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Latest news briefs from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Tuesday, November 9, 2004
(JTA) - P.A. official: Arafat in deep coma
Yasser Arafat is in a deep coma, a top Palestinian official said. Speaking Tuesday at the Paris hospital where the Palestinian Authority president is being treated, Nabil Sha'ath said Arafat's organs are still functioning. He said Arafat does not have cancer and has not been poisoned, two of the rumors that have surfaced since Arafat was taken to France from the West Bank late last month. Sha'ath also ruled out any chance of euthanasia, saying it is against Muslim precepts and that Arafat is not in pain.
(JTA) - End could be near for Arafat
Yasser Arafat could be taken off life support Tuesday, according to Palestinian sources. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who between them took over Arafat's powers after the Palestinian Authority president was admitted to a French hospital in late October, arrived in Paris on Monday for final consultations with his wife, Suha. Palestinian sources said Suha Arafat was expected to agree to disconnect her comatose husband from the respirator Tuesday night. Many believe Tuesday marks the date the Prophet Mohammed received the Koran. Suha Arafat has accused leading Palestinian officials of trying to kill off her husband to take his power.
(JTA) - RIP in Ramallah?
The Palestinian Authority wants to bury Yasser Arafat at his West Bank headquarters. Palestinian officials made the demand Tuesday as reports surfaced that the Palestinian Authority president had died at the French hospital where he has been receiving treatment for a mysterious illness. According to the sources, the Palestinian Authority plans to hold a state funeral for Arafat in the West Bank city of Jericho and then bury him in the Ramallah compound where he was confined for much of the last three years. Previously, the Palestinians demanded that Arafat be laid to rest on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, on a plot reserved for Arab notables. But Israeli officials have ruled out a funeral anywhere other than the Gaza Strip, where two of Arafat's relatives lie. "Gaza is in full control of the Palestinian Authority and we believe it is the appropriate place," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told CNN.
(JTA) - A quiet disengagement?
Settlers in the Gaza Strip will agree to evacuation under Ariel Sharon's withdrawal plan, an Israeli official said. "The people of Gush Katif are different" from those in the West Bank "in terms of the antagonism they create," Yonatan Bassi, head of the Disengagement Authority, told the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "Their leadership is less rude, less confrontational, much quieter." Israeli security forces are bracing for confrontations if settlers resist the Israeli prime minister's plan to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank next year, but Bassi said no one in Gaza would "go against the government" when the time comes. Nonetheless, the 56-year-old father of six said he was under 24-hour protection after receiving death threats from right-wing extremists.
(JTA) - Buzz on the border
Hezbollah drones could be used for cross-border terror attacks, Israel's military chief said. The Lebanese militia managed to launch a surveillance drone for a 10-minute flight over northern Israel on Monday, worrying the top military brass in Tel Aviv. On Tuesday, Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Hezbollah drone had a wingspan of 12 feet and could carry a payload of 90 pounds. Armed with a bomb, the drone could be used for kamikaze attacks on Israeli targets, Ya'aoln warned. But Monday's drone is no longer a threat to Israel because it crashed off the Lebanese coast after its maiden flight.
(JTA) - Close call for French
A Palestinian suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv market this month was intended for the French Embassy, Israeli officials believe. The Shin Bet on Tuesday issued results of its probe into the Nov. 1 attack that killed three people at the Carmel market, saying the original target was the nearby French mission. It was not immediately clear why the teenaged terrorist from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chose the market. The Shin Bet said it had arrested two of the teen's handlers in the West Bank city of Nablus, adding that he managed to slip into Israel using a journalist card. Israeli officials came in for international criticism during the intifada when they tried to restrict Palestinian access to journalist cards, saying terrorists used them to move around the country freely.
(JTA) - City clashes on divestment
The city council of Somerville, Mass., considered a resolution to dump city holdings in Israel. A vote was delayed until Dec. 7, and Mayor Joseph Curtatone, who spoke against the resolution at Monday night's meeting, said he would veto it, according to the Boston Globe, which noted that lawmakers could not recall another resolution that had prompted such impassioned debate. The local Jewish Community Relations Council was "troubled" by the crowd of activists evenly split on the resolution, which urges city investors to "divest from companies involved with Israel's human rights violations and from Israel Bonds." JCRC executive director Nancy Kaufman, who organized local leaders to speak against the move, said those in favor of the resolution enlisted the support of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the army, many non-Somerville residents, and members of the Jewish community. "It's a sad day when we as Jews are advocating for divestment in Israel," Kaufman said. This is "just the beginning of something that we're going to see more of across the country."
(JTA) - U.N. eyes Israel nukes
The U.N. nuclear watchdog said ridding Israel of atomic weapons was the key to Middle East peace. "This is not really sustainable, that you have Israel sitting with nuclear weapons capability there while everyone else is part of the non-proliferation regime," Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday. "It is a very emotional issue in the Middle East." On an official visit to Australia, ElBaradei warned that terrorists were pursuing nuclear weapons and that a comprehensive regional ban was one way to counter the trend. Israel, which has never acknowledged having a nuclear arsenal, says disarmament cannot be considered before peace is achieved, but ElBaradei champions a parallel strategy. "My take on this is that we will probably need to do the two together in tandem. You need a security structure to undergird, if you like protect that peace process."
(JTA) - Saber-rattling in Tehran
Iran plans to mass-produce a missile capable of reaching Israel. "We have the capability to mass-produce Shihab-3 missiles," Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday. With a range of up to 1,250 miles, the latest Shihab model can reach both the Jewish state and U.S. targets in the Persian Gulf, and is believed capable of delivering nonconventional warheads. Israeli defense sources said the locally made Arrow missile-killer system could cope with even a multiple Shihab salvo.
(JTA) - Reform Jews help Sudanese refugees
The Reform movement is giving $80,000 to groups helping refugees in Sudan. The union for Reform Judaism announced it would give the money to the International Rescue Committee, CARE USA and Catholic Relief Services. The money comes from the Reform movement's Disaster Relief Fund. Experts estimate that more than 1 million people have been misplaced by government- supported violence in Sudan.
(JTA) - Exhibit on French deportees to open at Auschwitz
A permanent exhibition on French deportees is to open at Auschwitz in January to mark the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation. French President Jacques Chirac will inaugurate the exhibition, which will include some 1,000 photographs of Jewish children deported by the Nazis, on Jan. 27, 2005, a spokesman for the Elysee Palace said Monday. The 60th anniversary commemoration will be attended by Israeli President Moshe Katsav, Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Incident near French synagogue
A man deposited a hand grenade close to a synagogue near Paris. Police patrolling the area near the synagogue in Rosny-sous-bois, east of the capital, on Monday night noticed a suspicious man in the area holding a bag. The man ran off but left the bag, which contained a grenade. The grenade did not explode. The man had been standing outside a house belonging to the synagogue's former rabbi, which itself backs on to the current rabbi's house and, behind that, the synagogue, a police spokesman said. However, there was no evidence that Jewish property was targeted, the spokesman added. Sammy Ghozlan, president of the Seine Saint-Denis Jewish Community Council, told JTA that the police "had succeeded in preventing an obviously anti-Semitic incident."
(JTA) - Poverty in Tel Aviv
About 25 percent of Tel Aviv children live below the poverty line, according to findings announced at a conference sponsored by the Los Angeles Jewish federation. The conference on poverty and food insecurity, which brought together researchers and officials, was held last week in Tel Aviv. The Los Angeles federation has been twinned with the city of Tel Aviv. Organizers said the cities came together to share information and search for solutions to rising poverty levels.
(JTA) - Commandments monument outside courthouse
A monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments was placed outside a courthouse in Oklahoma. The 8-foot by 3-foot monument was paid for by a local church youth group. The U.S. Supreme Court has said it will take up the issue of whether religious displays on public property are constitutional.
(JTA) - Religious party quits Israeli coalition
The National Religious Party quit Israel's government coalition, but Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stayed. NRP representatives decided on the walkout Monday after their two-week ultimatum demanding that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hold a referendum on his Gaza withdrawal plan expired. But Netanyahu, a Likud Party member who also had threatened to quit after the Knesset passed the plan, backed down. A fellow Likud "rebel," Education Minister Limor Livnat, withdrew her walkout threat last week. Losing the NRP weakens the government but Sharon has been in talks with potential replacements, including Labor, the largest opposition party.
(JTA) - U.S. city to debate divestment
The City Council of Somerville, Mass., will consider a resolution asking investors to drop their holdings in Israel. According to the resolution, Israel has violated human rights in its occupation of land seized in the 1967 Six- Day War, including detaining individuals without charge and blocking ambulances. The resolution "urges all investors in the city to divest from companies involved with Israel's human rights violations and from Israel Bonds." It specifically recommends divestment from several companies, including Caterpillar, Boeing and Northrup Grumman Corporation. The Boston Jewish Community Relations Council has been working with Somerville residents and has coordinated statements to be read at the meeting against the resolution by city residents, faith leaders and Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, said Nancy Kaufman, the community relations council's executive director.
(JTA) - Argentine rabbi harassed?
An Argentine rabbi reportedly was insulted during a lecture last week. The Nov. 3 incident involving Rabbi Daniel Dolynski occurred at the National University of Entre Rios Province. Dolynski was participating in a lecture about reproductive health when a student shouted at him and others performed the Nazi salute. The DAIA Jewish umbrella group denounced the act.
(JTA) - AMIA case appeal
An Argentine Jewish group is appealing the acquittal of five defendants in the bombing of an Argentine Jewish center. Five locals were acquitted in September of involvement in the July 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Eighty-five people were killed and some 300 wounded in the still-unsolved bombing.
(JTA) - Mr. Katsav to go to Argentina
Israel's president will visit Argentina at the end of November. During Moshe Katsav's visit, Jewish community centers plan to dedicate a park in his honor.
(JTA) - Cornell honors Leo Frank
Cornell University is honoring Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a Southern lynch mob. The school in upstate New York, Frank's alma mater, is holding a weeklong series of events honoring Frank, the Jerusalem Post reported. Frank was arrested in Atlanta in 1913, accused of the death of a 13- year-old girl. Frank was convicted of the crime in a rigged trial tinged with anti- Semitism. Georgia's governor later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, but a mob lynched him in 1915. Frank's death led to the founding of the Anti- Defamation League.
(JTA) - U.S. wants alleged crime boss extradited
An alleged Israeli underworld boss faces extradition to the United States on drugs charges. Israeli police arrested Zev Rosenstein on Monday following a joint investigation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Rosenstein is suspected of involvement in a Miami drug ring, and could face trial in the United States. Under Israeli extradition laws, he would have to be returned to the Jewish state to serve his sentence. Rosenstein, considered one of Israel's major crime bosses, denied any wrongdoing. He was expected to fight an extradition request all the way to Israel's Supreme Court.
(JTA) - Posthumous award for Holocaust novel
A novel published more than 60 years after its author died in the Holocaust won one of France's top literary awards. "Suite Francaise" by Irene Nemirovsky on Monday picked up the Renaudot Prize, awarded annually by a select group of authors. Born in Kiev in 1903, Nemirovsky arrived in France in the 1930s. She wrote "Suite Francaise" in 1940, a novel which traces the lives of French war refugees fleeing the advancing German invasion. Before she was deported to Auschwitz, Nemirovsky entrusted the tiny fragments of her book to her daughter, Diane Epstein, who agreed earlier this year to its publication.
(JTA) - Prague library features Hebrew texts
A rare collection of Hebrew manuscripts and medieval texts is on public view at Prague's National Library. The Saraval Legacy exhibition displays 34 Hebrew manuscripts that formed the most valuable part of a collection once belonging to Leon Vita Saraval (1771-1851), a Trieste-born Jew and bibliophile. The collection was purchased in 1853 by the Jewish Theological Seminary in Wroclaw, Poland, which owned some 400 manuscripts and 30,000 books before the collection was confiscated by the Nazis during World War II. The Nazis moved much of the Saraval items to Prague to put in their planned museum of an "extinct race." About one third of the manuscripts were recovered soon after the war, but the rest were lost or scattered around the world. Gestapo members often looted from Nazi holdings and sold items to the highest bidder. The National Library has agreed to return the collection to Poland by the end of the year.
(JTA) - Reconstructionist founder dies
Benjamin Mehlman, a founder and former president of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, died Oct. 31 in New York at the age of 94. Mehlman was a former president of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, in Manhattan, which was the first Reconstructionist Synagogue, and a founder and board member of the West End Synagogue, also in Manhattan. Mehlman was a judge in Ocean Beach, a community on Fire Island, New York.
(JTA) - Actress goes to Hebrew U.
Actress Natalie Portman is taking classes at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, according to the Jerusalem Post. Portman was born in Jerusalem in 1981, the daughter of an Israeli doctor and an American mother. The family moved to the United States when she was 3. In past interviews, Portman has talked with pride about her Israeli roots and said she keeps in close touch with her relatives in Israel. She is known for her performance in "Star Wars" movies.
(JTA) - Top Palestinians visit Arafat
The Palestinian Authority prime minister and PLO deputy chief went to visit the ailing Yasser Arafat. The visit by Ahmed Qurei and Mahmoud Abbas, who took over Arafat's powers after he was admitted to a French hospital on Oct. 29, had planned to fly to Paris first thing Monday for what political sources said would be a discussion on whether the comatose Palestinian leader should be taken off life-support. But they postponed the trip for several hours after Arafat's wife accused them of seeking to kill off Arafat and take over the Palestinian government. "They are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," Suha Arafat told Al-Jazeera television, using Arafat's nom de guerre.
(JTA) - Blair to press Bush on Middle East
Tony Blair is expected to push for more U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he meets President Bush this week. Aides to the British prime minister told British media that the issue will be at the top of Blair's priority list when he meets with Bush during his visit to the United States on Thursday and Friday. "The need to revitalize the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political challenge in our world today," the British prime minister said Nov. 3, a day after U.S. voters elected Bush to a second term.
(JTA) - Poll: French see Arafat as hero
French people regard Yasser Arafat as a hero rather than a terrorist, according to a new poll. Asked to choose whether the Palestinian Authority president is a "hero of national resistance" or a terrorist, 43 percent chose the former and 27 percent the latter. Ten percent said Arafat fitted into both categories, while 9 percent said he was neither one nor the other. The poll, published Monday and commissioned jointly by the Liberation newspaper and a national public radio station, also found that three times as many French hold Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responsible for Middle East violence than Arafat. In addition, 34 percent said they had more sympathy for the Palestinians, as opposed to 13 percent for Israel. A similar poll in 2000 found almost equal degrees of sympathy for both sides.
(JTA) - BBC correspondent cries over Arafat
The BBC received at least 500 complaints after its broadcaster said she "started to cry" when an ill Yasser Arafat left for a Paris hospital. Barbara Plett, BBC's Middle East correspondent, reported Oct. 30 on a BBC radio program her impressions of the Palestinian Authority president's departure. "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry," she said. BBC sources were quoted as saying that Plett realized her words were a misjudgment. Jewish groups long have accused the BBC of pro- Palestinian bias.
(JTA) - Filmmaker's killing prompts anti-Muslim outbreak
The killing of a Dutch filmmaker, allegedly by an Islamic extremist, sparked anti-Muslim incidents in the Netherlands. Since the Nov. 2 murder of Theo van Gogh, who earlier this year released a film critical of how women are treated under Islam, there have been numerous anti-Muslim incidents, including two attempts to burn down mosques, Dutch media reported Sunday. Eight alleged Islamic extremists have been arrested in connection with the murder. Among those arrested was the alleged 26-year-old killer, identified only as Mohammed B. Mainstream Muslim groups have condemned the killing.
(JTA) - JNF attacked in Scotland
A Scottish pro-Palestinian group petitioned the country's Parliament to strip the Jewish National Fund of its charitable status. The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign gathered some 2,200 signatories to support their claims that JNF policies exclude non-Jews and contribute to human rights abuses. The campaign's Ivan Clark told lawmakers: "The objection to the JNF is that it is an active part of the system that denies Palestinians their fundamental human rights with respect to land." The move is the latest in a series of skirmishes between the JNF and pro-Palestinian campaigners. The focus has moved to Scotland after the Charity Commission for England and Wales decided in June that the JNF satisfied its guidelines.
(JTA) - Man sentenced for defacing Jewish memorial
A man received a two-year prison sentence for defacing a French Jewish war memorial. A Paris court on Monday found Mathieu M., 22, guilty of scrawling swastikas and Nazi graffiti at the memorial at Verdun, site of a major World War I battle, in May. Half of his sentence was suspended by the court. Another man, who was a minor at the time of the attack, is to be tried later.
(JTA) - Oy, the calories
An attempt to build the largest doughnut wedding cake was made at a Jewish trade show. Some 1,818 Krispy Kreme doughnuts went into the 5-foot-3- inch cake. Photos of the caloric monstrosity displayed Sunday at the Simcha Celebrations Showcase, a Jewish celebration trade show near Seattle, will be sent to the Guinness Book of World Records for consideration. Krispy Kreme doughnuts are kosher. JTA END
(JTA) - P.A. official: Arafat in deep coma
Yasser Arafat is in a deep coma, a top Palestinian official said. Speaking Tuesday at the Paris hospital where the Palestinian Authority president is being treated, Nabil Sha'ath said Arafat's organs are still functioning. He said Arafat does not have cancer and has not been poisoned, two of the rumors that have surfaced since Arafat was taken to France from the West Bank late last month. Sha'ath also ruled out any chance of euthanasia, saying it is against Muslim precepts and that Arafat is not in pain.
(JTA) - End could be near for Arafat
Yasser Arafat could be taken off life support Tuesday, according to Palestinian sources. Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei and former Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, who between them took over Arafat's powers after the Palestinian Authority president was admitted to a French hospital in late October, arrived in Paris on Monday for final consultations with his wife, Suha. Palestinian sources said Suha Arafat was expected to agree to disconnect her comatose husband from the respirator Tuesday night. Many believe Tuesday marks the date the Prophet Mohammed received the Koran. Suha Arafat has accused leading Palestinian officials of trying to kill off her husband to take his power.
(JTA) - RIP in Ramallah?
The Palestinian Authority wants to bury Yasser Arafat at his West Bank headquarters. Palestinian officials made the demand Tuesday as reports surfaced that the Palestinian Authority president had died at the French hospital where he has been receiving treatment for a mysterious illness. According to the sources, the Palestinian Authority plans to hold a state funeral for Arafat in the West Bank city of Jericho and then bury him in the Ramallah compound where he was confined for much of the last three years. Previously, the Palestinians demanded that Arafat be laid to rest on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, on a plot reserved for Arab notables. But Israeli officials have ruled out a funeral anywhere other than the Gaza Strip, where two of Arafat's relatives lie. "Gaza is in full control of the Palestinian Authority and we believe it is the appropriate place," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told CNN.
(JTA) - A quiet disengagement?
Settlers in the Gaza Strip will agree to evacuation under Ariel Sharon's withdrawal plan, an Israeli official said. "The people of Gush Katif are different" from those in the West Bank "in terms of the antagonism they create," Yonatan Bassi, head of the Disengagement Authority, told the Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. "Their leadership is less rude, less confrontational, much quieter." Israeli security forces are bracing for confrontations if settlers resist the Israeli prime minister's plan to withdraw from Gaza and parts of the West Bank next year, but Bassi said no one in Gaza would "go against the government" when the time comes. Nonetheless, the 56-year-old father of six said he was under 24-hour protection after receiving death threats from right-wing extremists.
(JTA) - Buzz on the border
Hezbollah drones could be used for cross-border terror attacks, Israel's military chief said. The Lebanese militia managed to launch a surveillance drone for a 10-minute flight over northern Israel on Monday, worrying the top military brass in Tel Aviv. On Tuesday, Israel's military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Hezbollah drone had a wingspan of 12 feet and could carry a payload of 90 pounds. Armed with a bomb, the drone could be used for kamikaze attacks on Israeli targets, Ya'aoln warned. But Monday's drone is no longer a threat to Israel because it crashed off the Lebanese coast after its maiden flight.
(JTA) - Close call for French
A Palestinian suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv market this month was intended for the French Embassy, Israeli officials believe. The Shin Bet on Tuesday issued results of its probe into the Nov. 1 attack that killed three people at the Carmel market, saying the original target was the nearby French mission. It was not immediately clear why the teenaged terrorist from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine chose the market. The Shin Bet said it had arrested two of the teen's handlers in the West Bank city of Nablus, adding that he managed to slip into Israel using a journalist card. Israeli officials came in for international criticism during the intifada when they tried to restrict Palestinian access to journalist cards, saying terrorists used them to move around the country freely.
(JTA) - City clashes on divestment
The city council of Somerville, Mass., considered a resolution to dump city holdings in Israel. A vote was delayed until Dec. 7, and Mayor Joseph Curtatone, who spoke against the resolution at Monday night's meeting, said he would veto it, according to the Boston Globe, which noted that lawmakers could not recall another resolution that had prompted such impassioned debate. The local Jewish Community Relations Council was "troubled" by the crowd of activists evenly split on the resolution, which urges city investors to "divest from companies involved with Israel's human rights violations and from Israel Bonds." JCRC executive director Nancy Kaufman, who organized local leaders to speak against the move, said those in favor of the resolution enlisted the support of Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the army, many non-Somerville residents, and members of the Jewish community. "It's a sad day when we as Jews are advocating for divestment in Israel," Kaufman said. This is "just the beginning of something that we're going to see more of across the country."
(JTA) - U.N. eyes Israel nukes
The U.N. nuclear watchdog said ridding Israel of atomic weapons was the key to Middle East peace. "This is not really sustainable, that you have Israel sitting with nuclear weapons capability there while everyone else is part of the non-proliferation regime," Mohamed ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the Sydney Morning Herald on Monday. "It is a very emotional issue in the Middle East." On an official visit to Australia, ElBaradei warned that terrorists were pursuing nuclear weapons and that a comprehensive regional ban was one way to counter the trend. Israel, which has never acknowledged having a nuclear arsenal, says disarmament cannot be considered before peace is achieved, but ElBaradei champions a parallel strategy. "My take on this is that we will probably need to do the two together in tandem. You need a security structure to undergird, if you like protect that peace process."
(JTA) - Saber-rattling in Tehran
Iran plans to mass-produce a missile capable of reaching Israel. "We have the capability to mass-produce Shihab-3 missiles," Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani told reporters in Tehran on Tuesday. With a range of up to 1,250 miles, the latest Shihab model can reach both the Jewish state and U.S. targets in the Persian Gulf, and is believed capable of delivering nonconventional warheads. Israeli defense sources said the locally made Arrow missile-killer system could cope with even a multiple Shihab salvo.
(JTA) - Reform Jews help Sudanese refugees
The Reform movement is giving $80,000 to groups helping refugees in Sudan. The union for Reform Judaism announced it would give the money to the International Rescue Committee, CARE USA and Catholic Relief Services. The money comes from the Reform movement's Disaster Relief Fund. Experts estimate that more than 1 million people have been misplaced by government- supported violence in Sudan.
(JTA) - Exhibit on French deportees to open at Auschwitz
A permanent exhibition on French deportees is to open at Auschwitz in January to mark the 60th anniversary of the camp's liberation. French President Jacques Chirac will inaugurate the exhibition, which will include some 1,000 photographs of Jewish children deported by the Nazis, on Jan. 27, 2005, a spokesman for the Elysee Palace said Monday. The 60th anniversary commemoration will be attended by Israeli President Moshe Katsav, Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Incident near French synagogue
A man deposited a hand grenade close to a synagogue near Paris. Police patrolling the area near the synagogue in Rosny-sous-bois, east of the capital, on Monday night noticed a suspicious man in the area holding a bag. The man ran off but left the bag, which contained a grenade. The grenade did not explode. The man had been standing outside a house belonging to the synagogue's former rabbi, which itself backs on to the current rabbi's house and, behind that, the synagogue, a police spokesman said. However, there was no evidence that Jewish property was targeted, the spokesman added. Sammy Ghozlan, president of the Seine Saint-Denis Jewish Community Council, told JTA that the police "had succeeded in preventing an obviously anti-Semitic incident."
(JTA) - Poverty in Tel Aviv
About 25 percent of Tel Aviv children live below the poverty line, according to findings announced at a conference sponsored by the Los Angeles Jewish federation. The conference on poverty and food insecurity, which brought together researchers and officials, was held last week in Tel Aviv. The Los Angeles federation has been twinned with the city of Tel Aviv. Organizers said the cities came together to share information and search for solutions to rising poverty levels.
(JTA) - Commandments monument outside courthouse
A monument inscribed with the Ten Commandments was placed outside a courthouse in Oklahoma. The 8-foot by 3-foot monument was paid for by a local church youth group. The U.S. Supreme Court has said it will take up the issue of whether religious displays on public property are constitutional.
(JTA) - Religious party quits Israeli coalition
The National Religious Party quit Israel's government coalition, but Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stayed. NRP representatives decided on the walkout Monday after their two-week ultimatum demanding that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon hold a referendum on his Gaza withdrawal plan expired. But Netanyahu, a Likud Party member who also had threatened to quit after the Knesset passed the plan, backed down. A fellow Likud "rebel," Education Minister Limor Livnat, withdrew her walkout threat last week. Losing the NRP weakens the government but Sharon has been in talks with potential replacements, including Labor, the largest opposition party.
(JTA) - U.S. city to debate divestment
The City Council of Somerville, Mass., will consider a resolution asking investors to drop their holdings in Israel. According to the resolution, Israel has violated human rights in its occupation of land seized in the 1967 Six- Day War, including detaining individuals without charge and blocking ambulances. The resolution "urges all investors in the city to divest from companies involved with Israel's human rights violations and from Israel Bonds." It specifically recommends divestment from several companies, including Caterpillar, Boeing and Northrup Grumman Corporation. The Boston Jewish Community Relations Council has been working with Somerville residents and has coordinated statements to be read at the meeting against the resolution by city residents, faith leaders and Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, said Nancy Kaufman, the community relations council's executive director.
(JTA) - Argentine rabbi harassed?
An Argentine rabbi reportedly was insulted during a lecture last week. The Nov. 3 incident involving Rabbi Daniel Dolynski occurred at the National University of Entre Rios Province. Dolynski was participating in a lecture about reproductive health when a student shouted at him and others performed the Nazi salute. The DAIA Jewish umbrella group denounced the act.
(JTA) - AMIA case appeal
An Argentine Jewish group is appealing the acquittal of five defendants in the bombing of an Argentine Jewish center. Five locals were acquitted in September of involvement in the July 1994 attack on the AMIA Jewish center in Buenos Aires. Eighty-five people were killed and some 300 wounded in the still-unsolved bombing.
(JTA) - Mr. Katsav to go to Argentina
Israel's president will visit Argentina at the end of November. During Moshe Katsav's visit, Jewish community centers plan to dedicate a park in his honor.
(JTA) - Cornell honors Leo Frank
Cornell University is honoring Leo Frank, the Jewish victim of a Southern lynch mob. The school in upstate New York, Frank's alma mater, is holding a weeklong series of events honoring Frank, the Jerusalem Post reported. Frank was arrested in Atlanta in 1913, accused of the death of a 13- year-old girl. Frank was convicted of the crime in a rigged trial tinged with anti- Semitism. Georgia's governor later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, but a mob lynched him in 1915. Frank's death led to the founding of the Anti- Defamation League.
(JTA) - U.S. wants alleged crime boss extradited
An alleged Israeli underworld boss faces extradition to the United States on drugs charges. Israeli police arrested Zev Rosenstein on Monday following a joint investigation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Rosenstein is suspected of involvement in a Miami drug ring, and could face trial in the United States. Under Israeli extradition laws, he would have to be returned to the Jewish state to serve his sentence. Rosenstein, considered one of Israel's major crime bosses, denied any wrongdoing. He was expected to fight an extradition request all the way to Israel's Supreme Court.
(JTA) - Posthumous award for Holocaust novel
A novel published more than 60 years after its author died in the Holocaust won one of France's top literary awards. "Suite Francaise" by Irene Nemirovsky on Monday picked up the Renaudot Prize, awarded annually by a select group of authors. Born in Kiev in 1903, Nemirovsky arrived in France in the 1930s. She wrote "Suite Francaise" in 1940, a novel which traces the lives of French war refugees fleeing the advancing German invasion. Before she was deported to Auschwitz, Nemirovsky entrusted the tiny fragments of her book to her daughter, Diane Epstein, who agreed earlier this year to its publication.
(JTA) - Prague library features Hebrew texts
A rare collection of Hebrew manuscripts and medieval texts is on public view at Prague's National Library. The Saraval Legacy exhibition displays 34 Hebrew manuscripts that formed the most valuable part of a collection once belonging to Leon Vita Saraval (1771-1851), a Trieste-born Jew and bibliophile. The collection was purchased in 1853 by the Jewish Theological Seminary in Wroclaw, Poland, which owned some 400 manuscripts and 30,000 books before the collection was confiscated by the Nazis during World War II. The Nazis moved much of the Saraval items to Prague to put in their planned museum of an "extinct race." About one third of the manuscripts were recovered soon after the war, but the rest were lost or scattered around the world. Gestapo members often looted from Nazi holdings and sold items to the highest bidder. The National Library has agreed to return the collection to Poland by the end of the year.
(JTA) - Reconstructionist founder dies
Benjamin Mehlman, a founder and former president of the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, died Oct. 31 in New York at the age of 94. Mehlman was a former president of the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, in Manhattan, which was the first Reconstructionist Synagogue, and a founder and board member of the West End Synagogue, also in Manhattan. Mehlman was a judge in Ocean Beach, a community on Fire Island, New York.
(JTA) - Actress goes to Hebrew U.
Actress Natalie Portman is taking classes at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, according to the Jerusalem Post. Portman was born in Jerusalem in 1981, the daughter of an Israeli doctor and an American mother. The family moved to the United States when she was 3. In past interviews, Portman has talked with pride about her Israeli roots and said she keeps in close touch with her relatives in Israel. She is known for her performance in "Star Wars" movies.
(JTA) - Top Palestinians visit Arafat
The Palestinian Authority prime minister and PLO deputy chief went to visit the ailing Yasser Arafat. The visit by Ahmed Qurei and Mahmoud Abbas, who took over Arafat's powers after he was admitted to a French hospital on Oct. 29, had planned to fly to Paris first thing Monday for what political sources said would be a discussion on whether the comatose Palestinian leader should be taken off life-support. But they postponed the trip for several hours after Arafat's wife accused them of seeking to kill off Arafat and take over the Palestinian government. "They are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," Suha Arafat told Al-Jazeera television, using Arafat's nom de guerre.
(JTA) - Blair to press Bush on Middle East
Tony Blair is expected to push for more U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when he meets President Bush this week. Aides to the British prime minister told British media that the issue will be at the top of Blair's priority list when he meets with Bush during his visit to the United States on Thursday and Friday. "The need to revitalize the Middle East peace process is the single most pressing political challenge in our world today," the British prime minister said Nov. 3, a day after U.S. voters elected Bush to a second term.
(JTA) - Poll: French see Arafat as hero
French people regard Yasser Arafat as a hero rather than a terrorist, according to a new poll. Asked to choose whether the Palestinian Authority president is a "hero of national resistance" or a terrorist, 43 percent chose the former and 27 percent the latter. Ten percent said Arafat fitted into both categories, while 9 percent said he was neither one nor the other. The poll, published Monday and commissioned jointly by the Liberation newspaper and a national public radio station, also found that three times as many French hold Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon responsible for Middle East violence than Arafat. In addition, 34 percent said they had more sympathy for the Palestinians, as opposed to 13 percent for Israel. A similar poll in 2000 found almost equal degrees of sympathy for both sides.
(JTA) - BBC correspondent cries over Arafat
The BBC received at least 500 complaints after its broadcaster said she "started to cry" when an ill Yasser Arafat left for a Paris hospital. Barbara Plett, BBC's Middle East correspondent, reported Oct. 30 on a BBC radio program her impressions of the Palestinian Authority president's departure. "When the helicopter carrying the frail old man rose above his ruined compound, I started to cry," she said. BBC sources were quoted as saying that Plett realized her words were a misjudgment. Jewish groups long have accused the BBC of pro- Palestinian bias.
(JTA) - Filmmaker's killing prompts anti-Muslim outbreak
The killing of a Dutch filmmaker, allegedly by an Islamic extremist, sparked anti-Muslim incidents in the Netherlands. Since the Nov. 2 murder of Theo van Gogh, who earlier this year released a film critical of how women are treated under Islam, there have been numerous anti-Muslim incidents, including two attempts to burn down mosques, Dutch media reported Sunday. Eight alleged Islamic extremists have been arrested in connection with the murder. Among those arrested was the alleged 26-year-old killer, identified only as Mohammed B. Mainstream Muslim groups have condemned the killing.
(JTA) - JNF attacked in Scotland
A Scottish pro-Palestinian group petitioned the country's Parliament to strip the Jewish National Fund of its charitable status. The Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign gathered some 2,200 signatories to support their claims that JNF policies exclude non-Jews and contribute to human rights abuses. The campaign's Ivan Clark told lawmakers: "The objection to the JNF is that it is an active part of the system that denies Palestinians their fundamental human rights with respect to land." The move is the latest in a series of skirmishes between the JNF and pro-Palestinian campaigners. The focus has moved to Scotland after the Charity Commission for England and Wales decided in June that the JNF satisfied its guidelines.
(JTA) - Man sentenced for defacing Jewish memorial
A man received a two-year prison sentence for defacing a French Jewish war memorial. A Paris court on Monday found Mathieu M., 22, guilty of scrawling swastikas and Nazi graffiti at the memorial at Verdun, site of a major World War I battle, in May. Half of his sentence was suspended by the court. Another man, who was a minor at the time of the attack, is to be tried later.
(JTA) - Oy, the calories
An attempt to build the largest doughnut wedding cake was made at a Jewish trade show. Some 1,818 Krispy Kreme doughnuts went into the 5-foot-3- inch cake. Photos of the caloric monstrosity displayed Sunday at the Simcha Celebrations Showcase, a Jewish celebration trade show near Seattle, will be sent to the Guinness Book of World Records for consideration. Krispy Kreme doughnuts are kosher. JTA END
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