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Elie Wiesel was Jewish to his core, and in the Jewish state he was revered as a hero — so much so that two Israeli prime ministers offered to nominate him to be the country's president. Yet Wiesel didn't make Israel his home. Though he was a frequent visitor and a passionate advocate, though he felt "attached to the destiny of Israel with all the fiber of his being," as he once put it, he never became an Israeli citizen.Why not? He himself didn't know, or so he said. But perhaps the explanation was as simple as this: He was in love with...

Google has banned an extension of its Chrome browser which was being used to identify Jewish names on the internet by surrounding them with three sets of brackets, or parentheses. It was called the "coincidence detector" - a reference to a conspiracy theory about Jewish people and global control. It had around 2,500 users and a database of 8,800 common Jewish names which it could pick out on websites reported tech site Mic.

The annual statistics on the precise number of Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank) have been released by former Knesset Member Yaakov "Ketzaleh" Katz. Based on the Population Registry of Israel's Interior Ministry, there are 406,302 Jews in Judea and Samaria as of December 31, 2015. As clearly stated in the report, the statistics do not include eastern neighborhoods of Jerusalem (e.g. Pisgat Zeev, Ramat Shlomo, Ramot, Gilo, Ramat Eshkol, etc.) which are technically part of the West Bank and are home to another approximately 360,000 Jews. In the special English report released today, the Jewish...

Even jokes have their limits. During his show May 26, Conan O’Brien invited actress and recent Judiaism convert Natasha Leggero onto his show. Leggero praised her new religion for treating abortion as “cool” enough to have on “every Jewish holiday.” After all, she reasoned, it’s good to have a back-up to fall on, just like AAA for cars. Besides performing as a stand-up comedian, the 42-year-old created and stars in Comedy Central’s Another Period and has acted in films including Let’s Be Cops, Neighbors and He’s Just Not That Into You. After discussing her recent marriage, Leggero informed Conan that...

A six-mile perimeter could be created around an area of North London to help Orthodox Jews avoid restrictions on the Sabbath. Fishing wire would be suspended from tall poles to create the boundary for what would become a huge eruv, acting as an extension of the walls of a home which would give Jews greater freedom. But there are concerns the proposal to Camden Council by a group of synagogues could lead to ‘ghettoisation’ of the area, following similar fears raised in another application nearby in 2014.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Far-right parties in some European countries are winning over Jewish voters by exploiting fears about militant Islamists and mainstream parties must do much more to address Europeans' security concerns, a Jewish leader said on Tuesday. Boosted by Europe's migrant crisis, Norbert Hofer of Austria's anti-immigration Freedom Party only narrowly lost the country's presidential election on May 22. He would have been the first far-right head of state in the European Union. "I understand that, most probably, a not insignificant part of the (Jewish) community here voted for Hofer for the presidency," the head of the Conference of...

President-elect of France's umbrella of Jewish communities warns of alarming anti-Semitism, vows to fight hard. French Jews are experiencing the most difficult situation they have encountered since the end of World War II, the newly-elected president of France's umbrella of Jewish communities said. Francis Kalifat, 64, said Sunday that his first priority as president of CRIF is to fight against the anti-Semitism that he said was responsible for the situation he described. "The fight against anti-Semitism is our main cause because French Jews are in the most difficult situation they have experience since World War II," Kalifat said during an...

TAU–Cornell collaboration provides insight into unique community whose history is largely unknown A new study from Tel Aviv University, Cornell University and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine reveals genetic proof of the Jewish roots of the Bene Israel community in the western part of India. They have always considered themselves Jewish. "Almost nothing is known about the Bene Israel community before the 18th century, when Cochin Jews and later Christian missionaries first came into contact with it," says first author Yedael Waldman of both TAU's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Cornell's Department of Biological Statistics and Computational Biology. "Beyond...

A group of Jewish students at Harvard received a response this afternoon to a meeting request sent to school President Drew Faust last Wednesday – only two hours after the Washington Free Beacon inquired with Faust’s office for a story about the delay in responding to the meeting request. The students first asked Faust for a meeting on April 27th, the week after an anti-Semitism scandal at Harvard received national media attention. The students sought the meeting to raise their concerns about Harvard administration policies that they believe have supported and legitimized the growth of extremist anti-Israel events, groups, and...

As a Latina who married into a Jewish family, I've long lobbied my in-laws to include beans and rice on the Passover menu. The holiday is a time when Jews avoid leavened foods in commemoration of their biblical exodus from Egypt — when they had to flee so fast, they couldn't even let the bread rise. But beans and rice aren't leavened, I've argued, so why not include them in the Seder meal? The answer I've long gotten from my mother-in-law: tradition. You see, like many American Jews, my mother-in-law is of European ancestry, or Ashkenazi. And by tradition, Ashkenazi...

The name of the Harvard student who asked a visiting Israeli politician why she was “so smelly” has been revealed. The student is a leader in Harvard’s Arab community with a history of anti-Israeli activism. Not only that, but he’s also a man looking for a job, making his public stunt look like an incredibly bad idea. Last week, Husam El-Qoulaq rudely disrupted a panel featuring Israeli politician Tzipi Livni to ask her why she was “so smelly.” “I’m question (sic) about the odor of Tzipi Livni, very smelly, and I was just wondering,” El-Qoulaq said to a confused panel....

Suspicious white powder, together with vile anti-Semitic rant, triggered security scare; man could face year in prison. A Boulder man accused of sending letters containing a suspicious white powder to two Jewish organizations in the Colorado city pleaded guilty. Jeffery Thomas Klinkel, 34, pleaded guilty late last month to one count each of felony menacing and using a hoax chemical or biological weapon, the Daily Camera reported Monday. He will be sentenced on June 1 and faces up to five years in prison. On April 6, 2015, the Boulder JCC received a letter that read, "This Goyim is enjoying the...

Ted Cruz Joins New York Jews Preparing for Passover By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyBrooklyn, New York — April 7, 2016 … U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate Ted Cruz joined dozens of Jewish children today preparing for the Jewish holiday of Passover. The event took place at the Chabad Neshama Model Matzah Bakery this afternoon. After the matzah making party, Cruz then visited the Jewish Center of Brighton Beach where he wished dozens of New York rabbis and their families a happy and festive Passover. The Texas senator, who is in the process of closing PLO offices in Washington, was...

Israel News Agency Endorses Ted CruzBy INA Editorial StaffJerusalem, Israel — March 14, 2016 … No candidate running for the office of Presidency in the United States has both the documented foreign policy experience and dedication to Israel’s security as Senator Ted Cruz. “Off the charts brilliant,” is how legendary Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz described his former student in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer a year ago. As both Republican and Democrat candidates attempt to prove who loves Israel more, Cruz has been an outspoken critic of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran for several years. As Donald Trump could...

The Democratic presidential candidate, who has been fairly hesitant to discuss his religious background during the campaign, expressed pride in his roots during a debate with rival Hillary Clinton on Sunday in Flint, Michigan. ... During a debate between Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton on Sunday, the former rebuffed accusations that he was not proud of being Jewish. When Sanders was asked if he was deliberately keeping his Jewish faith in the background on the campaign trail, said his father's family was wiped out in the Holocaust. He described going shopping with his mother as a boy...

The Anti Defamation League, who chastised Donald Trump for his lack of response after being endorsed by infamous KKK leader David Duke, said on its official website on Tuesday that anti-Semitic Islamic religious leader Louis Farrakhan has thrown his support behind the bombastic presidential hopeful. Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Farrakhan delivered his statements in support of Donald Trump during his 2016 Saviors’ Day ser­mon on Sunday at the NOI’s Mosque Maryam in Chicago in which he also made anti-Semitic accusations of Jew­ish gov­ern­men­tal control. "[Donald Trump] is the only mem­ber who has stood in front of [the] Jew­ish com­mu­nity,...

US Republican Jewish Community Endorses Ted Cruz By Joel Leyden Israel News AgencyNew York — February 29, 2016 … Donald Trump is a master at marketing but he is not Presidential material. That is the opinion of most Republican Jews from New York to Los Angeles. Trump does have his blind support. If one goes to the Jewish Republicans or Jews 4 Trump Facebook groups and criticizes Trump, some will knee jerk and call you a Liberal, Democrat for Hillary or a member of JStreet. Never mind the fact, that this writer served in the IDF for several years, consults...

On a cold winter morning just before sunrise, snow is falling gently onto the sidewalk outside of Kossar's (367 Grand Street, 212-473-4810). Inside, the talk is all about bialys. "I can't tell you how much I missed this," says one man, taking a bite before heading back outside. "Butter. Yes please, lots of butter," a woman says as she places her order. "Oh, wow, I didn't realize there were so many kinds," says another man. Following a five month renovation, the revered Jewish bakery, in a neighborhood that has grown exponentially over the past 80 years, recently reopened with a...

A 25-year-old Jewish was stabbed Wednesday morning in crown heights in a possible hate crime, NYPD chief of detectives robert boyce said. At around 11:40 a.m. in front of 644 Empire Boulevard, the victim identified by sources as Yehuda Leib Brikman, was stabbed by a man, who Yehuda believed to be the suspect, had just passed him. Yehuda walked into a nearby check cashing center where he was treated for a stab wound in his upper back, police said, Hatzalah transported the man to Kings County Hospital where he sustained a collapsed lung police said. iac-log-default-460x330_1-300x215 From his hospital bed...

his one went by so fast that most of us seem to have missed it. This past weekend’s Saturday Night Live had not one but two Jewish jokes. One was moderately funny, notable mainly for the fact that it came from the mouth of Senator Bernie Sanders, during a back-and-forth with his doppelganger Larry David. The other, delivered by Weekend Update fake news co-anchor Michael Che, was far more pointed and may just have crossed a line. Here’s Che’s bit: “On his first visit to a U.S. mosque, President Obama called on U.S. television producers to create characters that are...