Britannia Radio

Daily Briefing

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

FEATURED STORY Auschwitz bar mitzvah for 78-year-old Oscar-winner Branko Lustig Branko Lustig, 78, two-time Oscar winner for “Schindler’s List” and “Gladiator,” will celebrate his bar mitzvah on May 2 at Auschwitz with 10,000 participants from the March of the Living. Read more » EDITORS' PICKS Struggling for bipartisan appeal In the showdown over the 2012 U.S. budget, the challenge for Jewish organizations, which clearly fall on the Democratic side of the partisan divide, is how to appeal to both parties, JTA's Ron Kampeas writes in a News Analysis. Boosting Jewish life in Dixie Nine fellows from the Goldring/Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life are trolling the South to provide professional Jewish educational resources to small Jewish communities that don't have them. JTA's Dina Weinstein reports. The wrath of Abbas Fed up with stalled peace talks, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas defies Israel and vents about Obama in an extensive interview with Newsweek's Jerusalem bureau chief Dan Ephron, who traveled with Abbas from Jordan to Tunisia to France last week. Chronicle of Giffords' progress Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' doctors, staff, husband and a nurse share with the Arizona Republic insights into the Arizona congresswoman's struggles, triumphs and path forward, and details about how she looks, acts, speaks and thinks since being shot in the head in January. Latter-day grave robbers A woman discovers a strange body buried in her funeral plot, next to her beloved husband, the New York Post reports. America's ultimate ally? Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, talks about the strong alliance between Israel and the United States in Foreign Policy magazine. The BP oil spill, one year later Despite the frustrations in Washington and the desperation of so many across the Gulf, a Religious Action Center official writes in a JTA Op-Ed of finding hope and inspiration in the people she met in relief efforts for those deeply impacted by the disaster. The Eulogizer: Phoebe Snow and Oded Pilavsky JTA's Appreciation column remembers signer-songwriter Phoebe Snow and anti-Zionist Israeli activist Oded Pilavsky. JEWISH IDEAS DAILY Sponsored Content Easter, Passover, and the West Side Story that Wasn't In 1948, Leonard Bernstein began to discuss with Jerome Robbins a project in which their shared Jewish ethnicity would find expression. Or would it? Read more » PR NEWS TICKER Blind Israeli Mother Displays Extraordinary Courage Click headline to read more. BREAKING NEWS The rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas have agreed to a reconciliation deal. U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in January, will attend the space shuttle launch captained by her husband. Egypt again has shut off its gas supply to Israel following an explosion on its pipeline in the Sinai. More than half of Egyptians say the peace treaty with Israel should be annulled, a new poll has found. Israeli President Shimon Peres handed President Obama a letter from Jonathan Pollard pleading for his release. Right-wing elements in Hungary and Lithuania marked Adolf Hitler's birthday. Iran discovered a second computer virus designed to damage government computer systems. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is hosting a "hunger seder." Work to change the route of the security fence near the Palestinian village of Bil'in, the site of weekly protests, is nearly complete. Israel must continue diplomatic efforts to prevent a new Gaza flotilla, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Adam Hasner, a Jewish Republican from Florida who identifies with the Tea Party, announced his intention to run for the U.S. Senate. Syrian President Bashar Assad is not a partner for a peace deal with Israel, a U.S. State Department official said. Vandals smashed several headstones in a Jewish cemetery in Istanbul. Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin agreed to help Argentina during the 1982 Falklands War as revenge for Britain's crackdown on the Irgun during the British mandate of Palestine, according to a new book. An international seminar on Holocaust art looting and restitution will take place in Milan -- the first symposium of its kind ever to be presented in Italy. A bipartisan delegation of U.S. House of Representatives lawmakers is in Israel this week. President Obama urged Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to improve relations with Israel in the face of regional turmoil. Restoration projects on two synagogues in Poland have garnered awards.