Travel and Food

By Rabbi Menachem BarkahanRIGA, Latvia — Here are some of the highlights of 2010 for Shamir, the Jewish community of Latvia:  The Riga  Ghetto  and  Latvian  Holocaust  museum  were  opened in September  2010 http://www.rgm.lv/?lang=en  The Second International Festival of Jewish culture gathered more than 4, 000  visitors  for  10  events  in  Latvia  and  Lithuania, including international  celebrities […]

HAIFA (Press Release)–New facts are being revealed about another Jewish population that was persecuted during WWII: Indonesian Jewry – of which very little has been known to date. This community suffered greatly under Japanese occupation, and in a study that set out to provide a first and in-depth examination of the causes for the prejudice

THOMASVILLE, Georgia  (Press Release)– Holocaust  artist Elmo Gideon, 86, died Tuesday, December 21, 2010 at his home and studios here after a lengthy illness. He has been described as an “artist who borders on being an elemental force” whose own ambitions guided him in the development of revolutionary paints and sculpting compounds, technique, form and application that

HAIFA, Israel (Press Release)–A new study from the University of Haifa shows that within the private sector high levels of emotional intelligence empower positive attitudes towards the workplace and decrease negative behavior; however, the same effect was not found within the public sector. “The results of this study emphasize the existence of significant behavioral differences

PARIS (WJC)–The President of the Council of French Jewish Organisations, Richard Prasquier, said he was satisfied with the retrial of the self-proclaimed “Gang of Barbarians” who tortured to death Ilan Halimi five years ago. A court of appeal handed stiffer sentences to the two main accomplices of gang leader Yusuf Fofana, who had their convictions

NEW YORK (Press Release) — The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday urged the Greek Orthodox Church to publicly denounce blatantly anti-Semitic comments made by one of its bishops. During an interview with a popular television show in Greece, Metropolitan Seraphim of Piraeus blamed Jews for orchestrating the Holocaust and accused “world Zionism” of a conspiracy

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release)–The U.S. Department of the Treasury announced on Tuesday, Dec. 21,  a set of designations targeting the financial networks of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the country’s national maritime carrier, the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL). The  actions further expose the continued engagement of the IRGC and IRISL in

NEW YORK (Press Release)–The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday, Dec. 22, urged the Polish government to take swift action in response to an anti-Semitic attack on a home belonging to the director of a Jewish-themed theater in Lublin, Poland.             On the night of December 17, bricks with swastikas and a small explosive device were thrown through

TORONTO (WJC)–An anti-Semitic Islamic website setup by an Ontario student who is on the run is now back on the Internet after being shut down earlier this year by a Canadian web-hosting provider. The web site entitled Filthy Jewish Terrorists was banned earlier this year in Canada after the Ontario Provincial Police said its founder,

JERUSALEM (WJC)–The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and Museum has compiled a list of 4 million confirmed names of Jews murdered in the Holocaust. In the last 10 years the names of 1.5 million Jewish victims have been added to the list. A decade ago, Yad Vashem launched a “rescue” operation for the identification of victims

TEL AVIV (Press Release)– Fifty years ago, distinguished conductor Eugene Ormandy was forced to cancel a performance with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra due to illness. An up-and-coming, 25-year-old conductor named Zubin Mehta came to the rescue, launching a relationship that remains creative and prosperous five decades later. Celebrating the concurrent 75th anniversaries of both the

NEW YORK (WJC)–The president of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), Ronald S. Lauder, has called on courts and authorities in the United States to quickly pave the way for the extradition of the alleged Nazi war criminal Peter Egner, 88, to Serbia, where he is to stand trial on charges of genocide. “The accusations brought against

TEL AVIV (Press Release)― You know when you’re watching a pirated film downloaded from the Internet ― there’s no mistaking the fuzzy footage, or the guy in the front row getting up for popcorn. Despite the poor quality, pirated video is a serious problem around the world. Criminal copyright infringement occurs on a massive scale