Judaism - Page 3

Israel and Poland have agreed to restore ambassadors, essentially ending a political spat that began a year ago after Warsaw passed a bill limiting Jews from reclaiming property lost in the Holocaust.

Pope Francis warned of dangers to world peace Monday, highlighting poverty, nationalism, and “unbridled greed.”

Palestinian rioters hurled rocks, chairs and fireworks at thousands of Israeli Jews who ascended the flashpoint Temple Mount on Sunday to celebrate Jerusalem Day, amid warnings by the Palestinian Authority that Israel was  “playing with fire.”

A Jerusalem court ruled on Sunday that Jews should now be permitted to recite the seminal Jewish “Hear o Israel” prayer as well as bow down on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, in a decision that sparked an outcry among Arab officials.

Palestinian-American real estate mogul and the father of supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid, Mohamed Hadid, on Sunday claimed Israel murdered Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as part of its policy of killing journalists. He further added Zionists control the world and the media, including the New York Times.

Following the Trump-led Abraham Accords signed in 2020, Tuesday saw the first ever ceremony in an Arab country honoring fallen soldiers and victims of terror for Israel’s Memorial Day.

A delegation of senior Hamas officials visited Moscow to meet with Russian officials amid ongoing clashes on the Temple Mount, a report from the Hebrew-language Walla website said on Wednesday morning.

Last year saw a record number of reports of antisemitic incidents around the world, a new study in Israel released Wednesday ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance day.

Israel Police arrested seven Palestinians on Wednesday for throwing Molotov cocktails from inside al-Aqsa mosque, ostensibly one of Islam’s holiest sites. The intervention came amid ongoing clashes as Jewish visitors enter the Temple Mount compound for the last time until the end of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan.

Vice President Kamala Harris caused a stir among liberal activists after she served wine made in a Jewish West Bank settlement at her Passover seder on Friday, prompting her office to clarify she was not making a political statement.

Jordan’s prime minister on Monday praised Palestinian rioters on Temple Mount for physically assaulting Israelis going to pray at the site, which is Judaism’s holiest.

Clashes between Palestinian rioters and Israeli security forces erupted again on Sunday morning in the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, as Palestinians tried to stop Jewish worshipers from entering the holy site.

A video that has surfaced in the wake of the shooting in a New York City subway station on Tuesday shows the suspected shooter, Frank James, railing against Jews, saying they don’t contribute anything to life except “shit, piss, pollution, and death and destruction.”

Days after rioting Palestinian residents of Nablus burned and severely damaged the Joseph’s Tomb near Nablus, construction teams restored the holy site in a rare daytime operation.

Palestinian rioters on Saturday night vandalized Joseph’s Tomb, one of Judaism’s holiest sites,  setting it on fire and smashing the gravestone.

Thousands of Palestinians on Friday thronged outside the family home of a terrorist who carried out a deadly attack in Tel Aviv the night before, singing celebratory epitaphs supporting the terrorist and the murder of Jews.

Israel’s government looked set to crumble Wednesday after coalition whip Idit Silman announced she is quitting to form a new government, causing the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to lose its majority.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday post-war Ukraine will likely be modeled as a “big Israel” in terms of security, and will no longer be a “liberal European” city.

A busload of ultra-Orthodox residents from Bnei Brak, the city in which the last week’s shooting massacre took place, traveled to Israel’s north to pay their respects at the funeral of an Israeli Christian Arab police officer who was killed while taking down the Palestinian terrorist.

Hundreds of thousands of people on Sunday attended the funeral of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the spiritual leader of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, in what was touted as the biggest funeral in Israel’s history.

An Israeli woman last week helped two Ukrainian sisters fleeing the Russian invasion in their hometown find refuge in Israel, decades after the sisters’ grandmother hid the Israeli woman’s grandmother from the Nazis.

An Amnesty International official said his organization is opposed to Israel continuing to exist as a Jewish state, prompting a rare condemnation from all 25 Jewish House Democrats.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said on Sunday that Israel has a “moral duty” to allow in more non-Jewish refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, following criticism of the government’s refugee policy that limited entry into the country to 25,000 Ukrainians not eligible for Israeli citizenship.

WARSAW, Poland — On her first Shabbat away from the fighting in Ukraine, Rabbi Julia Gris twice led services to welcome the Jewish holy day.

Odessa (Ukraine) — Forced yet again into exile, as so many times in their tormented history, Jews are leaving in droves from the Ukrainian city of Odessa, threatening the last traces of a once-vibrant culture.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told American Jewish leaders on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin was guilty of “pure Nazi behavior,” and compared Putin’s rhetoric against the Ukrainian people to that of chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, The Times of Israel reported.

Ukraine’s Ambassador to Israel expressed his appreciation for Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s ongoing mediation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying his efforts were “priceless” and “worth more than weapons.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday called on fellow Jews around the world to speak out against the Russian “erasure” of his country.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid condemned a Russian missile attack that on Tuesday struck the Babi Yar memorial site in the heart of Kyiv marking the place tens of thousands of Jews were massacred during the Holocaust, but made no mention of Russia was made.

Israel will co-sponsor a U.S. and Albanian United Nations General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said Monday.

The executive director of Amnesty International’s Israel branch came out against the human rights organization’s recent report accusing Israel of apartheid, saying it was doing more harm than good.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman’s new memoir has sold more books in its first week than any other book on Israel in the last decade, its publisher said on Thursday.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren said the bombshell revelation by former Trump envoy to Israel, David Friedman, that he was told by the State Department to “tone down” his Jewishness came as “no surprise,” but was like telling a Muslim ambassador to Cairo, “don’t be too Muslim.”

Amnesty International UK has come under fire by Israel as well as U.S. Jewry for a report accusing Israel of “the crime against humanity of apartheid.”

DURACH, Germany — Andrzej Sitkowski was 15 years old when his mother told him that she had been asked by a neighbor to hide a little Jewish girl from the Nazis at their home.

Last year saw an average of ten anti-Semitic incidents a day in what was the worst year for global anti-Semitism in more than a decade, an annual report published Monday by the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency showed.