The sniper grandfather

A steel-eyed Nazi killer picks off Jewish prisoners with a rifle from a balcony in a concentration camp in 1944.
More than six decades later, a Nigerian-German woman who has studied in Israel thumbs through a book about the sniper and is shocked to learn the man is her own grandfather.
 - See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/09/nigerian-german-learns-grandfather-jewish-prisoners-killer/#sthash.4nuN3aY8.dpuf

President Peres to visit Potuguese Synagogue

Israeli President Shimon Peres will pay a 3-day official state visit to Holland at the invitation of King Willem-Alexander to reaffirm the good relations between the two countries.  

On Sunday, President Peres will visit the Hollandsche Schouwburg and the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam.

Continue reading: http://www.ejpress.org/article/68117

Easing human suffering

Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn spent his 30-year career educating others and helping to ease human suffering, leading Jewish congregations in Australia, Illinois, his hometown of Miami and New Jersey.

Now, he is practicing his faith in a different line of work: Kahn runs a dispensary for medical marijuana.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/rabbi-ties-jewish-faith-medical-marijuana-dispensary/story?id=20348883

Security cameras to be installled in Borough Park

A hundred security cameras will be installed on public lampposts throughout the Midwood and Borough Park neighborhoods in the coming months — the result of a $1 million state grant secured in the wake of a horrifying tragedy: the 2011 abduction, dismemberment and murder of an 8-year-old Hasidic boy named Leiby Kletzky.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/09/22/next-big-nyc-camera-installation-set-for-jewish-neighborhood-where-boy-was/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29#

Hawking his wares on Yom Kippur

Isaac Mizrahi was hawking his shirts, boots and bags Saturday on QVC during his show, “Isaac Mizrahi Live.” The only problem is the popular Jewish designer now has the city’s Jewish community in an uproar, since he was furiously working and tweeting on Yom Kippur.

...The well-respected author Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, known as “America’s Rabbi,” weighed in on why the Jewish community is upset.
“It seems now G-d isn’t going to be one of his customers, because it is a pretty big account to lose,” Boteach told us. “Modern people have to learn to put values before money, and if Sandy Koufax could give up the World Series for Yom Kippur, then Isaac Mizrahi could give up a few hours of hawking some of his wares.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/gossip/confidential/mizrahi-latest-proves-tough-fit-holiday-article-1.1457977#ixzz2fGLbds63

Allowing hate speech

Facebook, Inc. came under fire on Tuesday for allowing hate speech against Jews to proliferate in its online community.

A group called “Remove Hate From FB” said the online site has gone far in blocking pages denigrating other minority groups, but attacks against Jews are allowed to linger online.
Read more: http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/09/17/facebook-under-fire-for-allowing-hate-speech-against-jews-to-proliferate-online/

The Yiddish speaking model

Yoel Weisshaus, a 32-year-old student at New Jersey’s Bergen Community College who was raised in Brooklyn as a Satmar hasid, was featured this week American Apparel’s tumblr page with peyos (earlocks), a flowing beard, and traditional hasidic fur hat.
Read more: http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/American-Apparels-latest-campaign-A-peasant-with-chutzpah-325348

Call to condemn riots

The rabbi of the Western Wall called on the world to condemn riots by Muslims on the Temple Mount during Rosh Hashanah.
Palestinians threw rocks at police and at Jewish worshipers on Friday on the Temple Mount, the holiest site for Jews, following Muslim prayer services at the Al-Aksa Mosque there, as well as at sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. Some 15 rioters were arrested.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/09/08/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/condemn-muslim-riots-on-temple-mount-rabbi-says#ixzz2eL0X0VYk

Burnt Kensington Menorah

The most important Jewish holiday

Older and younger Jews agree that Yom Kippur tops Passover as the most important Jewish holiday. But the Jewish Day of Atonement, which falls on Sept. 13, is not as important to younger Jews.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/survey-yom-kippur-passover-top-jewish-holiday-list/2013/09/03/2d12cd70-14d9-11e3-b220-2c950c7f3263_story.html

Financial incentives for Jews to move South

USAToday reports Jewish families offered incentives to move South.

As Jews prepare to celebrate Rosh Hashanah - the Jewish New Year - throughout the world starting at sundown Wednesday, congregations in Southern states including Mississippi, Alabama, North Carolina and Oklahoma and Jewish organizations are increasingly working to preserve Jewish identity in the South and to try to ensure it flourishes.
In some places, the effort is taking an unorthodox turn - and working.
In Dothan, Ala. - a city of about 67,000 near the Florida border - one group offers as much as $50,000 to Jewish families willing to move to the town and stay at least five years.
Read more: http://www.freep.com/usatoday/article/2759453

Petitioning Polish court to reverse shechita ban

The umbrella group representing Polish Jews petitioned Poland’s constitutional court to reverse a ban on ritual slaughter methods.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/09/02/news-opinion/world/polish-jews-take-kosher-slaughter-ban-to-court#ixzz2dkz5MEoO

Surviving a tormentor

By all accounts, Irene Hizme shouldn’t have lived through her three years at Auschwitz, where she suffered daily medical experiments at the hands of the Nazis’ Angel of Death — Dr. Josef Mengele.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/triumph_over_nazi_evil_dBv3juY4Dz370FRJIf0LzJ