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Putin: My Jewish friends say Zelensky is ‘not Jewish’
(JTA) — Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that other Jews think Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is not Jewish, despite his having “Jewish blood.”
“I have a lot of Jewish friends,” Putin said on Friday at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “They say that Zelensky is not Jewish, that he is a disgrace to the Jewish people.”
According to the Times of Israel, which quoted the TASS Russian News Agency, Putin also said that Zelensky has “Jewish blood” but puts “neo-Nazis, Hitler’s disciples” on “a pedestal as heroes of Ukraine.”
Putin has continually said that Russia’s war in Ukraine is in part an effort to stem the rise of rampant neo-Nazism there, a claim that scholars and analysts around the world have roundly rejected as propaganda.
Zelensky does not speak often about his Jewish heritage, but he has said he had an “ordinary Soviet Jewish upbringing,” adding that his family was not religious because “religion didn’t exist in the Soviet state as such.” He lost family in the Holocaust and has invoked the genocide in both public rebukes of Russia and in appeals to Israel for aid in the war effort.
“When Russians are telling about neo-Nazis and they turn to me,” he said shortly after the start of the war, “I just reply that I have lost my entire family in the war because all of them were exterminated during World War II.”
Natan Sharansky, the prominent human rights activist who spent nine years in Russian prison in the 1970s and 80s, issued a statement in response to Putin’s comments.
“Zelensky unites the Ukrainian people against barbaric aggression, and we Jews can be proud that a representative of our people plays a historic and significant role in uniting the whole world for the sake of protecting our future,” he said.
Last year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that “even Hitler had Jewish origins” and “the biggest antisemites are Jewish themselves,” comments that drew condemnation from Israeli politicians.
As many as 354,000 soldiers have been killed or injured since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
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The post Putin: My Jewish friends say Zelensky is ‘not Jewish’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’
It’s not every day that a kosher dill pickle puppet gets a chance to learn some Yiddish.
Monty Pickle, star of the children’s series The Monty Pickle Show, recently joined Rukhl Schaechter, host of the Forward’s YouTube series Yiddish Word of the Day, for an episode teaching viewers the Yiddish words for various wild animals.
Or as they’re called in Yiddish: vilde khayes.
The Monty Pickle Show, a puppet comedy on YouTube and TikTok, aims to show young viewers what it means to be Jewish in a fun, lively way. The series was created by the Emmy Award-winning producers of Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock.
So far, he’s met a number of Jewish personalities, including rabbis, musicians and chefs, and explored holidays like Rosh Hashanah, Hanukkah and Passover.
Sitting alongside Rukhl during the lesson, Monty eagerly tries to guess what each word means, providing for some very funny moments.
The post Puppet Monty Pickle is guest on the Forward’s ‘Yiddish Word of the Day’ appeared first on The Forward.
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IDF Nabs Islamic State Terror Suspect in Syria
Guns seized in the course of the operation. Photo: IDF Spokesperson via i24
i24 News – Israel Defense Forces soldiers conducted an operation on Wednesday in the area of Rafid in southern Syria to apprehend a suspected terrorist affiliated with ISIS, the military spokesperson said on Saturday.
The announcement comes as Washington announced a major operation to eliminated Islamic State terrorists in Syria after three Americans lost their lives in a jihadist attack in Palmyra.
The Israeli soldiers completed the operation in Syria “in cooperation with IDF intelligence,” the statement read, adding that “the suspect was transferred for further processing in Israeli territory.”
Additionally, during the operation, weapons were found and seized.
IDF troops “continue to remain deployed along the Golan Heights border in order to protect the State of Israel and its citizens,” the statement from the spokesperson concluded.
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Report: Trump Admin Envisions Transformation of Gaza into Chic High-Tech Metropolis
US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Washington, DC, Jan. 20, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Carlos Barria
i24 News – The US administration of President Trump vision for the future of Gaza has it transformed into a high-end high-tech hub of luxury and innovation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
A team of officials understood to be led by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff developed a draft proposal to convert the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into a glittering metropolis, propelling Gazans from poverty to prosperity.
US officials with familiarity with the plan—pitched to foreign governments and delegations as a PowerPoint presentation— are cited in the report as saying that, understandable open-endedness of a project in its early phase notwithstanding, the blueprint has many lacunae and leaves crucial questions unanswered.
Critics cite the plan’s silence on the thorny question of disarming Hamas, the Islamist terror group that ruled Gaza for the past 15 years, and initiated the cross-border incursion and massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023; the attack launched the devastating war that has left much of the coastal territory in ruins.
The plan’s projected cost is put at $112.1 billion over 10 years, with Washington prepared to commit support to the tune of some $60 billion in grants and guarantees on debt for “all the contemplated workstreams” in that time period.
The question of where two million Gazans would reside during the costly and lengthy rebuilding is also left unaddressed, it is understood.
Similar-sounding plans have been mooted by the Trump administration even before it managed to broker a ceasefire in October that paused the two year-long war.