Thursday, 17 September 2009


BREAKING NEWS


  • TUC: The Israel statement in full

    September 17, 2009
    The TUC reiterates its belief that only when a sovereign, independent, democratic contiguous and viable Palestinian state is created, living side by side with a secure Israel will there be a chance for peace and stability in the Middle East. We remain committed to a two-state solution to the crisis in the Middle East and support for the Road Map.

  • Man charged over racist attacks in Salford

    September 17, 2009
    A man has been charged with 14 racially aggravated offences after a number of Jewish people were targeted in Salford. Dean Parker, 22, of Merrick Avenue, Wythenshawe, has been charged with 14 counts of racially aggravated common assault and is due to Between 8 June and 10 June 2009 14 people from the Broughton Park Jewish community were sprayed with water as a Fiat Doblo drove past them in the Broughton Park area. He will appear at Salford Magistrates' Court on Monday 28 September 2009

  • David Miliband's New Year message

    September 16, 2009
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    Foreign Secretary David Miliband has sent a Rosh Hashanah message to the UK's Jewish community, where he addressed the issue of hopes for a Middle East peace settlement in the coming year. Mr Miliband said: "Rosh Hashanah is a time of celebration for Jewish communities in the UK and around the world. A chance to look forward to the coming year and make plans, but also a period of reflection and soul searching.

  • Pro-Israel MP fires pro-Palestinian staffer

    September 15, 2009
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    Brent North MP Barry Gardiner, one of Israel’s staunchest Parliamentary supporters, has sacked the man he appointed as his campaigns and communications manager for allegedly not revealing that he was pro-Palestinian. Mr Gardiner, a former vice chair of Labour Friends of Israel, had appointed Joseph Brown to the post. Last year Mr Brown was the union anti-racism officer at the London School of Economics (LSE) and took part in an anti-Israeli demonstration in January in the wake of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.

  • Ben Uri gallery loses bid for new London home

    September 11, 2009
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    The Ben Uri art gallery, Anglo-Jewry’s leading art house, has lost out in a bid to move to a new home in the heart of London’s theatreland. Chairman David Glasser said that while there was “enormous disappointment” that its bid to move the former premises of the Theatre Museum in Russell Street in Covent Garden had failed, an alternative plan would be put into action straightaway that would achieve the same aim.

  • Jewish Community Centre gets go-ahead

    September 11, 2009
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    The long-awaited Jewish Community Centre for London (JCC) has received unanimous planning permission from Camden Council to build its new home in Swiss Cottage, north west London. The former Mercedes showroom on Finchley Road will be razed and rebuilt as a multi-purpose cultural and social building, expected to open in 2013.

  • Imprisoned by MI5 for writing a letter home to mum

    September 10, 2009
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    Henry Wuga was just 15 when he was interned early in the Second World War for writing a letter to his parents in Germany. Almost 70 years later, Mr Wuga confirmed his long-held suspicion that it was only a declaration of his innocence by MI5 that got him released from prison. Mr Wuga, now 85, with two married daughters and four grandsons, told his story as part of the BBC’s The Week We Went to War series, shown this week to commemorate the outbreak of the Second World War.

  • Government anti-terror funding 'is going to radicals'

    September 10, 2009
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    A key government programme to counter Islamist extremism has given money to groups that have promoted radical ideas, according to a new report. The TaxPayers’ Alliance, a ginger group monitoring public spending, says that the government should consider scrapping “Preventing Violent Extremism”, known as Prevent, a £50 million-plus scheme which is part of its anti-terrorism strategy. The TPA, analysing more than £12 million spent on Prevent so far, accused the government of leaving it up to ill-equipped local councils to allocate the money.

  • BNP must accept non-whites after legal battle

    September 10, 2009
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    The British National Party is poised to accept non-white members and candidates of different ethnicities following a legal challenge which accused it of racial discrimination. BNP leader Nick Griffin indicated that the party will make changes to its constitution after the Equality and Human Rights Commission sought an injunction, claiming the party’s membership rules breach the Race Relations Act.

  • War on Want is cleared by charity watchdog

    September 10, 2009
    The Charity Commission has cleared War on Want of wrongdoing after the anti-poverty charity hosted an event which accused Israel of human rights abuses and called for a worldwide boycott of the Jewish state. Zionist Federation president Eric Moonman, who had complained to the commission about WoW’s actions, will now put together a panel of academics to scrutinise the commission’s work. The commission said this week it was satisfied that the anti-poverty group had worked within the rules and not breached charitable guidelines by hosting the event.

  • TUC backs boycott call

    September 17, 2009
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    READ THE TUC STATEMENT IN FULL After hours of wrangling and the suspension of its Middle East debate, the TUC General Council today finally hammered out a new policy which has been greeted with euphoria by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

  • Foreign Office man's 'racist' rant

    September 17, 2009
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    A senior Foreign Office civil servant claimed that Israel should be “blown off the face of the earth” while watching a TV report on the Gaza conflict, a court has heard. A man claimed he heard Rowan Laxton, 48, the head of the Foreign Office’s South Asia desk, shouting at a TV report while he was working out on an exercise bike in the London Business School gym. Gideon Falter, who is Jewish, told Westminster Magistrates’ Court he heard Mr Laxton shouting: “f****** Israelis, f****** Jews” at the television screen which was showing a report about a dead Palestinian farmer.

  • Unison and Unite to back Israel boycott

    September 15, 2009
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    Britain’s biggest trade union Unite, has confirmed it will be backing a boycott of Israeli goods proposed by the Fire Brigades Union, along with public sector trade union, Unison. Unison and Unite’s support will now make the FBU’s chance of successfully getting the TUC to agree to the motion far greater. Motion 76, tabled by the firefighters, called for the TUC to review its links with Histadrut, its Israeli trade union counterpart.

  • HRW suspends 'Nazi collector' analyst

    September 15, 2009
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    Human Rights watch has suspended its senior military analyst after it was revealed that he is a collector of Nazi memorabilia. The organisation initially stood by Marc Garlasco, saying he “has never held or expressed Nazi or antisemitic views.” His work, according to Carroll Bogert, the New York-based group’s associate director, had been “extensively reviewed, lawyered, scrutinized, pulverised by our programme and legal staff, and we have not in six years ever had cause to question his professional judgment.”

  • Chief Rabbi to become Lord Sacks of Aldgate

    September 11, 2009
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    The Chief Rabbi will officially become a peer on October 27 when he enters the House of Lords as Lords Sacks of Aldgate. He will be sponsored by Lord Winston and the former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey. Explaining why he had chosen to nominate the East End of London district, he said; “My late father sold cloth in Commercial Road and my grandmother ran Frumkins wine shop. I wanted not to forget my roots. That’s where I used to help out help when I was a child and where my earliest memories are.”

  • Three charged in safety deposit centre raid

    September 10, 2009
    Three people have been charged in connection with Operation Rize, a series of raids on safety deposit centres carried out by the Metropolitan Police in June last year. Milton Woolf, 53, of West Heath Drive, Golders Green, a director of Safe Deposit Centres Limited, the company that controlled Hampstead Safe Depository, Edgware Safe Depository, and Park Lane Safe Depository, has been charged with 24 offences.

  • Pro-Israel MP's new official is Palestinian activist

    September 10, 2009
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    One of Israel’s staunchest supporters in Parliament is at the centre of a row over his appointment of a campaigns and communications manager who appears to be strongly anti-Israel. Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent North in north-west London and a former vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel, has appointed Joseph Brown, who declared his “continued dedication to the Palestinian cause” after being pictured at an anti-Israeli demonstration in January.

  • Jewish aid to Pakistan breaks down barriers

    September 10, 2009
    A charity’s aid work in Pakistan helped to create a more positive image of Judaism, according to a report published this week. It cites World Jewish Relief as an example of what religious organisations can achieve in providing help overseas. Authors Edward Kessler and Miriam Arkush, who produced Keeping Faith in Development for the Woolf Institute of Abrahamic Faiths in Cambridge, recommend that faith-based organisations should do more to collaborate over international development to foster inter-religious understanding.

  • Foulds makes Booker shortlist

    September 10, 2009
    Adam Foulds has become one of six novelists on the prestigious Man Booker Prize shortlist, announced today. The son of Rabbi Michael Foulds of New Essex Masorti congregation, Adam Foulds has won consistent praise for his work. The Quickening Maze, his third novel, is an outsider on the Booker Prize shortlist at 10-1. The winning novel, whose author will receive a £50,000 prize, will be announced on October 6. As an “Essex boy”, Adam Foulds has turned his attention to real events for The Quickening Maze, set in and around the High Beach Asylum in Epping Forest in 1840.

  • Peter Maxwell's manager admits £500,000 fraud

    September 10, 2009
    The former manager of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Master of the Queen’s Music, has admitted defrauding the 75-year-old composer of more than £500,000. Michael Arnold, also 75, was Sir Peter’s manager for more than 30 years. He pleaded guilty to one charge of false accounting involving £522,333 at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday. He will be sentenced on October 20.
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  • Peres: Goldstone report "mockery of history"

    September 16, 2009
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    Israel’s president Shimon Peres has called the United Nations report on the Gaza conflict “a mockery of history”.   Mr Peres denounced it as giving a green light to terrorists. A UN fact-finding mission, headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, produced a 574-page report which concluded: "Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity.” Mr Peres said: “The Hamas terror organisation is the one who started the war and also carried out other awful crimes. Hamas has used terrorism for years against Israeli children.  

  • Netanyahu and Mitchell 'can't agree on settlements'

    September 15, 2009
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    Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US envoy George Mitchell have failed to reach any agreement over settlement construction in the West Bank. The two men held a two-hour meeting in Jerusalem, but Mr Mitchell has been forced to extend his stay in Israel until Thursday when the two will meet again for further discussions. They had hoped to reach an agreement in time to announce plans for a potential settlement construction freeze at the meeting of the UN General Assembly in New York next week.

  • Russian ship hijack was 'Israeli cover story'

    September 10, 2009
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    An Israeli source has claimed that the hijack by pirates of a boat which disappeared off the coast was a cover, and that the ship was carrying a Russian missile system to Iran. The Arctic Sea and its 15 crew members, all Russian, disappeared in July. The ship was then believed to have been sailing to Algeria with a cargo of timber. The ship was found in mid-August off West Africa, and Moscow claimed the ship had been hijacked by pirates, charging eight men with hijacking and piracy.

  • Israeli healthcare standards 'slipping'

    September 10, 2009
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    The heated discussions going on in Britain and the United States over the future of public medicine and medical insurance has shifted the spotlight to successful systems in other countries. In Israel, while there is universal coverage for all residents and a generally high level of treatment, there are complaints of slipping standards.

  • Assimilation ad angers diaspora

    September 10, 2009
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    A new campaign against assimilation in the diaspora, which is aimed at Israelis, is raising eyebrows in international Jewish organisations. The television advert shows spoof “missing” posters, featuring young men and women with Jewish names. The implication is that the diaspora youngsters are being “lost” to Judaism. The advert urges Israelis with a relative abroad who might be interested in Israel to contact MASA, an Israeli-based group that encourages Jewish students to study in Israel.

  • What hijack? The high-sea drama no one will discuss

    September 10, 2009
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    Ehud Barak’s face remained expressionless. The reporters surrounded the defence minister, asking again and again, “do you have anything to say about the Russian ship?” — but he would not even look at them. His bodyguards cleared a path for him as he stepped into his official car and sped away. None of the countries allegedly involved in the mystery of the Arctic Sea — the boat that disappeared in the Baltic Sea for several days in July after being boarded by pirates — have any interest in publicity.

  • Ron Arad not dead until we say so, says Israel

    September 7, 2009
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    The Israeli government has refused to accept a report that the missing air force navigator Ron Arad died in Lebanon in 1995. The Prime Minister’s Office says it will continue to assume that Lt. Col Arad is alive, unless more conclusive evidence is given to the contrary. A statement from the PMO said: "The missing aviator’s case is ongoing and until we have conclusive evidence to the contrary, the premise is that Ron Arad is alive. We are doing everything possible to bring him home."

  • Hundreds of settlements will be approved before West Bank freeze

    September 4, 2009
    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is set to approve hundreds of West Bank housing units ahead of a possible construction freeze, according to Israeli officials. Mr Netanyahu is expected to support the building of new units, in addition to the 2,500 that are yet to be completed. The new buildings will be based in the West Bank, rather than East Jerusalem. The US has been pressuring the Israeli government to halt all new settlement construction.

  • Who will teach Israel’s Ethiopians?

    September 3, 2009
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    The plight of 102 Ethiopian-born children in the town of Petach Tikva who do not have a school place has raised serious questions about the Israeli education system. At the centre of the argument is the refusal of three private religious schools to accept about 50 of these children into their normal classes. The Education Ministry, the media and even President Shimon Peres have all come down hard on these three schools, accusing them of racism.

  • Corruption storm peaks in Israel

    September 3, 2009
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    Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was charged on Sunday with serious fraud, breach of trust, falsifying corporate records, receiving illicit benefits and tax evasion. Meanwhile former Shas minister Shlomo Benizri this week began a four-year jail sentence for bribery; former finance minister Avraham Hirchson began a five-year jail sentence for embezzlement of funds; and former President Moshe Katsav’s trial for rape opened.

  • Israel 'appalled' by Goldstone report

    September 15, 2009
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    The Israeli government says it is “appalled” by the latest United Nations commission report which claims both sides in the Gaza conflict committed war crimes. A fact-finding mission, headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone, has produced a 574-page report which concludes: "Israel committed actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity.”

  • Asaf Ramon to be buried next to astronaut father

    September 14, 2009
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    Israel air force captain Asaf Ramon, son of Israel’s first astronaut Ilan Ramon, will be buried today after being killed in an air crash. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has postponed a meeting with US envoy George Mitchell in order to attend the funeral of the 21-year-old pilot. He will be buried at a military cemetery next to his father. Captain Ramon was killed when the F-16A Falcon jet he was flying during a training exercise crashed near the Hebron hills.

  • Advert targeting Jews 'marrying out' pulled

    September 10, 2009
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    A controversial advertising campaign which portrayed young Jews who have married out as “missing persons” has been pulled by the Jewish Agency. Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky pulled the television and newspaper adverts after a storm of criticism from bloggers, journalists and religious leaders.

  • Abbas in dilemma over settlements

    September 10, 2009
    Israel’s approval of 450 new housing units in the settlements this week has placed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in a vulnerable position, as he may have to make an embarrassing climbdown from his refusal to resume negotiations without a full settlement freeze.

  • Israel ponders missed chance over Ron Arad

    September 10, 2009
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    The basic facts are not new. Israel’s intelligence services have believed for some time that Ron Arad, the Israel Air Force navigator who was taken prisoner in Lebanon 23 years ago, died in captivity over a decade ago. But the new details of the failed efforts to release him were published this week, and in this there is a chilling resemblance to the current situation of Gilad Shalit.

  • More than 700 civilians killed in Gaza- B'Tselem

    September 9, 2009
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    Israeli officials seriously underestimated the number of Palestinian civilians killed in Operation Cast Lead, a Israeli human rights group has alleged. A new report by B'Tselem found that 773 civilians, whose names it publishes today, were killed during the Israeli offensive in Gaza in January. B’Tselem says this includes 252 children and 109 women. Israeli army figures put the civilian death toll at 209, with 89 children killed, but the figures did not include 245 Hamas policeman, whereas B’Tselem’s report counts policeman in its civilian figures.

  • Settlements approved before West Bank freeze

    September 4, 2009
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    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is set to approve hundreds of West Bank housing units ahead of a possible construction freeze, according to Israeli officials. Mr Netanyahu is expected to support the building of new units, in addition to the 2,500 that are yet to be completed. The new buildings will be based in the West Bank, rather than East Jerusalem. The US has been pressuring the Israeli government to halt all new settlement construction.

  • Israel rejects harsh response to Norway boycott

    September 4, 2009
    The Israeli foreign ministry yesterday refrained from harshly criticising Norway’s decision to divest from an Israel company. In a relatively low key response, the foreign ministry released a statement: “Israel will consider further protest measures in the future.” Haaretz reported the foreign ministry decided against using stronger language in order to prevent a diplomatic crisis. The decision was taken after foreign ministry director - general Yossi Gal consulted Israel’s ambassador to Oslo, Michael Eligal, and foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

  • Netanyahu uses British tactics to fight crime wave

    September 3, 2009
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    Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has come out with a five-point plan for dealing with the rise in crime in Israel, based upon British and American experience. Mr Netanyahu published his plan following a wave of crime in which 14 Israelis have been murdered in less than a month. In a special radio interview, Mr Netanyahu termed the violence “inner terrorism” and said, “if missiles are fired at us, we respond fiercely immediately. In the same way I am not prepared to accept any kind of terrorism against Israeli citizens.”

  • 'For the POWs who return, captivity is never ending'

    September 3, 2009
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    Israel is experienced in treating its prisoners of war when they return home, but may still find it hard to help Gilad Shalit adjust to freedom. “We don’t have experience of quite these conditions that Gilad Shalit is going through,” explains Dr David Senesh, a clinical psychologist who was a POW for 40 days in Egypt following the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
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  • Israeli film wins top prize at Venice

    September 14, 2009
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    An Israeli film, set inside a tank during the 1982 Lebanon war, has won the top honour at the Venice film festival. The Golden Lion for best film went to Lebanon, directed by Samuel Moaz, which is based on the director’s own traumatic experiences in the army when he was a gunner. It is the highest honour an Israeli film has ever received. It took Mr Moaz more than 25 years to commit his traumatic experiences to writing, because he was physically sick every time he remembered his war years.

  • Fears over UN Gaza report

    September 10, 2009
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    A United Nations investigation into the Gaza conflict will be used as a political weapon to undermine Israel and could lead to an upsurge of international antisemitism, the head of a Geneva NGO has warned. Hillel Neuer, director of the highly respected UN Watch, has said the group is preparing to challenge the report, which is due to be formally presented to the UN Human Rights Commission at the end of the month. It is widely believed that the report will result in calls for Israel to be prosecuted for alleged war crimes.

  • Orthodox women offer de-licing service at $200 a head

    September 10, 2009
    To most people, the beginning of the school year in New York means bright September days, shiny new lunch boxes and meeting friends. But to Dalya Harel it signifies one thing above all else — the start of head lice-hunting season. Mrs Harel, 48, is founder of LiceBustersNYC, one of a dozen or more lice-removal businesses in the New York area run by Orthodox women. Her competitors include Adele Horowitz’s Licenders, Susan Sherman’s LiceBGoners and Abigail “The Lice Lady” Rosenfeld.

  • Egyptian who threatened to burn Israeli books to get UN job

    September 10, 2009
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    Egypt’s culture minister, Farouk Hosni, who last year said he would burn any Israeli books he found in the country’s libraries, is the favourite to win the UN’s top cultural post in an election that begins next week. Surprisingly, Mr Hosni’s chances of becoming head of Unesco have been boosted by Israel, of all countries, despite being for years an object of his scorn.

  • Row over Toronto Film Festival boycott

    September 4, 2009
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    More than 50 film directors, artists and writers, including Jane Fonda, Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, David Byrne and Danny Glover have signed a letter which protests against a celebration of Tel Aviv at the Toronto International Film Festival. The festival, which is in its 34th year, is launching a “City to City” programme this year, which will focus on Tel Aviv and feature 10 Israeli films. The artists say the spotlight on Tel Aviv would romanticise the country which they call an “apartheid state”, and claim the festival had fallen prey to the Israeli “propaganda machine”.

  • Madonna's Israeli flag YouTube outrage

    September 4, 2009
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    Madonna caused outrage on Youtube after videos of her wrapped in an Israeli flag at her Tel Aviv concerts were posted on the website. At the finale of both of her concerts in Tel Aviv’s Hayarkon Park this week Madonna draped herself in the Israeli flag leading hundreds of Palestinian supporters to voice their anger on YouTube. Several of the posts included antisemitic comments and profane language directed at Israel or Madonna.

  • Schools struggle to stay open in US

    September 3, 2009
    Ray Levi, head of the Heilicher Minneapolis Jewish Day School, has had to increase aid for struggling parents, freeze teachers’ pay, reduce benefits and cut support staff. So it is perhaps a sign of how fragility has become a fact of life for American Jewish day schools that Mr Levi is upbeat. “Despite all the problems we face, I think there is a lot of promise for day schools in America,” he says. Enrolment remains high and his primary school has strong communal support. But others are not so fortunate.

  • Vilnius cemetery is saved

    September 3, 2009
    A long-running international row over the future of a 700-year-old cemetery in Lithuania has been settled. The disused Snipiskes cemetery in Vilnius was found when developers began setting the foundations of an office block in 2007 and uncovered the remains of graves. Protests were lodged by the London-based Committee for the Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries in Europe (CPJCE), the American and British ambassadors in Vilnius and the Board of Deputies, who demanded that building stop until the exact boundaries of the cemetery were determined.

  • Google now translates Yiddish

    September 3, 2009
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    Do you find yourself sitting in front of the computer desperately trying to remember whether you mean khaver or khazer in the email you are sending your bubbeh? Well, platz no more. Google has launched a tool which translates English words and phrases into Yiddish, and vice versa, in seconds, eliminating unfortunate misunderstandings and leaving you ongeshtopt with new phrases. The service — found at translate.google.com — also changes full web pages into Yiddish, meaning you can catch the latest news from the JC in language more traditionally spoken the shtetl than Stanmore.

  • South Africa calls for expat Jews to return

    September 3, 2009
    A call by new South African president Jacob Zuma for expatriate Jews to return home has received a lukewarm response in the UK. President Zuma made his plea to an 800-strong audience at the national conference of the South African Board of Deputies in Johannesburg on Saturday night. “This country has a massive skills shortage as a result of decades of neglect and deliberate under-investment,” he said. “This problem is exacerbated by the emigration of skilled people. We must reverse the trend.

  • In New York, rabbis take on bohemians in a bicycle war

    September 10, 2009
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    On one side of Broadway — a main street in the New York suburb of Williamsburg — bohemian 20-somethings in sunglasses and shorts work on laptops at an outdoor café. Across the street, Satmar Chasidim in black hats stroll outside the office of Der Yid, the Satmar Yiddish language weekly. Tensions between the two communities, living cheek by jowl but rarely interacting, have recently risen to boiling point over an unlikely issue — bike lanes on avenues that run through both their sides of the neighbourhood.

  • Stasi link to Claims Conference lawyer

    September 10, 2009
    Turn over any stone in the former East Germany and you are likely to find an agent of the Stasi, the former secret service. And the Claims Conference apparently did just that. Recently, the Claims Conference — whose successor organisation handles compensation for property stolen during the Shoah — learned that an attorney in its employment had once been “an unofficial employee of the Stasi”. Many former East Germans worked for the Stasi, though some were listed as informants without their knowledge.

  • Group lobbies against Ahmadinejad hotel stay

    September 10, 2009
    A high-profile advocacy group is campaigning to stop a top New York hotel from hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad next week. United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) was founded by diplomats Dennis Ross and Richard Holbrooke, both of whom serve in the Obama administration, and its president is Mark Wallace, a former US ambassador to the UN.

  • Jane Fonda responds to Toronto Festival row

    September 7, 2009
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    Actress Jane Fonda has hit back after a row errupted over her signature on a letter which criticised a celebration of Tel Aviv at the Toronto International film festival. Writing on her blog, Ms Fonda denied she had any anti-Israeli sentiments, and that she was protesting that fact that a film festival was being used to promote a certain country. More than 50 film directors, artists and writers, including Ken Loach, Naomi Klein, David Byrne and Danny Glover signed the letter which protests against the new "City to City" celebration at TIFF, which this year will focus on Tel Aviv.

  • Man accused of Nazi murders faces US expulsion

    September 4, 2009
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    The US has taken action to expel from America a Michigan resident accused of persecuting and killing Ukrainian Jews during World War II. John (previously Iwan) Kalymon is charged with personally shooting Jews, killing at least one, as a member of the Nazi-sponsored Ukrainian Auxiliary Police (UAP). Mr Kalymon is also charged with participating in activities where Jews were deported to gas chambers or slave labour camps.

  • IDF band to play in Moscow

    September 4, 2009
    The Israeli army’s marching band will perform in Moscow’s Red Square this Saturday for the first time. The Jerusalem Post reports that 45 IDF soldiers will join dozens of military orchestras from around the world at the annual Moscow Day celebration. The event , organised by the Kremlin , will take place in Red Square, the traditional parade ground of the Russian army.

  • This shul may become a music hall

    September 3, 2009
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    A strictly Orthodox rabbi has started a campaign to stop part of a historic synagogue in Transylvania being turned into a concert hall. However, the owners of the Great Synagogue of Dej say that no such plans exist. Rabbi Eliahu Caufman alleges that part of the women’s section in the shul, which was built in 1865, will be transformed by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia.

  • French anti-Muslim backlash hurts Jews

    September 3, 2009
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    The backlash against Muslims in France demanding religious rights in the public sphere has also hit Jews, who feel that their own, similar requests are being treated increasingly negatively. “Things have got worse since more and more Muslims started pushing demands, sometimes with political motives. Now we’re compared to assertive pushy militants and our own requests are denied outright,” said Marc Djebali, vice president of the Jewish community of Sarcelles, a suburb north of Paris. “Now officials tell me: ‘we can’t accept this, this is a secular state’.”

  • Nazis used man in women's Olympics

    September 3, 2009
    A new film reveals how the Nazis replaced a female Jewish athlete with a man in drag during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The feature film Berlin 36, which opens in Germany next week, tells the story of star high-jumper Gretel Bergmann. Ms Bergmann was banned from competing in the Olympics to shield Hitler from the embarrassment of a Jewish athlete winning. Bergmann’s replacement was her roommate Horst Ratjen, who posed as “Dora”. He kept his gender secret from his teammates by shaving his legs several times a day and showering alone.

  • Shul security and the rabbis with guns

    September 3, 2009
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    They call themselves The International Security Coalition of Clergy. But you can think of them as The God Squad — armed rabbis and priests ready to leap from the bimah, or the pulpit, to tackle and kill terrorists. The coalition is led by Rabbi Gary Moscowitz, 52, a fast-talking martial arts instructor and former New York police officer, who says he can transform the average synagoguegoer into a fighting machine, trained in unarmed combat and weapons. “Jews are not like Christians,” he says. “If we turn our cheek, we are spinning around to make a kick.”
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Posted by Britannia Radio at 14:16