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WASHINGTON — President Obama in his Passover message cited the Israeli national anthem’s invocation of an ancient Jewish longing for a homeland.
“Last week, I visited the State of Israel for the third time, my first as president,” Obama said in his March 25 message just hours before the start of the holiday. “I reaffirmed our countries’ unbreakable bonds with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and President [Shimon] Peres.
“I had the chance to speak directly with young Israelis about the future they wanted for their country, their region and the world. And I saw once again how the dream of true freedom found its full expression in those words of hope from ‘Hatikvah’: lihyot am chofshi be’artzeinu, To be a free people in our land.”
MOSCOW — Russia plans to move Jewish texts claimed by the Chabad-Lubavitch movement to Moscow’s newly opened Jewish museum later this month.
Russian Deputy Culture Minister Grigory Ivliyev told the Interfax news agency last week that the disputed Schneerson library will be moved to the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center.
“We will start moving the books to the Tolerance Center in April,” Ivliyev said. “We intend to use the opportunities of the Jewish Museum and the Tolerance Center fo...
PARIS — The Union of Jewish French Students sued Twitter for about $50 million for failing to honor a court ruling to identify users who posted anti-Semitic hate speech.
The union, or UEJF, filed the lawsuit last week with a Paris correctional tribunal, according to the French news agency AFP.
UEJF President Jonathan Hayoun said his organization filed the lawsuit because the California-based website has “ignored” a civil court ruling from Jan. 24 that Twitter must identify people who bro...
CAPE TOWN — An Abu Dhabi judge dismissed charges against Cyril Karabus, a Jewish doctor who had been detained in the United Arab Emirates in connection with a patient’s death.
The 77-year-old Karabus, a pediatric oncologist from South Africa, was arrested last August in Abu Dhabi while in transit on his way home to South Africa after attending his son’s wedding in Canada.
The arrest was a consequence of the 2003 death in the United Arab Emirates of a 3-year-old cancer patient under Karab...
THESSALONIKI, Greece — Antonis Samaras stood in the pale morning light coming through the stained glass windows of the only Thessaloniki synagogue to survive WW II and vowed, “Never again.”
For Greek Jews marking the 70th anniversary of the destruction of this city’s historic Jewish community, the Greek prime minister’s words were long awaited.
So was his presence — the first time a sitting Greek premier had set foot in a synagogue in 101 years.
“We have to be very careful to re...