Fragments from dozens of Jewish tombstones were discovered during renovations in a Polish town near the former Nazi death camp Treblinka. The fragments were found last week in the eastern town of Sokolow Podlaski as work began on a terrace leading to the shops located at a marketplace there. “We are in contact with the mayor and the ‘matzevot’ [headstones] will return to the cemetery,” Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich said. One idea for returning them is to embed the fragments in a …More

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle met with Israeli leaders Friday in Jerusalem, iterating his nation’s support for the Jewish state. "I'm using the word friendship, which is from our understanding more than a partnership,” Westerwelle told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “This is not only a strategic alliance; this is a friendship between societies, between peoples and between governments.” He added: "We will do what we can to support the security and a peaceful and …More

A Dutch group monitoring rights in Iran urged the Netherlands and other European nations to join the United States and Canada in boycotting a UN forum on disarmament that will be chaired by Tehran. Iran’s chairmanship of the UN Conference on Disarmament “comes at the expense of the United Nations’ credibility as a body meant to safeguard global safety,” the Hague-based Iran Comite wrote to Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans on Thursday. Hillel Neuer of the Geneva-based nonprofit UN …More

Hundreds of people are expected to attend Lisbon’s first-ever Jewish film festival this week. The three-day festival, entitled “Judaica: 1st Exhibition of Cinema and Culture,” is scheduled to open on May 22 at Lisbon’s main art cinema, Cinema Sao Jorge, and will include 15 Jewish and Israeli documentary and feature productions, according to a report by the Jornal Digital news site. The Jewish community of Lisbon said on its official Facebook page that the event is the Portuguese …More

When the news first came out in 2012 that the late Amy Winehouse’s father Mitch wanted to erect a statue of his celebrated daughter, who died in 2011, the Internet’s immediate reaction was “Yikes!” A statue of Amy sounds like a hot mess waiting to happen, no? But now the artist who will be creating the statue has spoken out, reassuring fans that his interpretation of the tragically fated “Back to Black” singer will not be the disaster some are anticipating. Sculptor Scott …More

A replica of Warsaw’s Great Synagogue was unveiled Friday on the site where it was torn down by Nazis 70 years ago. The miniature reproduction is a 1:10 scale mock up made of plywood, featuring the original synagogue’s columns, towers and detailing. The Great Synagogue was demolished after SS General Juergen Stroop ordered it blown up in 1943. Friday’s ceremony took place exactly 70 years and one day after that order. "Looking at the replica, Jurgen Stroop must be turning in his grave," …More

A dozen Jewish organizations sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry expressing their concern over the rise of anti-Semitism in Hungary. The May 14 letter commended Kerry for his offices’ recent human rights report that detailed the rise of the xenophobic and anti-Semitic Jobbik party and encouraged Kerry “to keep the issue of intolerance and discrimination squarely on the US-Hungarian bilateral agenda.” The Jobbik party has called for the creation of a list of Jewish public officials …More

A woman from Cork has become Ireland’s first hero named Righteous Among the Nations. Mary Elms risked her life during World War II to help protect Jewish children, helping “a large number” escape deportation to the Rivesaltes camp in France in the summer of 1942. Elms, who died in 2002, was in France at the time with the Quaker group the Religious Society of Friends. She was just 34 when she began shielding the persecuted children from arrest. Ronald Friend, one of the children saved by Elms, …More

Internet anti-Semitism in the Czech Republic has tripled in the last year, a new report shows. The report, published by Prague’s Jewish community, has been compiled annually over the last 20 years, monitoring various genres of hate speech and hate crimes against Jews in the area. The report found this week that for 2012, 80 anti-Semitic Internet posts were found on Czech sites, compared to 17 to 30 per year for the previous five years. The report noted that recent political campaigns could be a …More

Construction workers near the sole surviving synagogue in Oswiecim turned up a postcard that sheds light on prewar Jewish life in the Polish town. Oswiecim, the site of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, had a majority Jewish population before World War II. The postcard, stained and crumpled, came to light this week during construction work to shore up a retaining wall of the Chevra Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue. A lawyer in Paris named Georges Lewinsky sent the postcard on July 17, 1935 to a Jewish client in Oswiecim …More

Hundreds of singers from across Europe convened in Vienna for the first European Jewish Choir Festival. The festival will culminate on May 12 in a gala concert titled “Shir LaShalom—A Song for Peace” at the Austria Center Vienna, where 400 vocalists from Jewish choirs from 16 European cities will present their repertoires. The event, which is expected to draw some 1,500 spectators over the weekend, is sponsored by the European Jewish Parliament, the European Jewish Union, the Jewish Community …More

Israeli leaders and groups around the world marked the 68th anniversary of VE Day yesterday, a commemoration of Nazi Germany’s surrender. Each year, the anniversary is marked in the Jewish state by parades and celebrations, where Jewish vets come out to remember the victory. “I call on you, young people standing here today: Look toward these fighters, look into their eyes and know that they are role models,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said yesterday at one such rally. Hundreds marched in the …More