News Brief

Claims Conference To Release Property List

04/30/2008 | by Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

After repeated requests from survivor organizations and the media, the Conference on Material Claims Against Germany has decided to publish a list of unclaimed Jewish properties it obtained from the former East Germany and later sold. The organization said it would also publish the amount of money received from each of these sales, which began in 1993.
Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Claims Conference, said it was decided to publish the list to put to rest persistent claims that the Claims Conference had amassed billions of dollars from the sales.

When These Beasts Feast, Hold The Yeast

04/23/2008 | by Steve Lipman  | Staff Writer

What does a 14,000-pound elephant eat?
Anything he wants.

Keeping Up A Neighborhood Tradition

04/16/2008 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

The customers of Aron Streit Inc., a New York City fixture for kosher-for-Passover matzah and other holiday food items since 1925, have one wish during this shopping season: Next year on the Lower East Side.
The bakery and retail store at the corner of Rivington and Suffolk streets, the neighborhood’s last family-owned matzah-making facility, recently went on the market for $25 million.

Fulani Theater Kids Tour Holocaust Museum

04/09/2008 | by Adam Dickter | Assistant Managing Editor

Members of a youth theater that was criticized by Jewish groups for a 2004 dramatization of the Crown Heights riots were to tour the Museum of Jewish Heritage-Living Memorial to the Holocaust on Wednesday.
One of the founders of the All Stars Project is Lenora Fulani, a political activist and frequent candidate who, last August, publicly apologized for writing in a 1988 article that Jews “sold their souls to acquire Israel” and were “mass murderers of people of color.” She also launched an ad campaign in 2004 to insist she is not an anti-Semite.

Canadian Shuls To Leave United Synagogue

04/02/2008 | by Stewart Ain | Staff Writer

The leadership of Adath Israel Congregation in Toronto has voted to leave the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism immediately because it no longer represents their more conservative views, according to the Canadian Jewish News.
“We find the chasm between Conservative Judaism in the United States and Conservative Judaism here to be growing larger and wider,” Rabbi Steven Saltzman, the congregation’s spiritual leader, was quoted as saying.

The Children Of Exile Rally In Tel Aviv

04/02/2008 | by Steve Lipman | Staff Writer

Discharged Israeli soldiers, on spiritual sojourns in the Far East after they leave the service, usually carry backpacks.
Last week some Israelis carried political posters, in Tel Aviv, on behalf of Tibet.
In separate rallies outside the Chinese embassy and the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, Israelis joined young members of Tibetan families in protests against recent Chinese violence in Tibet.