July 01, 2022
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) – Mexico’s president doubled down on calling a Jewish critic of his administration “Hitlerian,” prompting protests from representatives of his country’s Jewish community.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-leaning politician, had on Wednesday called Carlos Alazraki “extremely conservative, like Hitlerian” after the journalist criticized the government’s handling of immigration from Venezuela. Alazraki said the government is letting in undocumented foreigners without vetting them, though the...
June 25, 2022
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) – The United Nations Human Rights Office concluded that a Palestinian-American journalist was killed by Israeli security forces last month, and said Israel’s failure to conduct a criminal investigation into her death was “deeply disturbing.”
In response, the Israel Defense Forces called the UN probe “biased” and reiterated its call for the Palestinian Authority to hand over the bullet that killed Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu...
June 22, 2022
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
BUDAPEST (JTA) — Antisemitic sentiment is especially prevalent in Italy and Hungary, according to multiple surveys. But a first-of-its-kind index combining different measures of Jewish experience found that they are also the best countries in Europe for Jews to live in.
The index, unveiled Monday, is based on a study that combines polling data and policy information to create a single quality-of-life metric for Jews in the...
June 15, 2022
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — The main organization representing British Jews has suspended its ties with the European Jewish Congress over unspecified “misconduct” allegations against the Congress’ treasurer, Yaakov Dov Bleich, a chief rabbi of Ukraine.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews announced the move on Twitter May 31 without naming Bleich. In the tweet, the group said the EJC did not respond satisfactorily to “misconduct allegations,” whose exact...
June 15, 2022
By TOBY AXELROD
BERLIN (JTA) — A one-man effort to remove a medieval anti-Jewish sculpture from public view in Germany has failed. The Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe announced Tuesday that the St. Marien Church in Wittenberg does not have to remove the “Judensau” — Jew Sow — sculpture from its façade, since the church administration had adequately distanced itself from the original antisemitic intention.
The Judensau is a Christian...
June 10, 2022
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — Men flying banners with far-right symbols gathered outside a synagogue in Germany on the anniversary of its attempted torching, allegedly by a Turkish citizen.
Gathering June 5 in Ulm near Munich, about 10 men displayed one banner reading: “White lives matter, stop the White genocide.”
Another banner depicted the black sun symbol, which is popular among neo-Nazis.
Local non-Jews confronted the demonstrators and made them...
June 10, 2022
By TOBY AXELROD
BERLIN (JTA) — The German government’s annual report on developments in extremism notes a nearly 29% increase in antisemitic crimes in 2021 over the previous year.
The report, released Tuesday by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, is based on statistics reported in May by the Federal Criminal Police Office, Germany’s equivalent to the FBI.
In all, 3,027 antisemitic incidents were registered last year,...
June 07, 2022
(JTA) — A group of men violently assaulted a Jewish man while he was putting up campaign posters for his wife, who is running for a legislative seat in Strasbourg, France, the victim told police.
Initially, two men who approached Liron Rozenhaft, 41, on Thursday called him a “dirty Jew” after reading the name of his wife, Audrey Rozenhaft, on the posters, Le Parisien reported on Friday. She is running...
June 03, 2022
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
(JTA) — Most Orthodox interpretations of Jewish law conclude that Jews are forbidden to enter churches, even if no prayer will be taking place.
So why was British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis present on Friday at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, where he attended a prayer service in honor of Queen Elizabeth II’s 70-year anniversary on the throne?
The answer dates back to a ruling from the...
June 02, 2022
By HANNAH STEINKOPF-FRANK
PARIS (JTA) — In 2019, at a Jewish conference in Troyes, France, Myriam Ackermann-Sommer did something quietly historic: She read from the Torah in an Orthodox prayer group.
Ackermann-Sommer was in charge of facilitating the minyan — or the 10-person Jewish prayer quorum, traditionally male-only — at the cross-denominational conference, titled “Do Women Have To Disobey To Be Leaders?” and organized by Filles de Rachi, or Daughters...
