World News

(JTA) — Nearly 130 Finnish artists will not be working with Kiasma, the modern art wing of Finland’s national gallery, they announced, in protest of a Finnish-Israeli billionaire who supports the gallery and has connections to both countries’ arms industries. The artists had signed the statement by Monday after the museum refused to remove a…

LVIV, Ukraine (JTA) – The rabbis sat around a breakfast table, discussing Russia’s war on the country where they work in a mixture of Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian. They named their hometowns as Lugansk, Lvov and Dnepr, the Russian names for Ukrainian cities that have vaulted into international headlines since Russia invaded Ukraine in February.…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Lee Zeldin, the Republican Jewish congressman who mounted a stronger-than-expected but failed bid to be New York’s governor, says he has decided not to run to be the chairman of the Republican National Committee. But in a sign that he expects to have continued influence despite exiting Congress, Zeldin, who has been…

(JTA) – A Michigan man who allegedly threatened and harassed congregants at a Detroit-area synagogue uttered antisemitic slurs at the magistrate who arraigned him on Monday. Meanwhile, the synagogue where the incident took place is planning events to help community members process both their trauma and their concern about how local police handled the incident.…

(JTA) — When Russian troops poured across the Ukrainian border in March, thousands fled from the cities that would be first in their path. But in Kherson, the southern port city with strategic value to the Russians, Rabbi Yosef Itzhak Wolff decided to stay put. His decision to remain put him in line with the…

(JTA) — Israel’s government has lashed out at Netflix over a new Jordanian movie that they say disparages the country’s military and their actions in the War of 1948 that led to Israel’s independence. “Farha,” Jordan’s entry into the Academy Awards’ best international feature race, is a historical drama about the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe,” the…

(JTA) – When Brother John Muhammad emerged this fall as the leading candidate for a vacant city council seat in St. Petersburg, Florida, local Jews were distressed. Muhammad is well known in the city as the president of a local neighborhood association and as a frequent advocate for minority groups. But Jewish leaders learned that…

(JTA) — Natan Levy, one of the few Israelis ever to compete in the mixed martial arts Ultimate Fighting Championship, or UFC, isn’t pulling any punches in talking about Kanye West’s antisemitism. “Kanye West, if you’ve got a problem with me or my people, come see me, bro,” Levy said during an interview Saturday following…

WASHINGTON (JTA) — A bipartisan slate of 125 lawmakers from both chambers are calling on the Biden administration to adopt a “whole of government” policy to combating antisemitism. A letter sent Tuesday to President Joe Biden, spearheaded by the chairmen of congressional task forces for combating antisemitism, called for action from officials from an array…

BERLIN (JTA) – The head of Germany’s main Jewish organization may have been staked out by a spy for Iran’s secret service, German security investigators have revealed. The newsmagazine FOCUS has reported that Josef Schuster, recently elected to a third four-year term as president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, may have been…