World News
-
South Korean president compares IDF actions to the Holocaust, drawing Israel condemnation
(JTA) — South Korean President Lee Jae Myung drew condemnation from Israel’s Foreign Ministry after comparing Israeli military actions to the Holocaust in a social media post. Lee’s X post on Thursday reposted a video showing an Israeli soldier pushing the body of a Palestinian man off of a building in the West Bank in…
-
Pro-Palestinian activists are banned from Buchenwald, where survivors vowed to fight for peace
(JTA) — As pro-Palestinian activists were shut out of the former Buchenwald concentration camp this weekend, a timeworn fight about the site’s history resurfaced. That dispute, which dates back to the camp’s liberation in 1945, centers on how the victims of Buchenwald wanted to be remembered. The activists, a group called Kufiyas in Buchenwald, said…
-
Fatalities from antisemitic attacks in 2025 reach highest toll in 30 years, Israeli analysis finds
(JTA) — The number of fatalities from antisemitic attacks reached their highest level in 2025 in over three decades, with 20 people killed in four attacks over three continents, according to a new analysis from Tel Aviv University. The fatal attacks included those in Sydney; Washington, D.C.; Boulder, Colorado; and Manchester, England. They marked the…
-
Israelis say they are maintaining war readiness as US-Iran talks fail, Trump imposes blockade
(JTA) — U.S.-Iranian peace talks ended without a deal on Saturday and President Donald Trump announced a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, leaving the future of the current ceasefire in doubt. In Israel, which launched the war against Iran jointly with the United States, the ceasefire has brought a return to normal operations…
-
Hungary’s Viktor Orban loses to Peter Magyar, ending rule of a key Netanyahu ally in Europe
(JTA) — Peter Magyar has ended Viktor Orbán’s 16-year tenure as Hungary’s prime minister, sending the closest ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu packing after a decisive vote on Sunday. Israel did not play a prominent role in the election, which centered on issues related to democracy, Hungary’s relationship to Europe and Russia, and…
-
My father was in the Hungarian resistance. Orbán’s defeat reminds us why it mattered
My father resisted the Nazis in Hungary. I thought of him — and how he would have rejoiced — when the Hungarian people voted out Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday, after 16 years of authoritarian rule. Only a week before Hungarian voters made their choice, the outcome of the elections seemed far from certain.…
-
A moving tribute to Soviet Jewry, with uncomfortable contemporary echoes
The first Yiddish Glory album, the Grammy-nominated Lost Songs of WWII, was, give or take, 70 years in the making. The idea of preserving Soviet-Jewish culture by way of an anthology of Yiddish folk originally belonged to Moyshe Beregovsky, a Ukrainian-Jewish ethnomusicologist in the Cabinet for Jewish Culture. But Beregovsky was arrested by Stalin’s government…
-
VIDEO: A song about a Jewish girl, Khaye, who died in Treblinka
One of the most renowned poems by the Yiddish poet Binem Heller is one he wrote for his older sister Khaye who perished in the Treblinka concentration camp. In the poem, “Mayn shvester Khaye” (“My sister, Khaye”) he describes how, before the war, she would look after him and his brothers as their mother worked:…
-
He committed murder today. Or maybe yesterday. He doesn’t know.
In the spring of 1940, two French Algerians, the brothers Raoul and Edgar Bensoussan, got into a rumble with two Arabs on a beach near the city of Oran. The reason is unclear, but not the result: One of the Arabs, Kaddour Betouil, pulled out a knife and stabbed Raoul in the arm and mouth.…
-
Authentic Hasidic tales, translated into Polish
פֿאַר חסידישע מעשׂיות איז שטענדיק פֿאַראַן אַן עולם. אָט, אַ שטײגער, װעט באַלד אַרױס אַ נײַע דײַטשישע איבערזעצונג פֿון דעם פּױלישן שרײַבער סטאַניסלאַװ װינצענטס בעל־שם־טובֿ־לעגענדעס. װעגן דעם האָט זיך אַ מאָל (אױף פּױליש) באַקלאָגט דער ייִדישער קריטיקער בער מאַרק, אַז דװקא די „פֿינצטערע חסידות“ נעמט אױס בײַם ניט־ייִדישן לײענער־עולם. דאָ ניט לאַנג האָט מען אױך…
