PARIS (AP) — Anti-Semitic acts increased in France last year by 27%, acts against Muslims inched higher while anti-Christian acts remained stable but highest of all, France’s interior minister said Sunday, denouncing the situation as intolerable. On top of that, acts described as bearing a racist and xenophobic character, mostly threats, more than doubled between […]

RAKEK, Slovenia (AP) — For Marija Frlan it’s as symbolic as it can get: A survivor of a Nazi concentration camp during World War II, the Slovenian woman turns 100 years old on Monday, the international Holocaust Remembrance Day. Frlan, who was held at the Nazi’s Ravensbruck camp in northern Germany for over a year […]

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s foreign minister is calling for strengthened efforts against anti-Semitism to ward off the possibility that many Jews decide to leave the country. Heiko Maas said in an article Sunday for the weekly Der Spiegel that German politicians must do more “but there is one thing they can’t do: replace solidarity in […]

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he hopes to “make history” during his upcoming trip to the White House for the expected unveiling of President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan. Addressing his Cabinet shortly before departing for Washington, Netanyahu described the current environment, characterized by close ties with Trump, as a […]

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A patient in Southern California is the third person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with the new pneumonia-like virus from China, health officials said. The Centers for Disease Control confirmed a traveler from the Chinese city of Wuhan — the epicenter of the outbreak — tested positive for the […]

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Working against the clock in freezing temperatures, Turkish rescue teams pulled more survivors from collapsed buildings Sunday, days after a powerful magnitude 6.8 earthquake hit the country’s east. Rescued survivors wept with gratitude for their efforts. Turkish authorities said the death toll rose to at least 38 people from the magnitude […]

MOROCCO (JTA) — Morocco’s king has inaugurated a $1.5 million center dedicated to Jewish culture in the city of Essaouira. Last week, King Mohammed VI attended the inauguration for Bayt Dakira, which means House of Memory in Arabic. The port city was formerly home to a large population of Jews, who at one point making […]

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis is inviting prayers and reflection about the “atrocity” of the Holocaust, urging people to vow in their heart “never again.” In remarks to the public in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Francis noted that Monday is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi’s Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. He […]

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s Interior Ministry said Sunday that it will now allow Israelis to travel to Saudi Arabia for religious or business visits. The announcement is the latest sign of quiet but warming relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. It also came days before the White House is to announce its Mideast peace plan […]

AMSTERDAM (JTA) — Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte apologized for how his kingdom’s wartime government failed its Jews, a first by a sitting prime minister Rutte, on Sunday during a Holocaust commemoration, offered “apologies for the government of those days, while the last survivors are still with us.” That government, he said, “failed is in […]