January 28, 2014
By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ
OSWIECIM, Poland (JTA) — Watching thousands of Poles dance to Klezmer music just 50 miles from the Auschwitz death camp, Johnny Daniels could feel an ambitious plan taking shape.
The experience last year at Krakow’s annual Jewish Culture Festival prompted Daniels, a 28-year-old Israeli and Holocaust educator, to organize the largest-ever Knesset delegation to Auschwitz.
Nearly half the Israeli parliament was in Poland Monday to mark International...
January 27, 2014
(JTA) — Holocaust historian Randoph Braham is returning a high honor from the Hungarian state over what he called the government’s falsification of Holocaust history.
The action is a protest against attempts to whitewash Hungary’s role in the Holocaust, Braham said in a letter quoted by the Hungarian state news agency MTI on Sunday.
Braham, 91, a Holocaust survivor, wrote that he was handing back the Cross of the Order...
January 27, 2014
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Jewish young adults who previously visited Israel on a high school program will still be eligible for Birthright.
The Taglit-Birthright Israel steering committee approved the expansion of the free 10-day trip to Israel at a meeting on Tuesday, the Diaspora Affairs Ministry announced on Jan. 23. The expansion is to go into effect with this summer’s trips for 18- to 26-year-olds.
The committee also voted to...
January 27, 2014
(JTA) — Scarlett Johansson addressed criticism from the Oxfam aid organization over her role as spokeswoman for SodaStream, which operates a factory in the West Bank.
“I remain a supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine,” Johansson, a Jewish-American actress who serves Oxfam as a global ambassador, said in a statement released Saturday. “SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the...
January 27, 2014
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — Rabbi Harvey Fields, senior rabbi at the historic Wilshire Boulevard Temple in Los Angeles for 23 years, has died.
Fields, who suffered a severe stroke several years ago, died Jan. 23 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 78.
Community leaders, colleagues and family members remembered Fields for his talent in transforming broad plans and ideas into reality, blending tradition with innovation, and commitment to...
January 27, 2014
(JTA) — Boxes containing the head of a pig were sent to the main synagogue in Rome, the Israeli embassy there and a museum showing an exhibition on the Holocaust.
The packages, sent via a courier service, were delivered last Friday, just days before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
All three packages were turned over to Italy’s special terrorism and major crime police, who opened an investigation. The packages contained no...
January 24, 2014
(JTA) — Shulamit Aloni, a former Israeli minister and leader of the left-wing Meretz party, has died.
Aloni died Friday at the age of 86. She will be buried Sunday in Kfar Shmaryahu near the northern Tel Aviv suburb of Herzliya, Israel’s Army Radio reported.
A veteran of Israel’s War of Independence War and a product of the Shomer HaTzair Zionist youth movement, Aloni first earned notice as a radio journalist....
January 24, 2014
(JTA) — Amid fatal clashes between police and demonstrators in Kiev, Jewish community representatives canceled an annual Holocaust remembrance event in the Ukraine capital out of safety concerns.
Some 400 Jews were expected to attend the event on Jan. 27, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, at the Brodsky Synagogue, according to Eduard Dolinsky, the executive director of the Ukrainian Jewish Committee. But as the death toll in the clashes reached at...
January 24, 2014
NEW YORK (JTA) — The largest Jewish federation in North America is expected to announce Eric Goldstein, a financial litigation lawyer and vice chair of the federation, as its new CEO.
UJA-Federation of New York’s board will vote on the appointment Thursday; the vote was postponed from Tuesday due to a snowstorm. Federation officials declined to confirm the information, which was first reported in the Forward.
The new CEO will...
January 24, 2014
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff suffered a heart attack in prison.
Madoff confirmed to CNBC that he was hospitalized last month following the attack, the financial news station reported Wednesday. The report said Madoff, 75, also is suffering from stage 4 kidney disease.
Madoff is serving 150 years at a federal prison in Butner, N.C., for what is believed to be the largest Ponzi scheme in U.S. history....
