EU adopts new sanctions against Iran
(JNS.org) The European Union has tightened sanctions on Iran’s financial institutions, trade, energy and shipping in a bid to persuade Iranian leaders to return to serious discuss over its nuclear program and avert possible military action.
The latest sanctions represent the most far-reaching to date by the 27-member bloc and come amid growing concern by EU leaders over the lack of progress over negotiations and Israeli military threats.
The new measures close many of the loopholes in existing EU sanctions and bring it closer to the U.S. restrictions, which had been more wide-ranging.
According to the Wall Street Journal, the EU prohibited all transactions between European and Iranian banks unless they relate to humanitarian aid and will blacklist additional entities in the oil and gas sectors.
“The EU’s message today is clear: Iran should not underestimate our resolve,” U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said in an e-mailed statement to Bloomberg.
“We will continue to do all we can to increase the peaceful pressure on Iran to change course and to return to talks ready to reach a negotiated solution by addressing the world’s concerns.”
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Jewish-American economist is one of two Americans to win Nobel Prize
(JNS.org) Jewish-American economist Alvin Roth and his American colleague Lloyd Shapley were awarded the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science on Monday for their work on market design and matching theory.
Their groundbreaking work, which primarily focuses on markets that do not have prices, enables people and companies to find and select one another in everything from marriage to school choice to jobs to organ donations.
Roth, who is 60, is a professor at Harvard University and currently a visiting professor at Stanford, while Shapley, who is 89, is a professor emeritus at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA).
Both laureates have strong academic ties to Israel. Roth was a visiting professor Technion Insitute in Haifa and Hebrew University, while Shapley received an honorary doctorate from Hebrew University and has worked closely with Israeli Nobel Prize Laureate Robert Auman.
David Warsh, who follows academic economists on his Economic Principals blog, told Haaretz that Roth’s work has revolutionized the way organs are matched to patients. Before Roth, he said, “there were no economists in that business at all. He’s really changed it, and saved a lot of lives.”
The 8 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million) award will be given out by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in December.
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Jewish U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter dies at 82
(JNS.org) Arlen Specter, the five-term Republican-turned-Democratic U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania, died in his home on Sunday at the age of 82.
Specter, who was Jewish, died from complicated related to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to his son, Shanin. Specter had a long history of battling cancer; he was treated for a brain tumor during the 1990s and, in 2005, was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Specter rose to prominence during the 1960s as an aggressive Philadelphia prosecutor and member of the Warren Commission, which investigated the death of President Kennedy. He is credited with helping to develop the “single bullet theory.” The theory, which remains controversial today, posited that a single bullet fired by the lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, killed President Kennedy and wounded Texas Gov. John Connally.
Later, serving in the Senate from 1981-2011, Specter was known for his fierce independence and high-profile role as part of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He often angered people on both sides of the aisle, including Republicans over issues such affirmative action, gay-rights and abortion, and Democrats over his tough questioning of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
“Senator Specter has left behind a proud legacy of public service that will hopefully guide future generations of public servants, Jewish and non-Jewish alike,” the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) said in a statement.
Republican Jewish Coalition National Chairman David Flaum called Specter “a devoted public servant with a great passion for justice,” noting in a statement that Specter “was a staunch supporter of Israel in the U.S. Senate and during his tenure led efforts to expand and enhance the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
Specter was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1930 to a Jewish immigrant family from Ukraine. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University and served stateside during the Korean War, obtaining the rank of Second Lieutenant. During college at the University of Pennsylvania, Specter said in an interview with the Penn Current that his family moved to Philadelphia from Kansas because there were no Jews for his sister to marry there.
“We were living in Russell, Kansas, a little town of 5,000 people, and when my sister Shirley was of a marriageable age, there was only one Jewish boy in town and that was me, her brother,” he said. “So the family moved to Philadelphia so she could meet and marry a fine Jewish boy and raise a fine Jewish family, which she did.”
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Manuscripts of Kafka to be transferred to Israel National Library
(JNS.org) A collection of never-before-seen private manuscripts of the famous 20th century author Franz Kafka and his close associate Max Brod, are to be transferred over to the Israel National Library following a ruling by a Tel Aviv District Family Court last week after a long legal battle, Haaretz reported.
Kafka, born to a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague in 1883, is considered one of the 20th century’s most famous writers. His famous works include Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis), Der Process (The Trial), and Das Schloss (The Castle). After his death in 1924, his friend Max Brod collected, edited and published his works—despite Kafka’s wishes that they be destroyed. The surreal situations of Kafka’s novels heavily influenced the existentialist movement and came to symbolize the travails and absurdities of modern life.
Brod, who fled to Palestine in 1940 after the Nazi invaded Czechoslovakia, transferred Kafka’s collection to his secretary Esther Hoffe in 1968 following his death. Despite Brod’s explicit instructions in his will that Hoffe give the manuscripts to public archives, she retained the works, auctioning some off in Germany, while keeping the rest in safety deposit boxes in Tel Aviv and Zurich. When Hoffe died in 2007, her daughters attempted to inherit the collection and sell it in Germany.
The manuscripts contain of thousands of pages and will be published online according to the Israeli National Library. It includes Brod’s personal diary on Kafka’s life, notebooks filled with Kafka’s writings and correspondence with other notable writers.
Remarking on the case, presiding Jude Pardo Kupelman said, “I hope that the inheritance of the late Brod will finally find its place according to the wishes of the deceased.”
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American Jews seek spirituality outside of synagogue
(JNS.org) A study by the Workmen’s Circle/Arbeter Ring shows that one in six American Jews now seek spirituality outside of the synagogue. Conducting the study between April 19 and May 3 of this year, researchers accounted for factors such as age, gender, geography and marital status.
Although three in five respondents said they fast on Yom Kippur and 46 percent partake in a Friday night Shabbat meal “at least sometimes,” many described themselves as “cultural” and “spiritual,” but turning away from congregational life.
Though many said they believed in God, they also showed commitments to issues such as Israel, economic justice and social equality. Fifty-six percent said they were “very attached to Israel.”
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Jewish groups sue NYC over circumcision regulation
(JNS.org) Jewish groups have sued New York City’s Board of Health to prevent it from enforcing a rule that would require written parental consent for oral suction in ritual circumcision.
New York wants to pass the new law out of concern over metzitzah b’peh, a practice among ultra-orthodox Jews in which the person performing the circumcision (mohel) removes blood from the wound with his mouth. Metzitzah b’peh has been linked to 11 cases of oral herpes and two deaths between 2000 and 2011, the city said.
“The city’s highest obligation is to protect its children,” said Dr. Thomas A. Farley, commissioner of New York’s health department, according to the New York Times.
The lawsuit filed by several rabbis and Jewish organizations such as Agudath Israel of America and the International Bris Association states that Jewish families have safely conducted the practice of circumcision and metzitzah b’peh for generations, and that the new law would be unconstitutional.
“Not only is the Department of Health wrong about metzitzah b’peh, it is trying to enforce its erroneous opinions on the people of New York City…By essentially starting a public intimidation campaign that forces private citizens to spread the government’s beliefs, they are shaking the core of our democracy. We believe the courts will stop this overzealous government overreach and keep them out of our speech and religion,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a spokesman for the groups suing the city.
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Preceding provided by JNS.org and reprinted with permission