December 12, 2013
By RON KAMPEAS
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Amid simmering tensions over Iran policy, the Obama and Netanyahu governments appear to have quietly forged common ground in recent weeks on Israeli-Palestinian talks, with the United States accepting that a possible “framework” agreement might not address every outstanding issue in the negotiations.
Such an agreement, the United States and Israel seem to agree, would maintain a role for Israel in providing for its...
December 12, 2013
(JTA) — A Jewish family may proceed with its legal battle to recover a valuable painting surrendered to the Nazis following a ruling by a U.S. appeals court on lost artwork.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Monday reinstated a California law allowing lawsuits to recover artwork lost as long as 100 years ago.
The heirs of German businessman Julius Cassirer are embroiled in a...
December 12, 2013
(JTA) — An Israeli playing basketball at Seton Hall University was ordered to return home to serve in the army.
The Israel Defense Forces told Tom Maayan, a sophomore guard at the New Jersey college, to return by Jan. 2 to be drafted.
Maayan had spent several months over the summer in basic training with the Israeli army but received a 120-day exemption to start the season at Seton Hall....
December 12, 2013
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli lawmakers called for an examination of Magen David Adom blood donation policies after an Ethiopia-born Knesset member was rejected as a donor.
Pnina Tamano-Shata of the Yesh Atid party tried to donate during a special blood drive Wednesday at the Knesset but was told she could not because she had “the special kind of Jewish-Ethiopian blood,” according to Ynet, which first broke the story.
Tamano-Shata was...
December 12, 2013
JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled plans to speak in person to the biennial meeting of the Union for Reform Judaism.
The announcement was made Tuesday, a day before the start of the conference, which is scheduled to run through Dec. 15 in San Diego, Haaretz reported.
Netanyahu will address the closing plenary of the event via satellite, delivering prepared remarks and answering questions emailed prior to...
December 12, 2013
By JULIE WIENER
NEW YORK (JTA) — With an estimated Jewish population of 275 undergraduates, the Quaker-founded Swarthmore College outside Philadelphia is home to one of the smaller Hillel chapters in the country.
But that hasn’t stopped student activists at the small suburban school from picking a fight of potentially epic proportions with the umbrella group, Hillel International.
On Dec. 8, the Swarthmore Hillel student board announced that it had...
December 12, 2013
NEW YORK (JTA) — Hillel International warned its Swarthmore College chapter that it cannot use the Hillel name if it flouts the international Jewish campus group’s Israel guidelines.
Hillel delivered the warning Tuesday in a sharply worded letter following the Swarthmore chapter student board’s decision to repudiate Hillel guidelines prohibiting partnerships with groups deemed hostile toward Israel.
In his letter, Hillel’s president and CEO, Eric Fingerhut, warned Swarthmore Hillel’s student...
December 11, 2013
(JTA) — A former hotel security guard pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights charge for defacing a Jewish school’s Torah scroll and prayer books.
Justin Shawn Baker, 25, admitted during a plea hearing Monday in a Jackson, TN., court to violating the civil rights of students of the Margolin Hebrew Academy’s Cooper Yeshiva High School of Memphis.
Baker was arrested in January after the school’s students and faculty showed...
December 11, 2013
(JTA) — The European Union said it regrets the attendance of an anti-Zionist rabbi accused of Holocaust denial at an event it sponsored.
Rabbi Moshe Aryeh Friedman attended a conference on Arab-European dialogue held last month at the seat of the European Parliament in Brussels. Friedman, of Antwerp, is perhaps best known for attending a conference in Tehran in 2006 organized by then Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad featuring Holocaust deniers.
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December 11, 2013
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the case for a continued Israeli security presence in the West Bank even if his country reaches an accord with the Palestinians.
“Any peace we have is likely to be initially a cold peace,” Netanyahu said in an address delivered via satellite to the Saban Forum, an annual gathering in Washington of Israel and U.S. persons of influence.
A deal coming...
