The Jewish song writer

The National Review writes about the improbable life of Irving Berlin.

The man who gave us “God Bless America” was not born in America; he was born in Russia. The man who gave us “White Christmas” was not a Christian; he was Jewish.
Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/347679/improbable-irving-berlin

Wagner's opera booed in Germany

A modern production of Richard Wagner's opera "Tannhauser" is causing a stir in Germany because of Nazi-themed scenes showing people dying in gas chambers and members of a family having their heads shaved before being executed.

A spokeswoman for the Dusseldorf opera house said Tuesday that members of the audience "booed and were shocked" by Saturday's opening performance.
Read more: http://www.rep-am.com/news/national/722607.txt

Backtracking over forcing children to eat unkosher meat

A French headteacher stirred up a storm when she sent a letter to parents, suggesting pupils would be forced to eat meat at school, because “secularism must be respected in its entirety”. She has since been forced to backtrack.
Read more: http://m.thelocal.fr/page/view/headteacher-slammed-for-suggesting-children-must-eat-meat

Jews who served in the Soviet red army

Israel's Jewish War vets are noticed — once a year

Zero tolerance on anti-Semitism

Hungary's prime minister has told an international assembly of Jews that his government has declared "zero tolerance" on anti-Semitism.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/05/05/hungary-prime-minister-addresses-jewish-meeting-vows-zero-tolerance-for-anti/#ixzz2SRvgF3vY

Ruling against Jewish day school

A circuit court judge has sided with the City of Evanston and rejected a Jewish day school's suit challenging the city's refusal to rezone a property on Hartrey Avenue for its use.
Judge Mary Anne Mason ruled Tuesday that the city's concern that the rezoning to permit the non-profit school would cost the city property tax revenue was a legitimate basis for its action.
...
She said she accepted the testimony of the school's then-president, Ari Shulman, that when he first told Alderman Ann Rainey, 8th Ward, of the school's plan to move to Evanston from it's location on California Avenue in Chicago, she told him to "keep your Jewish school on California."
...Mason also criticized what she called "inapproriate and unprofessional references" to "un-kosher logic and "parting of the Red Sea" in an email message then zoning administrator Bill Dunkley sent Rainey about the school's request.
Read more: http://evanstonnow.com/story/government/bill-smith/2013-05-02/56058/city-wins-zoning-battle-with-jewish-school

Her secret Jewish identity

There is a list of horrors rattling around inside Mary Gale’s head.
The 86-year-old tells me the story of her life, starting from the happy beginning as a girl growing up in a middle-class Jewish family in Lodz, Poland, a family that, like so many other Jewish families would be torn apart by the horrors of the Holocaust.
But Mary Gale has spent the past 70 years living with a burdensome secret, a lie she no longer wishes to conceal. She can pinpoint exactly when the lie began because it had to begin somewhere in order for her to survive.
Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2013/05/02/miriam-zimmerman-kept-her-jewish-identity-secret-for-70-years/