Britannia Radio

Daily Briefing

Thursday, February 2, 2012 Donate Now | Share This Email

FEATURED STORY Controversy grows in Israel over extension of Tal Law granting haredim army exemptions When Israel’s first prime minister granted a few hundred haredi Orthodox Jews an exemption from army service, it’s likely he never dreamed that 63 years later, tens of thousands of haredi Israelis would claim the exemption -- or that the issue would be among the most contentious in modern Israel. Read more » EDITORS' PICKS Holocaust Remembrance Day in Italy JTA Ruthless Cosmopolitan columnist Ruth Ellen Gruber visits a classroom in southern Italy where the students had never before met a Jew. Playing catch-up on Israel The president and CEO of the Jewish campus group Hillel argues in a JTA Op-Ed that when it comes to Israel, students are more favorably disposed than the critics would have us believe. Planned Parenthood controversy With Planned Parenthood in the news this week, JTA's Archive Blog culls an interesting nugget about its founder's invitation to speak at a New York synagogue in 1923. Oprah goes Chasidic (6NoBacon) Oprah Winfrey is set to air a two-part show about the lives of Chasidic Jews. 6NoBacon has a first look at the trailer. BREAKING NEWS The West could carry out a military strike on any of Iran's nuclear facilities, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya'alon said. The Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation cut funding for Planned Parenthood breast cancer testing. Gaza Palestinians threw slippers or shoes and rocks at a car carrying United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon as he crossed from Israel into the Gaza Strip. An international group of pro-Palestinian hackers said they leaked the credit card details of thousands of Israelis in an escalation of cyber attacks on Israeli targets. A Jewish mother from France won the first step in an international custody battle against a Saudi prince, whom she claims has kidnapped her daughter. A Jewish student at a high school in Silver Spring, Md. was asked to prove that he wore a yarmulke for religious reasons. A prominent Orthodox rabbi in Toronto has condemned the latest book by celebrity rabbi Shmuley Boteach and pronounced it is "forbidden" for anyone to buy or read it. The German government will donate $13 million to the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel over the next 10 years. Austria canceled the presentation of a major national award to the leader of an Austrian far-right political party after he mocked Holocaust survivors. The chief rabbi of Amsterdam, who was suspended for signing a statement on "curing" homosexuality, reportedly has been reinstated and said he was wrong to sign the document using his chief rabbi title. Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the founder and president of the Israel Project, said she will leave the advocacy group by July 1. Greek Jewish parliamentarians from 1915 to 1936 were honored in a ceremony at the old Parliament building in Athens.