JERUSALEM (JTA) – A prominent rabbi in Israel called for a mass prayer on Sunday evening at the Western Wall to pray for those infected by the coronavirus. Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, the chief rabbi of Safed, organized the service in Jerusalem’s Old City as reports surfaced Sunday that at least two Israelis on board the […]

SWEDEN (JTA) – Two contestants were kicked off a Swedish reality show after having a conversation in which one said she hates Jews, while a third who remains has previously expressed support for neo-Nazi ideas on social media. The comments, made during a live airing of the popular show “Big Brother,” drew a swift response […]

MUNICH (AP) — Iran’s foreign minister said Saturday that U.S. President Donald Trump is receiving bad advice if he believes an American “maximum pressure” campaign against his country will cause the government in Tehran to collapse. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told a group of top defense officials and diplomats at the Munich Security Conference […]

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Ivanka Trump, daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump, arrived in the United Arab Emirates on Saturday, where she met with women entrepreneurs and was to meet Abu Dhabi’s crown prince. She was in Abu Dhabi ahead of the two-day Global Women’s Forum in Dubai, where she was to […]

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia’s parliament voted to dismiss a government minister Saturday after she appeared at two news conferences in front of a large wall sign bearing the country’s old name, Republic of Macedonia, and refused to change it. Prime Minister Oliver Spasovski, who is leading a caretaker government appointed last month, […]

LONDON (AP) — The parents of a baby declared brain dead by doctors have lost the latest round of a legal battle in Britain’s courts to keep him on life support. Britain’s Court of Appeal on Friday rejected an attempt by Karwan Ali and Shokhan Namiq to overturn a High Court order that doctors could […]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s government on Friday accepted a compromise candidate as the new director of Warsaw’s landmark Jewish museum, ending a long impasse that had raised concerns over the popular institution’s future. The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews has been without a permanent director for nearly a year. Showcasing the […]

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A team of U.S. award-winning documentary filmmakers pursuing a Holocaust-era story in western Poland could face charges of unauthorized excavation work, punishable by up to two years in prison, a Polish prosecutor said Friday. Seven filmmakers, mostly from Los Angeles, are researching a World War II story about a collection of […]

MUNICH (AP) — Jewish leaders called Friday for better policing of hate speech on social media platforms over concerns prompted by recent attacks that people on the margins of society are being incited online to violence. Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis and chief rabbi of Moscow, said online radicalization was […]

HAVANA (JTA) — The remaining Jewish community in Cuba has much to contend with — a lack of resources and rabbis, a population that’s both aging and dwindling, and ongoing uncertainty about how much aid and assistance they can expect from their co-religionists in the United States. Adding to that long list: It’s not easy […]