September 23, 2021
(JNS.org) – Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, addressing the 76th session of the U.N. General Assembly by video on Tuesday, called for an end to ongoing American sanctions, describing them as the United States’ “new way of war with the nations of the world.”
“Sanctions, especially sanctions on medicine at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, are crimes against humanity,” said Raisi, asserting that Iran is the “medical hub of...
September 17, 2021
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — A senior imam in France who in a sermon recited a religious text commanding Muslims to kill Jews has been acquitted of incitement to antisemitic hate charges.
Mohamed Tatai, the rector of the Great Mosque of Toulouse, had no desire to incite hatred in his sermon from 2017, the Correctional Tribunal of Toulouse ruled Tuesday. The sermon came days after news broke that the United...
September 17, 2021
By RON KAMPEAS
(JTA) — Israel will not oppose the Biden administration’s efforts to reenter the Iran nuclear deal but wants to see a credible “Plan B” to rally international support for Iran’s isolation, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said.
“The current U.S. approach of putting the Iran nuclear program back in a box, I’d accept that,” Gantz said in an interview posted Tuesday by Foreign Policy magazine.
That represents...
September 12, 2021
By SHIRA HANAU
(JTA) — Hundreds of Israelis who traveled to Ukraine for an annual Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage to the grave of a Hasidic rabbi are suspected of using forged negative COVID tests to return to Israel after testing positive for the virus.
Tens of thousands of Israelis travel to Uman, Ukraine each year in a pilgrimage to the grave of Rabbi Nachman, the leader of the Breslov branch of...
September 09, 2021
(JTA) – More than 100 headstones were smashed at a Jewish cemetery in Argentina that had seen similar damage in 2009.
The vandalism at the Tablada Cemetery in the Buenos Aires area was discovered on Sunday, the Jewish news site Visavis reported. The headstones were between the cemetery’s older section and the new one, which also contains the remains of dozens of victims from the 1994 terrorist bombing at the...
September 09, 2021
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — Zebulon Simantov, the last remaining Jew in Afghanistan, has finally left the country for fear of persecution by the Taliban, an Israeli television channel reported.
Simantov, the 62-year-old former keeper of Kabul’s lone remaining synagogue, left the country for the United States in recent days with several other exiles, the Kan broadcaster in Israel reported Wednesday.
The report was based on information given by Moti...
September 09, 2021
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — Six Palestinian men who were imprisoned in Israel on terrorism charges escaped from their high-security jail, apparently through a crawl space.
Five Islamic Jihad militants and a Fatah operative — Zakaria Zubeidi, one of the best-known Palestinians convicted in Israel for terrorism — are the subject of a massive manhunt that began early Friday, hours after their escape was discovered. They are considered dangerous with...
September 09, 2021
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — The world population of those who self-identify as Jews stands at about 15.2 million — an increase of 100,000 over last year — with the number in the U.S. differing measurably from this year’s Pew survey.
Israel has 6.9 million Jews and the United States has “about 6 million,” according to the estimate by the Jewish Agency for Israel based on work by Sergio Della...
September 05, 2021
(JTA) — Police in London have arrested a man in connection with a series of six assaults on Jews in areas of the city with large Jewish communities.
The assaults began Aug. 18, when somebody struck Jews on the street during the day in the northern neighborhood of Hackney, then kept walking briskly away. The victims reported minor injuries.
In one of the incidents the victim was a child. In...
September 02, 2021
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
BUDAPEST (JTA) — Jewish communities in Hungary opened two new synagogues as part of the annual Jewish Cultural Festival in this capital city.
One is situated in the bustling center of Budapest, while the other is a 50-seat synagogue in an apartment building.
The latter — the Vorosmarty Street Synagogue — is owned by MAOIH, an umbrella group of Orthodox congregations. But MAOIH has neither the congregants...
