Too far?

The Toronto Sun asks if Joan Rivers took it too far with a joke that has been slammed by the ADL.

Outrageous comic Joan Rivers has come under fire for comments she made about Jews during a segment on her controversial U.S. style show Fashion Police.

The veteran funnywoman, whose parents were Russian Jewish immigrants, critiqued a dress worn by German supermodel Heidi Klum during Monday’s episode of the E! series, saying, “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.”
Read more: http://www.torontosun.com/2013/02/28/joan-rivers-slammed-over-jewish-joke

Call to probe anti-Semitism

A Dutch Jewish group called on Holland to probe anti-Semitism in its high schools following interviews with immigrant students in which they praised the Holocaust and hating Jews.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/26/3120486/teens-praise-of-hitler-requires-research-jewish-group-says

Jews of Egypt

Amir Ramses discusses his new documentary.

To prepare for 'Jews of Egypt,' Ramses embarked on a six-month journey of discovery, which he thoroughly enjoyed. The research underlying the film entailed three intertwining strands: finding and interviewing the actual Jews of Egypt, building the historical skeleton, and collecting archival material, including videos and print media. He was not completely oblivious to the historical background and evolution of the Egyptian Jewish community, yet he still was struck by the personal stories he was exposed to while making this film.

"There were details I was completely unaware of and would have never imagined, such as the fact that until this moment, some of them [Egyptian Jews] are still forbidden from returning to Egypt," he says.
Read more: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/5/32/65504/Arts--Culture/Film/Jews-of-Egypt-tells-story-of-Egypts-exiled-Jewish-.aspx

Today we are all Jews

Dozens of protesters outside a school near Copenhagen demonstrated against the anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students.
The protesters at Saturday's rally in Norrebro, a suburb north of Copenhagen, outside the Radmandsgades elementary school held up Israeli flags and signs reading “Today we are all Jews.”
Continue reading:  http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/24/3120341/dozens-protest-anti-semitic-bullying-in-danish-school

Dershowitz on a possible Papal successor

Alan Dershowitz has openly condemned one possible successor to Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga of Honduras, who he claims is virulently and openly anti-Semitic.
Read more: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2013/02/21/Dershowitz-Condemns-One-Possible-Papal-Successor

Vandalized

A Jewish cemetery in western Poland and a Holocaust memorial site in Russia were defaced in suspected anti-Semitic attacks.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/22/3120266/polish-jewish-cemetery-russian-community-center-vandalized

Defined by her faith

Rachel Wenstone affirms that she is Jewsih but asks not to be defined by her faith.

When I sat on National Conference floor last year, just before my election as Vice President, a high-ranking member of the student factional hard left, an elected student representative, said to me that UJS is funded by Mossad, that as a result I naturally am too, and that is why he would never vote for me. Another member of the left witnessed this. He told him he was a disgrace. That was it. Nobody (including me) made a formal complaint. The student representative finished his term, supposedly representing the students of this country, which includes a few thousand Jewish students, believing that my presence in NUS was part of an Israeli conspiracy.
The problem isn’t confined to the student movement either. A university Chancellor said to me over dinner only a few months ago, “I don’t know what it is about your people. You are so creative, so innovative, but when it comes to the Palestinians, I just don’t understand.”
Read full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/yes-im-jewish-but-dont-define-me-by-my-faith-8501340.html

Searching for gold

An Israeli investigative journalist has launched a search for nearly half-a-ton of Jewish-owned gold and platinum believed to have been stolen by the Nazis and dumped in a remote lake north of Berlin during the last days of the Second World War.

Yaron Svoray, who is also an anti-Nazi campaigner, announced that he has begun a new attempt to find the stolen gold using sophisticated sonar equipment, following a number of previous failed bids.
Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/israeli-scours-german-lake-for-jewish-gold-looted-by-nazis-8501691.html

Changing religion - removing tattoos

MOVIE star Drew Barrymore is having her tattoos removed because she is changing religions.
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/4800220/Drew-Barrymore-has-tattoos-removed-to-become-Jewish.html#ixzz2LEUNrtkt

Ed Koch's war diary

The New York Post has printed excerpts from a diary that Ed Koch kept during 1943.

August 21
All week long they have called yiddy yiddy yiddy all the poor [GIs] who happen to be Jews. I couldn’t take it anymore today and when LaRue kept calling out that miserable epithet, I boiled and told him to meet me outside the supply room. I was boiling inside and the whole company was out there to watch the fight. I was beaten pretty badly — knocked down a couple of times and the Lt. wanted to stop the fight but I wouldn’t let him. Finally, he did. Strangely enough I’m not marked up which makes me feel pretty good. Even though I took the beating, I’m glad I fought.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/private_life_of_ed_buG0kUhK0zV4zOtfc7AicP

Stolen art items to be returned

France has promised to return seven paintings taken from their Jewish owners during the second world war, part of efforts to give back hundreds of looted art that hangs in the Louvre and other museums.

The works were stolen or sold under duress up to seven decades ago as their owners fled Nazi-occupied Europe.
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/15/france-art-theft

Kosher meat sales surge

The head of the Manchester Beth Din has said that the Food Standards Agency and meat companies could “learn a lot” from kosher producers.
The horsemeat scandal has provided an unprecedented boost for kosher meat suppliers, with butchers reporting “booming” business as consumers turn to guaranteed safe sources.
Continue reading: http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/102478/horsemeat-crisis-prompts-kosher-sales-surge

Keeping the Sabbath

An extremely popular Italian singer chose to skip a major event because of Shabbat, according to press reports in Italy.
Continue reading: http://www.yourjewishnews.com/2013/02/25724.html

The free Pollard petition

Over 15,000 signatories have signed the online "Free Pollard Now" petition within the first days of launching. The petition is to be submitted to President Barak Obama during his upcoming visit to Israel in March.
Read more: http://www.yourjewishnews.com/2013/02/25700.html

Click here to sign the petition (English petition below the Hebrew one.)

Declining to attend a Holocaust commemoration

A French Protestant organization that saved Jews during the Holocaust declined to attend a commemoration because one of its organizers was a pro-Israel Jewish group.
The Marseille branch of CIMADE turned down an invitation to the region’s main memorial ceremony for Jewish Holocaust victims because CRIF, the umbrella group representing French Jewish communities, organized the event with the municipality.
Continue reading: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/12/3119371/french-group-that-saved-jews-from-nazis-snubs-jewish-memorial-event

J'accuse

After Argentina's Jewish community complained of the government's whitewashing of Iran's role in the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center, Argentina's president responded by … accusing the Jewish community of plotting against Argentina!
Read more: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/11/argentina-s-president-accuses-jewish-leaders-of-plotting-against-the-state.html

Pioneering parachutist passes away

Sarah “Surika” Braverman, a pioneering woman who parachuted behind enemy lines during World War II and went on to help found the Israeli army’s Women’s Corps and Kibbutz Shamir, in the Upper Galilee, passed away on Sunday. She was 94. Continue reading: http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/sarah-braverman-pioneering-jewish-parachutist-in-wwii-dies-at-94.premium-1.502812

Rabbi David Hartman passes away

Rabbi David Hartman, one of the world’s leading Jewish philosophers and a promoter of both Jewish pluralism and interfaith dialogue, has died. He was 81.
The Shalom Hartman Institute, founded by the rabbi more than 30 years ago, said Hartman died Sunday after a long illness.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/david-hartman-rabbi-known-for-promoting-pluralism-in-jewish-world-dies-at-81/2013/02/10/36401baa-7376-11e2-9889-60bfcbb02149_story.html

Jewish graves desecrated in Tunisia

For the second time in a month, vandals desecrated Jewish graves in Tunisia.
On Feb. 4, unidentified individuals smashed and overturned ten gravestones in Kef in Western Tunisia, according to the Tunisia News Network.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/08/3119136/jewish-cemetery-desecrated-in-tunisia

Brooklyn college students feeling alienated

Students at Brooklyn College say that the controversial BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) event aimed at Israel and co-sponsored by the school’s Political Science Department has left them feeling isolated, and has made many students’ academic experience uncomfortable.
Read more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/07/brooklyn-college-sponsorship-of-anti-israel-event-has-left-jewish-students-feeling-isolated-and-uncomfortable/

The secret to Joe Flacco's success?

The Algemeiner asks the qustion Was Baltimore QB Joe Flacco’s Secret to Success a Hebrew Prayer? (VIDEO)

Bosnia's Jewish manuscript

The Washington Post reports Bosnia’s prized Jewish manuscript will not be shown at New York’s Metropolitan Museum.

Jewish man in Marseille mugged

A young Jewish man reportedly was lynched and mugged outside Marseille’s main train station for wearing a Star of David pendant.
According to La Provence, a local daily, the 20-year-old man was approached by two men on a scooter on Feb. 4 at 3:30 P.M. outside Saint-Charles, a busy train station and shopping mall.
One of the men on the scooter tore the golden chain off the victim’s neck, called him a “dirty Jew” and fled the scene on the scooter with the pendant in hand.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/06/3118881/jewish-man-mobbed-outside-marseille-for-wearing-jewish-symbol

Ukranian MP's hurtful remarks

Oleksandr Feldman, a member of the Parliament of Ukraine, discusses a deeply hurful slur.

One of the most recognizable figures of Ukrainian Jewish descent, the beautiful and talented actress Mila Kunis, recently fell victim to the hatred of a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament from the far-right Svoboda Party – a party which is notoriously known for regularly injecting anti-Semitism into their speeches and public pronouncements. He sneeringly proclaimed that she was not “Ukrainian but a zhydovka.” This deeply hurtful slur for a Jew was an alarming gutter effort to inject Jew-hatred into the acceptable bounds of mainstream Ukrainian discourse.
Read more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/02/06/first-they-came-for-mila-kunis/

Oy vey - Go away

Levaya of an Eshet Chayil

The funeral of Rebbetzin Chaia  Lieberman, wife of Rabbi Dovid Moshe Lieberman, Chief Rabbi of Antwerp, is scheduled to take place at 2:15 in Antwerp to be followed by burial in Israel.
Baruch dayan Emet.

Australia's Jewish attorney general

A Jewish lawmaker in Australia was promoted to attorney general, the government’s highest law officer.
Mark Dreyfus, a Labor lawmaker from Melbourne, was promoted Saturday by Prime Minister Julia Gillard in a Cabinet reshuffle. Dreyfus is the second Jewish Australian to hold the cabinet post; Sir Isaac Isaacs was the first.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/04/3118666/australian-jewish-lawmaker-named-attorney-general

Mayor Koch's funeral

The New York Times reports about Mayor Koch's funeral which is to take place today.

His funeral, at 11 a.m. Monday, will be at Temple Emanu-El, At 1 East 65th Street on the Upper East Side. Mr. Koch chose the Reform congregation for his funeral in part because an Orthodox rabbi would not officiate at the ensuing burial in a non-Jewish cemetery, and in part because of Emanu-El’s large capacity — it holds 2,500 people, and Mr. Koch wanted a full house.
Continue reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/nyregion/koch-was-proudly-jewish-but-on-his-own-terms.html?pagewanted=all

Anti-Semitism in Hungary

Anti-Semitism in Hungary is causing an influx of Jewish immigrants to Austria, the head of Vienna’s Jewish community reportedly said.
“I am pleased people are coming but the circumstances that force them to leave Hungary due to the political situation, due to anti-Semitism, don’t please me at all,” Oskar Deutsch, president of the Vienna Jewish community, is quoted as telling the Austrian Press Agency, APA.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/03/3118601/anti-semitism-pushing-out-hungarian-jews-vienna-community-says

Jewish influence accusations

Two leading Norwegian Muslims blamed Jewish influence for Christian hostility to Muslims.
Nehmat Ali Shah, the imam at Norway's largest mosque, and Ghulam Sarwar, the mosque's chairman, also told Dagsavisen, an influential daily, that the fear Jews instilled in others explained fraught Muslim-Jewish relations as well as the Holocaust.
Continue reading: http://www.jta.org/news/article/2013/02/01/3118486/senior-norwegian-muslims-jewish-run-media-ruins-muslims-reputation