Wednesday 31 July 2013

Hollywood and the Nazis

In devastating detail, an excerpt from a controversial new book reveals how the big studios, desperate to protect German business, let Nazis censor scripts, remove credits from Jews, get movies stopped and even force one MGM executive to divorce his Jewish wife.
Continue reading: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/how-hollywood-helped-hitler-595684

Monday 29 July 2013

Jewish girl wins writing contest

A Jewish girl won a national writing competition that was judged by Prime Minister David Cameron, according to an Anne Frank organization in London.
Continue reading: http://www.yourjewishnews.com/2013/07/n28474.html

Sunday 28 July 2013

Lost property during Holocaust

When Cati Holland checked her email a few weeks ago, she was surprised to find a message saying she was eligible for compensation for her grandmother's Berlin store that was seized by the Nazis more than 70 years ago.
It wasn't spam or a phishing attempt or even a legitimate note from a German official working to track down victims and their heirs. Rather, it was from an Israel-based social media genealogy company that is using the Internet to help match property stolen by the Nazis to heirs of the victims.
Continue reading: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/social-media-help-track-property-lost-holocaust

Friday 26 July 2013

Throwing stones and pelted with eggs

Stones have been thrown at a coach carrying Jewish boys before they were egged in a sickening attack in Sheerness.
Read more: http://www.kentonline.co.uk/times_guardian/news/jewish-attack-3853/
H/T Algemeiner.com

Thursday 25 July 2013

Jewish Olympics

There’s a famous scene in the cult 1980 movie “Airplane!” when a passenger asks the flight attendant for something “light” to read and is handed a one-page leaflet entitled “Famous Jewish Sports Legends.” But a week into what is often billed as the Jewish Olympics, it might be time to rewrite the joke.

Some 9,000 Jewish athletes from more than 70 countries, including a 1,100-person U.S. delegation, descended on Israel to participate in the largest Maccabiah Games, now entering its second week. Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/07/25/israels-jewish-olympics-draw-athletes-from-around-the-world/

Tuesday 23 July 2013

Teen fun

Serbian police suspect three teenagers are responsible for desecrating 39 Jewish graves in the northern city of Subotica.
The teens are believed to have smashed the headstones on July 10 in the city’s Jewish cemetery, which is situated near the border with Hungary, the news site Subotica.com reported last week.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/07/22/news-opinion/world/serbian-teens-suspected-of-smashing-39-jewish-headstones#ixzz2Zsee8FPw

Sunday 21 July 2013

Alaska's first Jewish museum

Alaska opened its first Jewish museum in Anchorage, the state’s largest city.
The Esformes Jewish Campus of Alaska was dedicated this month.
“This is a museum about Alaska’s contribution to Jewish life and about the contribution of Jews to Alaska,” said Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, who with his wife, Esty, and a group of Alaskan Jews conceived of the project nearly a decade ago.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/07/21/news-opinion/united-states/alaska-gets-first-jewish-museum#ixzz2Zkp7glZu

Saturday 20 July 2013

Campaign contributions

Oy! Jewish leaders are kvetching over Anthony Weiner’s accepting campaign cash from a lobbyist for Al Jazeera — Osama bin Laden’s favorite TV network.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/more_heat_on_weiner_over_jazeera_7YA2d4XD5GFzwO3ipwrKjO

Friday 19 July 2013

Sharing the good news

The Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition gathered in Cedar Rapids Monday night to hear from the three Republican candidates for the Senate nomination. The candidates had trouble differentiating themselves ideologically, as all hewed faithfully to the right-wing line, until David Young promised that "as a Senator, he would invite New York Senator Chuck Schumer to lunch so that he could share the good news of Jesus Christ."
Continue reading: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/07/iowa-republican-has-good-news-for-chuck-schumer.html

Wednesday 17 July 2013

Poland's in-thing

Poland's parliament recently voted to uphold a controversial ban on ritual Jewish butchering -- an otherwise lucrative international enterprise for the export hungry nation.
That not withstanding, everything else Jewish seems to have become decidedly kosher in the Polish Republic. Seven decades after more than 90 percent of Poland's Jewish population of 3.6 million was slaughtered by the Nazis (with an occasional assist from a few local anti-Semites) everything from Jewish history to Jewish food to Jewish music to Jewish art has suddenly become Poland's in-thing.
Continue reading: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-z-chesnoff/post_5201_b_3604331.html

Tuesday 16 July 2013

Dmitriy Salita talks religion and sport

Dmitriy Salita, New York's Orthodox Jewish Boxer, is profiled at the Atlantic.

Hit and run

BRUSSLES, Belgium — The 4-year-old son of a European Shliach is in critical condition and fighting for his life after a hit and run crash. The public is requested to please say Tehillim for Hillel ben Sara.
Read more: http://crownheights.info/accidents/393646/shliachs-son-critically-injured-in-hit-and-run-crash/

Monday 15 July 2013

Totally unacceptable

Israel is condemning a recent decision by the Polish parliament to forbid the traditional Jewish slaughter that makes meat kosher.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/07/15/israel-calls-polish-ban-on-traditional-jewish-slaughter-practices-totally/#ixzz2Z8kOm4CX

Sunday 14 July 2013

Reports denied

Teachers from a Jewish school near Paris denied reports that their students had “mutinied” against the presence of female test watchers.

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/07/14/news-opinion/world/french-jewish-school-denies-students-mutinied-over-female-chaperones#ixzz2Z5lMwgVS

Saturday 13 July 2013

Twitter turns over info

A French Jewish group says Twitter has turned over information that can help identify the authors of racist and anti-Semitic tweets that carried French hashtags.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/french-jewish-group-twitter-gives-data-case-143444642.html

Friday 12 July 2013

Due to an anti-Semitic phone call

A 1943 vintage Danish fishing boat which rescued Danish Jews during the Holocaust is in the process of being moved and restored, ironically enough, thanks to an anti-Semitic phone call.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/07/11/news-opinion/the-telegraph/anti-semitic-phone-call-leads-to-restoration-of-historic-boat#ixzz2YoquyvQI

Thursday 11 July 2013

Rand Paul's conference

Continuing his outreach to the Jewish community, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul held a private conference call this week with about 80 Jewish leaders from across the country, The Daily Caller has learned.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/10/rand-paul-courts-jewish-leaders-during-conference-call/#ixzz2YnlwVagI

Jewish huts

An article titled Sukkah City: Revisiting the Crazy, High-Concept, Temporary Jewish Huts of NYC appears in the Atlantic.

Wednesday 10 July 2013

Religious discrimination suit

A worker claims that his boss said he wanted to lock up 'Yids' like Apprentice star Lord Sugar's son and gas them and wore obscene t-shirts mocking Jewish football fans.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2359472/Engineering-boss-told-Jewish-worker-wanted-lock-Yids-like-Alan-Sugars-son-gas-them.html#ixzz2Yhpe4xxj

Tuesday 9 July 2013

The royal visit

King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands visited the offices of the Jewish Community of Amsterdam for the first time since his coronation in April.
Monday’s visit by Willem-Alexander to the representative organ of the city’s Jewish community, known by the Dutch acronym NIHS, came less than three months after his coronation, in which he replaced his mother, Queen Beatrix.
Dutch media reported in April that some Jews were upset because Beatrix’s official farewell party is scheduled to take place in Rotterdam on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
Read more: http://www.jta.org/2013/07/09/news-opinion/world/new-dutch-monarch-visits-jewish-community#ixzz2YZmSHo5g

Click here to see photos of the king with a blue kippa.

Saturday 6 July 2013

Giving thanks

Below is Sheryl Sandberg's post on her Facebook page, after she planned to take the flight to San Franciso that crashed today, but switched flights.

Taking a minute to be thankful and explain what happened. My family, colleagues Debbie Frost, Charlton Gholson and Kelly Hoffman and I were originally going to take the Asiana flight that just crash-landed. We switched to United so we could use miles for my family's tickets. Our flight was scheduled to come in at the same time, but we were early and landed about 20 minutes before the crash. Our friend Dave David Eun was on the Asiana flight and he is fine.

Thank you to everyone who is reaching out - and sorry if we worried anyone.

Serious moment to give thanks.

https://www.facebook.com/sheryl/posts/10152997724435177

Thursday 4 July 2013

One mezuzah at a time

Montana's small Jewish population is scattered across a huge U.S. state that has more rodeos than rabbis, but one man is logging thousands of miles (kilometers) to seek out the faithful one doorway at a time.
Rabbi Chaim Bruk has set his sights on making sure each Jewish home in the state has a mezuzah at its entrance— and that those already hanging are kosher.
Continue reading: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/04/rabbi-bruk-montana-jews/2490799/

Play ball

CrownHeights info reports on the Mezamrim choir singing the national anthem before a friendly game of softball between the NYPD and Hatzalah.