Colombo, Sri Lanka – More than 200 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in nine bombings that rocked churches, luxury hotels and other sites in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday — the deadliest violence the South Asian island country has seen since a bloody civil war ended a decade ago. Defense Minister Ruwan Wijewardena [...]

Cairo – The Arab League has pledged $100 million per month to the Palestinian Authority to make up for funds withheld by Israel because of payments made to the families of Palestinian attackers and prisoners. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the Arab League in Cairo on Sunday as part of a diplomatic effort to rebuff [...]

Kiev, Ukraine – A comedian whose only political experience consists of playing a president on TV cruised toward a huge landslide victory in Ukraine’s presidential election Sunday in what was seen as a reaction against the country’s entrenched corruption and low standard of living. Born in Kryvyi Rih, near Dnipro, to a Jewish family of [...]

Jerusalem – Israeli President Reuven Rivlin held a Passover seder with 400 lone soldiers. The soldiers also were joined on Friday by Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi at the Yahad-United for Israel’s Soldiers nonprofit facility in the Givat Olga neighborhood of Hadera in northern Israel. “Our ancestors celebrated the first Passover as [...]

Pruchnik, Polnad – A town in southern Poland reenacted the custom of casting judgement on Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus, using a life-size effigy of a stereotypical Jew with a hooked nose and sidelocks. The event in the town of Pruchnik, called “Judgment over Judas,” took place on Friday afternoon. On a pole on [...]

Washington – Republican Sen. Mitt Romney says he’s “sickened” by the level of dishonesty the special counsel found in President Donald Trump’s administration. Romney also said Friday he was “appalled” that, according to special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings, Americans working on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign welcomed election help from Russia. The one-time GOP presidential nominee [...]

Washington – U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is wishing “happy Passover” to Jews commemorating the holiday in her home state of Minnesota and around the world. Omar is a Somali American and one of the first Muslims elected to Congress. She’s been criticized for remarks in recent months on Israel, Jewish influence in Washington, and 9/11 [...]

Washington – U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan will not involve giving land from Egypt’s Sinai peninsula to the Palestinians, an American envoy said on Friday. Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy, apparently sought to deny reports on social media that the long-awaited plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would involve extending Gaza [...]

London – Britain’s Labour Party tweeted and then deleted a Passover greeting to Jews because it made a salient mistake: It featured a picture of a loaf of bread, a foodstuff banned during the weeklong holiday. The tweet, which was ridiculed online, was posted Friday and removed within two hours. The updated greeting, which originally [...]

Moscow – Jewish officials say an arson fire was set at the largest yeshiva in Russia as the faithful were gathered there for a Passover meal. No one was reported injured in the Friday fire at the Torat Chaim school in an eastern Moscow suburb. Olga Esaulova, a spokeswoman for Moscow’s chief rabbi, was quoted [...]