NEW YORK (JTA) – The Dubai firm seeking to take over some operations at US ports reportedly enforces a boycott against Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported last Tuesday that Dubai Ports World examines “certificates of origin” to make sure that products entering Dubai do not originate in Israel. The Post reported that the US Office of Anti-Boycott Compliance fined at least three companies last year for complying with boycott-related requests received from the Dubai government, which runs Dubai Ports World. Conclusion of the deal, which had been approved by the Bush administration, has been postponed amid controversy related to security concerns of an Arab-owned company operating part of the ports.
WASHINGTON (JTA) – The Jewish Council for Public Affairs voted to monitor guidelines for religious tolerance at the US Air Force Academy. The umbrella organization for Jewish community relations councils and national organizations said last Monday it would “closely track” the implementation of the Air Force’s interim guidelines to ensure that they safeguard against proselytizing and improper sectarian prayer. “The critical question is whether people who serve in the military understand the principle reason for being in the military, which is to support and defend the Constitution,” said Rabbi Joel Schwartzman of Colorado, a retired Air Force Jewish chaplain. The JCPA also voted at its recent annual meeting to support reform of the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina and to form a task force to address genocide in the Sudan. The JCPA also reiterated its 2005 pledge to raise awareness about government-sponsored massacres in Darfur, Sudan, and urged the United States and the international community not to assist a Palestinian Authority that is run by the Hamas.
NEW YORK (JTA) – Convicted Holocaust denier David Irving reiterated that Hitler did not have a systematic plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews. Speaking from his jail cell in Austria, Irving told the BBC that “Adolf Hitler’s own involvement” in the Holocaust “has a big question mark behind it.” Irving also said he now believes some Jews were gassed during World War II, but he does not believe that many people were gassed at Auschwitz, where he contends there were only two small gas chambers. Irving was recently given a three-year sentence for a 1989 speech and interview he gave in Austria in which he denied that there were gas chambers at Auschwitz. Irving’s lawyers and prosecutors have both appealed the sentence.
MOSCOW (JTA) – A Russian man suspected of attacking worshippers in a Moscow synagogue pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted murder. Alexander Koptsev, 20, told a Russian judge last Tuesday that he was not guilty because the Criminal Code was “written by Jews and the Jewish Mafia.” Prosecutors classified the Jan.11 attack in which eight people were injured as attempted murder and attempt to cause injuries because of ethnic or religious hatred, which in Russia carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. The hearings are expected to take at least a few more weeks.
NEW YORK (JTA) – A play in New York about the death of a pro-Palestinian demonstrator at the hands of an Israeli bulldozer was delayed. James Nicola, the artistic director of the New York Theater workshop, said he decided to delay the March 22 opening of My Name is Rachel Corrie, because of concerns from the local Jewish community. “The uniform answer we got was that the fantasy that we could present the work of this writer simply as a work of art without appearing to take a position was just that, a fantasy,” Nicola was quoted saying in The New York Times. The play was a hit at the Royal Court Theater in London last year. Corrie was accidentally run over and killed by an Israeli bulldozer as it tried to uncover arms tunnels in the Gaza Strip in 2003.
NEW YORK (JTA) – Gideon Aronoff was named the president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Aronoff has served as the organization’s Washington director since 2000, and has been active in numerous immigration legislative battles. “Gideon has been a strong coalition-builder in the Jewish community,” HIAS Chairman Jerome Teller said. “He has taken a leadership role in bringing about joint collaboration in the community.” Before joining HIAS, Aronoff was active in the Soviet Jewry movement. He replaces Neil Greenbaum, who ran HIAS on an interim basis since the resignation of Leonard Glickman in July.
MOSCOW (JTA) – Jewish officials in the former Soviet Union appealed to Uzbek authorities to investigate the death of the Central Asian country’s Jewish leader. Rabbi Avraham Yagudayev, 33, died last Saturday of injuries he received two days earlier in what the authorities have described as a road accident. Yagudayev was found unconscious and severely injured on a road near his synagogue, but the circumstances of the tragedy remain unknown, local Jewish leaders say. Yagudayev was a leader of the Bukharian Jewish community of Uzbekistan and chairman of the synagogue in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent. The Federation of Jewish Communities of the Former Soviet Union called on the authorities to determine whether Yagudayev was a victim of an antisemitic attack.
NEW YORK (JTA) – London’s mayor said he would appeal a suspension he received for comparing a Jewish journalist to a Nazi. Ken Livingstone appealed the month-long suspension, which is scheduled to begin Wednesday. The Adjudication Panel for England, which hears complaints against local officials, found Livingstone guilty recently. The three-person panel’s ruling comes after Livingstone asked a critical Jewish reporter from London’s Evening Standard if he was a “German war criminal” and accused him of acting “like a concentration camp guard.” Livingstone has long courted controversy by censuring Israel and befriending an openly anti-Zionist imam.
MONTREAL (JTA) – Members of Montreal’s Jewish community held a vigil to express solidarity with French Jews after the murder of a French Jew. The rally, held recently, came after Ilan Halimi died after being tortured. Youssouf Fofana, the alleged leader of a gang suspected of the murder, appeared last Monday in a court in the West African country of Ivory Coast, where he fled after the crime was committed.
NEW YORK (JTA) – A US appeals court upheld a ruling revoking the citizenship of a man for his World War II-era activities. The opinion issued by the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit affirms the May 2005 decision against Josias Kumpf, 81, who has admitted to serving at the Sachsenhausen and Trawniki camps during the war. At Trawniki, Kumpf stood guard as mass murderers were committed.
NEW YORK (JTA) – Columbia University inaugurated an institute for Israel and Jewish Studies. The institute, inaugurated Feb. 22, is aimed at serving as a centre for teaching about Israel and Jewish studies on the New York City campus. The establishment of the institute comes after a controversy that some professors made anti-Israel statements in their classrooms, creating an anti-Israel environment on campus.
NEW YORK (JTA) – Sen. Hillary Clinton called on the international community to shun Hamas. “No nation in the world should recognize a government” committed to its neighbour’s destruction, the Democratic senator from New York said last Sunday at the annual congressional breakfast sponsored by the New York Jewish Community Relations Council. Clinton also said US policy on Iran should be “clear and unequivocal: We cannot allow Iran to build nuclear weapons.” Clinton, who is rumoured to be considering a run for president in 2008, also tried to link security concerns with domestic issues. “It’s a false choice” to separate security issues and “our mutual commitment” to help the poor and needy, she told the approximately 250 people in attendance. Speaker after speaker at the event, including Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and several members of New York’s congressional delegation, also spoke about the need to contain Hamas and Iran.
NEW YORK (JTA) – Police in Florida arrested 17 people, mostly counter-demonstrators, at a neo-Nazi rally. The arrests came during a white supremacist rally a week ago Saturday through a black neighbourhood in Orlando. An estimated 30 supremacists, wearing black boots and arm patches with swastikas, were greeted by about 100 counter-demonstrators. Most of those arrested were leftist counter-demonstrators charged with disorderly conduct, The Associated Press reported.
NEW YORK (JTA) – A Danish sponsor of the country’s national soccer team reversed its decision to pull its logos from the team’s T-shirts for a match with Israel. Arla Foods had initially said that its company logo will be removed from the team’s jerseys for last Wednesday’s game because it didn’t want to inflame Muslim public opinion. On Sunday, it decided to display the logo, which may reflect an easing up of the boycott, the International Herald Tribune reported. The recent backlash following a Danish newspaper’s publication of cartoons satirizing the Islamic prophet Mohammed reportedly cost Arla some $1.5 million a day in lost exports to the Middle East.
ROME (JTA) – Representatives of Israel’s Chief Rabbinate and the Vatican are discussing issues of life and death. The talks focus on what each faith views as the beginning of life and the end of life, and the resulting ethical implications. The meetings take place within the Israeli-Vatican Bilateral Commission on Interreligious Relations. At the same time, the Steering Committee of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations will meet in Rome to prepare for a meeting in November with the Vatican’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews. The meeting will focus on Jewish and Catholic teachings on health care, including the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
WASHINGTON (JTA) – NATO is not ready for Israel’s membership, a senior US official said. “I think if this issue were to be put on the table formally within NATO, I think we’d find it immediately very controversial with a large number of countries saying not ready, not now,” Kurt Volker, the deputy assistant secretary of state for European affairs, told an audience last Thursday at Howard University in Washington. “Solve the Israeli-Palestinian issue first, solve the Arab-Israeli issue first. Israel is not a European country, and after all, NATO is Europe and North America.’’
ROME (JTA) – Amos Luzzatto submitted his resignation as president of Italy’s leading Jewish group. Luzzatto, 78, cited health reasons for his decision to step down from the Union of Italian Jewish Communities last Friday. His term would have ended this summer.
Index | Letters to the Editor | Main Page | Op Ed | Photos
Send Letters To The Editor:
editor@jewishtribune.ca
This site hosted by:
vex.net
