Britannia Radio

Daily Briefing

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

FEATURED STORY Can Tel Aviv become a center for fashion? After Tel Aviv's first Fashion Week in decades, formidable obstacles still remain before Israel can become a major stop for fashion designers and retailers. Read more » EDITORS' PICKS New Testament for Jews (New York Times) Marc Brettler of Brandeis and Amy-Jill Levine of Vanderbilt have just co-edited a version of the New Testament for Jews. The first Jewish commodore (Jewish Exponent) A statue honoring the first Jewish commodore in the U.S. Navy will be dedicated in Philadelphia on Dec. 16. Overtures to the court (Haaretz) Kurt Nassau left $700,000 in his will to the Israel symphony orchestra. Only problem is, he didn't specify which one. Two Israeli ensembles are now trying to persuade a New Jersey court that they are the rightful beneficiary. Disappearing survivors (New York Times) A Queens apartment complex built for survivors of the Holocaust in the 1960s was once filled with German and Austrian Jewish refugees from the Nazis. Today, only 31 remain. Blinded by the light (Tablet) Gloria Allred, the lawyer representing Herman Cain's accuser, has a penchant for hogging the media spotlight -- a habit that obscures the fact that she's a rather accomplished attorney. Don't hate me (New York Magazine) Alan Dershowitz's papers, donated to his alma mater, Brooklyn College, contains a trove of hate mail the famed defense attorney has received over the years. BREAKING NEWS Four Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon -- the first rockets to be fired on the area since 2009. A second Palestinian man was convicted in the murder of five members of the Fogel family in a West Bank Jewish settlement. The Brooklyn District Attorney's Office says it has charged 89 men in the borough's haredi Orthodox communities with child sex abuse -- a threefold increase over a two-year span. The Qoros Automotive Company -- a joint venture of the Israel Corp. and China's Chery Automobile Company -- said it will introduce its first model in 2013. The cause of an explosion that rocked an Iranian city that houses a key nuclear facility remains unclear. Israel's Defense Ministry apologized to a pregnant New York Times photographer who was forced to go through an X-ray machine during a security check. The wife of American contractor Alan Gross called for increased pressure on Congress and President Obama to get her husband released from a Cuban jail. Jewish families living in South Africa's Garden Route have formed a Jewish association. Kobe Bryant reportedly held a private training session at a Jewish community center in Irvine, Calif. Two communities in the West Bank refused to allow Magen David Adom to hold blood drives in their jurisdiction to protest MDA's promise to the Red Cross to pull back operations in the West Bank.