “descendants of apes and pigs,” a common antisemitic Islamic trope. Winter described Morsi as “a seasoned anti-Semite, the leader of a religious-political group that cannot be described as anything other than an Islamic-fascist movement.”
Read more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/15/dutch-jewish-writer-refuses-to-pay-taxes-in-protest-of-eu-aid-to-egypt/

The Athenee Maimonides Bruxelles school

On the third floor of the Belgian capital’s oldest Jewish school, Jacquy Wajc pauses to listen to the eerie silence that hangs in the hallways.

Established in 1947 as a testament to Belgian Jewry’s post-Holocaust revival, the Athenee Maimonides Bruxelles school once accommodated 600 students in its spacious building in downtown Brussels but now has only 150. Enrollment entered a free fall 10 years ago, as Jews left the area for the suburbs and were replaced by immigrants, many of them Muslims, who made Jewish parents believe the area was unsafe.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/15/3116671/in-downtown-brussels-an-old-jewish-school-nears-its-dying-breath

Fighting Jew hatred

There hasn’t been a lot of good news recently for pro-Israel watchers of campus culture, but in the unlikeliest of places, by the unlikeliest of Zionists, there is finally good news to share.

The University of New Orleans has nearly 13,000 undergraduate students, fewer than 100 of whom are Jewish. There are no Jewish studies courses, there are no Jewish services available and there is no kosher food available on campus. But what UNO does have is Chloe’ Simone Valdary.
Read more: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/african-american-pro-israel-group-on-new-orleans-campus-fighting-antisemitism/2013/01/14/

Jewish charity cuts

A pregnant Darfuri woman at a refugee camp in Chad, a Latino senior citizen living below the poverty line in the Bronx and an elderly Jewish immigrant from the former Soviet Union living in Boston.
They may not know it, but these individuals are all beneficiaries of programs run by Jewish organizations with public money.
And if Congress can’t reach a deal to avoid the so-called sequester by March 1, many of these programs could be severely scaled back -- if not terminated.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/13/3116666/ahead-of-march-deadline-jewish-groups-bracing-for-sequester-cuts

Release approved of Israeli diplomat killer

A court in Paris has approved the release of convicted murderer Georges Abdallah, according to Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot. Abdallah, has been serving a life sentence since 1987 for the murder of Yaakov Bar-Simantov, an Israeli diplomat, and Charles R. Ray, a U.S. Army officer.
Read more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/01/11/killer-of-israeli-diplomat-granted-parole-by-french-court/

Aaron Swartz dies

The programmer, activist, and early Reddit cofounder Aaron Swartz reportedly committed suicide yesterday in New York City. He was 26.
Continue reading: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Report:_hacker_activist_Aaron_Swartz_commits_suicide?dpl_id=642460

Liel Leibovitz opined in an article in 2011, "The government should follow Moses’ example and drop its prosecution of hacker Aaron Swartz, who downloaded millions of academic articles but broke no discernible law."
Read more: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/72981/no-harm

Not aware of their content

Scientific American satirized claims in a Turkish children's book that Charles Darwin was Jewish.
The Jan. 8 article was written in response to reports in October about a series of books aimed at Turkish schoolchildren which describe Darwin as a hook-nosed Jew who kept the company of monkey.
The books sparked outrage in Turkey and protests from Turkish teachers. The Istanbul area school district which distributed the books later claimed it was not aware of their content.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/11/3116631/scientific-american-mocks-claims-that-darwin-was-jewish

Witness found

Slovak police reportedly have found a witness to corroborate charges against the Hungarian war criminal Laszlo Csatary.
Csatary, 97, served during World War II as a Hungarian police commander in the Jewish ghetto of Kosice, then a part of Hungary and now in Slovakia.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/10/3116506/witness-found-in-trial-of-hungarian-war-criminal-csatary

Calls for sanctions

A Jewish group and the Justice Department argued in court Wednesday about the best way to get Russia to return the group's historic books and documents.
The group, Chabad-Lubavitch, wants the judge to impose civil fines on Russia. The department says fines won't help resolve the dispute and in fact would be counterproductive.Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/09/3174864/jewish-group-calls-for-sanctions.html

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/01/09/3174864/jewish-group-calls-for-sanctions.html#storylink=cpy

Hungarian Football appeals

The Hungarian Football Federation said Wednesday it is appealing a FIFA ruling forcing it to play its next World Cup qualifier in an empty stadium after fans shouted anti-Semitic slogans at Israel during a friendly match in August.
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/hungary-plans-fifa-appeal-over-penalty-for-anti-semitism-at-match/

Apology for Nazi salutes

Quebec's federation of university students has apologized for the appearance of Nazi salutes at recent demonstrations after prominent Jewish organizations condemned protesters' use of the gesture.


Martine Desjardins, president of the federation, said the salute, which some protesters have been using to mock Montreal police for alleged brutality, doesn't "represent the values of Quebec and Canada."


"We think it was an error in judgment that they used that sign," she said.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/06/13/montreal-students-nazi-salutes-protest_n_1592806.html

Call to release Alan Gross

The United Nations Human Rights Council's imprisonment watchdog called on Cuba to release jailed Jewish-American contractor Alan Gross.
The Human Rights Council's Working Group on Arbitrary Detention said in an opinion released Tuesday to Gross' lawyer that Cuba's lack of an independent judiciary, the imprecise nature of the alleged crime and the failure to grant bail to Gross rendered his 15-year sentence "arbitrary."
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/08/3116326/un-imprisonment-watchdog-calls-on-cuba-to-release-alan-gross

Twitter and hate crimes

The French Union of Jewish students is preparing to take on one of the giants of the internet - Twitter - and they expect to win.

They want the micro-blogging site to reveal the names of people who post anti-Semitic tweets so they can be prosecuted for hate crimes.
Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/video/europe/2013/01/2013188381567258.html

Nazi looted pieces

The Vienna Jewish Museum reportedly is holding hundreds of pieces that were looted by the Nazis. Some 500 works of art and 900 books have uncertain provenance, the Austrian daily newspaper Der Standard reported over the weekend.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/06/3116111/vienna-jewish-museum-pieces-reportedly-looted-by-nazis

Shmuly

Children who are struggling with cancer were invited to an uplifting weekend together, where they met with others who are going through the same ordeal as them.
...
One young boy named Shmuly, attended the annual Bein Ish Ubein Uchiv Shabbaton.

On Saturday night, Shmuly had a chance to sing alongside Jewish singers Chilli Posen and Shimmy Engel.
Continue reading: http://www.yourjewishnews.com/Pages/jv1501.aspx

Ancient Jewish community in Afghanistan

A trove of ancient manuscripts in Hebrew characters rescued from caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan is providing the first physical evidence of a Jewish community that thrived there a thousand years ago.

On Thursday Israel's National Library unveiled the cache of recently purchased documents that run the gamut of life experiences, including biblical commentaries, personal letters and financial records.
Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57561891/ancient-manuscripts-indicate-jewish-community-once-thrived-in-afghanistan/

Spray-pained anti-Semitic slogans

French police early Thursday discovered anti-Semitic slogans spray-painted on a building in Toulouse, a city that in March 2012 was the site of a deadly terror attack against Jewish school-children.
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/swastika-anti-semitic-slogans-spray-painted-on-toulouse-building/

Backing Sabbath observers

A Dutch governmental agency advised a security firm to hire a Sabbath-observing intern after ruling that employers may not reject Jewish candidates on the basis of their refusal to work on the Jewish day of rest.
The ruling came at the end of a hearing by the Board for the Protection of Human Rights, an advisory agency tasked with preventing discrimination, concerning the case of an intern that was rejected for a job because he would not work on the Sabbath.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/01/02/3115831/dutch-firm-ordered-to-hire-shabbat-observing-intern

Detained by police for Jewish prayer

The Jerusalem District police intends to recommend that Likud Beytenu candidate Moshe Feiglin be prosecuted over his visit to the Temple Mount and that it be done even before the elections, Channel 10 News reported on Tuesday.

Feiglin, head of the Likud's Jewish Leadership faction, was detained by police on Tuesday morning after bowing down during a visit to the Temple Mount. This is not the first time that Feiglin has been arrested for worshiping on the Mount.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in the world according to Judaism. It is also home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Police allow Jews to visit the site, but they are forbidden to pray in the area or show other outward signs of worship due to fears that Jewish prayer would inflame Muslim anger.
Read more: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/163791

Ghetto ad removed

An advertisement calling the Bayit Yehudi a ghetto and featuring party chairman Naftali Bennett behind barbed wire was removed from an unofficial Likud members' website, after the parties complained to the police and the Central Election Committee on Tuesday.
Continue reading: http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=298041