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Women risk arrest to pray
:: YNET :: Once a month a group of Jewish women risk arrest and brave a crowd of angry ultra-Orthodox men calling them Nazis, to pray at the Western Wall, the holiest place in Judaism.
In this Holy City, where the focus of differing opinions is more often on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, these religious Jews say they face discrimination just because of their gender.
Their adversaries, including the rabbi of the Wall, say the women have no business wearing such religious garments as yarmulkes and prayer shawls, or carrying the Torah, the Jewish holy book.
Such things, the ultra-Orthodox Jews say, are reserved for men. Worse yet, the women have also come under fire for singing, with some rabbis complaining this could provoke feelings of lust among the men praying on the other side of the partition.
On a recent Friday, about 200 members of the Women at the Wall (WoW) showed up to pray at the main Jewish pilgrimage site despite pouring rain and insults hurled from across the partition that separates the men's section from the far smaller one reserved for women.
Captain of famed Exodus refugee ship dies at 86
:: By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer :: JERUSALEM - Yitzhak "Ike" Ahronovitch, the captain of the Exodus ship whose attempt to take Holocaust survivors to Palestine built support for Israel's founding, has died. He was 86.
He died Wednesday in northern Israel after a long illness, his daughter Ella said.
The Exodus 1947 ship left France in July 1947 carrying more than 4,500 people - most of them Holocaust survivors and other displaced Jews - in a secret effort to reach Palestine. At the time, Britain controlled Palestine and was limiting the immigration of Jews.
The British navy seized the vessel off Palestine's shores, and after a battle on board that left three people dead, turned the ship and its passengers back to Europe, where the refugees were forced to disembark in Germany.
The ship's ordeal was widely reported worldwide, garnering sympathy for the refugees, especially because they were taken to Germany, where the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews during World War II originated.
A Jewish Heart for Africa Shines Its Jewish-American-Israeli Solar Lights
:: Green Prophet :: In Africa, village children struggle to study and complete their homework by candlelight. The medical clinics are closed. Emergency surgeries and nighttime births are performed by the light of a leaking kerosene lamp, held close to patients' open wounds. And there is no refrigerator. Without proper storage, children will go without vaccines for tuberculosis, measles and other preventable diseases.
But Israel has the power to help, says the Jewish Heart for Africa, a non-profit organization that uses sustainable Israeli technologies to facilitate African development.
Since its founding in 2008, the organization has completed 23 solar projects, powering African schools, medical clinics and water pumping systems in Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda. They have provided 70,000 African people with electricity for education, clean water and medical care. 3,000 children have received vaccines stored in their solar powered refrigerators.
Brazil Jews decry exclusion from college entrance exam
:: haaretz :: Brazilian Jewish teenagers this week protested what they called their "exclusion" from a national exam for high school graduates set to take place on Shabbat, after a Brazilian court said providing Jews with an alternative date would "undermine equality."
"In some areas in Brazil, such a Rio de Janeiro, observant Jewish students cannot apply to some of the leading universities," said Alex Kingel, 17, from Sao Paulo, who will not be taking the test.
Kingel explained that because Rio de Janeiro's leading university is a federal one - funded by the central government - applicants must take the test, known locally as ENEM. The exam, which is not mandatory, is not necessary for applying to locally-funded state universities.
Simone Janovich, also 17, from Higienopolis, Sao Pualo, said: "If I have to, I will go to college even without taking the ENEM."
Last week the Brazilian supreme court reversed a ruling by a Sao Paulo court, which determined that the country's education ministry needed to provide an alternate date for Jews. The test is set for December 5.
Jewish leaders urge Obama to visit Israel
:: haaretz :: The Israeli public's low approval rating of Barack Obama troubles not only Washington, but also leaders in the Jewish world.
Developments in the triangular relationship between Jerusalem, Washington, and North American Jewry were discussed recently in a meeting in New York, and changes in US foreign policy and their possible implications for Israel and the Jewish community were analyzed.
Sixty prominent leaders and thinkers of the Jewish people participated in the two-day event organized by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute to assess the new situation and its possible impact on the triangular relationship.
Dan Shapiro, senior director for the Near East and North Africa at the National Security Council, addressed the group and listened to concerns raised by the participants in the proceedings.
The discussions confirmed deep confidence in the strength of the US-Israel relationship, but also anxiety that the efforts of the American administration to open a new chapter with the Arab and Muslim world may erode its special relationship with Israel.
A sukkah grows in Uganda
:: haaretz :: After five years of rabbinical studies in Los Angeles and Israel, Rabbi Gershom Sizomu has returned to the Abudaya Jewish tribe of Uganda with full spirits and his eyes on the future of his community.
In May 2008, Sizomu completed his studies at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at American Jewish University in Los Angeles (four in Los Angeles and one in Israel), Sizomu was ordained, then returned home with his family.
Since his return, he has been made chief rabbi of Uganda, completed 250 conversions, opened a yeshiva in Nabugoye Hill, fed nearby villages suffering from starvation and welcomed hundreds of Jewish guests from around the world in a modern guesthouse (with electricity and running water) that was funded by American Jews.
The Abayudaya ("People of Judah" in Luganda, the local language)- some 1,100 Jews in about eight communities - live mostly outside Mbale, a city some five hours east of Entebbe airport.
The unique story of Finland's Jews
:: haaretz :: Several survivors of a Nazi train transporting concentration camp inmates are being reunited with some of the Army veterans who liberated them during World War II.
Nine survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp are taking part in a three-day history symposium starting Wednesday at Hudson Falls High School, 45 miles (70 kilometers) north of Albany.
They were among some 2,500 Jewish men, women and children aboard a Nazi train that had departed the concentration camp ahead of advancing Allied troops in April 1945. They were liberated near Magdeburg, Germany, by units of the 30th Infantry Division.
Three survivors were first reunited with one of the liberators during a reunion held at the school in September 2007. This week's reunion includes five survivors who are meeting their liberators for the first time.
The unique story of Finland's Jews
:: ynet :: Snow, cold temperatures, the Winter Olympics and Jari Litmanen are probably what most Israelis think about when they hear the word "Finland". Not many know that the Scandinavian country has a Jewish community with a history dating back almost 200 years.
An exhibition surveying the story of Finland's Jews opened recently at the Nahum Goldmann Museum of the Jewish Diaspora in Tel Aviv. The time span covered starts in the 1830s and continues until the 1970s. Visitors will enjoy a rare peek into a small Jewish community with a unique story.
The exhibition, titled "A Prayer Tent in a Snowy Forest - the Story of the Jews of Finland", presents documents, photos from private albums, objects and letters, which together seek to depict the life of the community that includes some 1,500 people these days.
The exhibition was produced by the National Archives of Finland in 2006, when Helsinki's synagogue celebrated its 100th anniversary.
Netanyahu says UN speech was inspired by Lubavitcher Rebbe
:: jpost :: Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hassidic movement, was the inspiration for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech in the UN, Netanyahu said last week, following the speech in the General Assembly.
The prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told reporters that his defense of the Jewish people was inspired by Schneerson, who urged him during a 1984 discussion at Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters to "light a candle of truth" in his dealings with the UN.
"'Remember, you are going to the UN,'" Netanyahu said, relating to the reporters what Schneerson told him over two decades ago, when he became Israel's ambassador to the world body. "'There is an assembly hall there that has eternal falsehood, utter darkness."
"'Remember that in a hall of perfect darkness, totally dark, if you light one small candle, its light will be seen from afar. Its precious light will be seen by everyone. Your mission is to light a candle for truth and the Jewish people.'"
Dutch Web sites said to be anti-Jewish
:: haaretz :: Dutch social media sites are rife with anti-Semitism linked to Israel, according to a new report compiled by Dutch and Israeli monitors who study online discussion.
Though described by some as "superficial," the report prompted Holland's Political Reformed Party to demand the justice ministry address the issue.
In preparing the 11-page report, the team of Web monitors reviewed two online outlets - the Hyves social network, often described as the "Dutch Facebook," and the discussion forums of the respected, mainstream newspaper Volkskrant for three months, until August.
On Hyves - the most popular social network in Netherlands with nine million Dutch members - the team documented calls to "murder all Jews" and for Adolf Hitler "to finish off his job."
The report says that moderators on Hyves take no action to stop the posting of inflammatory anti-Semitic content on its pages.