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

Judaism’s biblical practice of schmita, a mandated year of rest, offers modern Jews the opportunity to diminish their consumerism. [NJJN] An Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn sent letters home to parents, banning the hipster-themed thick-framed glasses and requesting that they only buy their children simple frames. [Scallywag] The man who confessed to kidnapping and killing 6-year-old Etan Patz in 1979 in New York, will stand trial. [Forward] The 25-year-old man who defaced a Torah and Jewish prayer …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

Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro, denying that his government has an anti-Semitic bent, said his grandparents were of Sephardic Jewish descent. “My grandparents were Jewish, so many of the Maduros, same as the Moors [Muslims], converted to Catholicism in Venezuela,” Maduro told Apporea, a pro-government media outlet, last week. “The mother of the Minister of Communication and Information Ernesto Villegas is of the same tradition.” During the interview, Maduro rejected allegations he …More

This is an entirely true story, but it is based on an old lie. It was almost the end of winter in 1911, when a 13-year-old boy disappeared outside of Kiev. A week went by with no news of Andrei Yushchinsky. Then, eight days after his disappearance, his corpse was found in a cave. He had been brutally murdered, his body mutilated. Word of the shocking crime spread quickly. Locals were appalled to learn that there were over 40 pickaxe wounds to his body and head. Shock soon turned to rage. Cue the lies. "The …More

Israeli soccer star Yossi Benayoun fielded anti-Semitic abuse this week, directed at his Twitter account on his birthday. The abuse has led to a police investigation in the UK, initiated by Chelsea, Benayoun’s current team. Yossi received many birthday wishes by fans on Twitter, but not everybody took the opportunity to bless him. He decided to retweet the nasty tweet, which resulted with his team calling the police. Last month, Chelsea launched an investigation after Benayoun said he was the victim of …More

The Jewish Museum in Camden, London will host an exhibit about Amy Winehouse’s Jewish roots, and include many of her personal belongings. [Standard] The British lawyer who was overheard making anti-Semitic remarks at her firm was fined $12,000 for her actions. [Algemeiner] A documentary film, “The Optimists,” depicts how Bulgarians protested against shipping Jewish citizens to concentration camps in 1943, saving most if the country’s 48,000 Jews. [Washington Post] A Jewish café …More

A production of Richard Wagner's "Tannhauser" opera in Dusseldorf that was harshly criticized for staging Nazi atrocities was canceled after less than a week. Performances of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein company's production at the Dusseldorf Opera House are still scheduled despite the cancellation. The company had considered making changes to the staging, set in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust, but its director, Burkhard Kosminski, refused for artistic reasons, the BBC reported Thursday. "After …More

Fashion designer John Galliano will not teach at a New York fashion school following a student protest. Parsons, the New School For Design reversed its decision to hire Galliano to teach a class after being presented a petition against the move with 2,000 signatures, the Forward reported, noting that the protest was led by Jewish students. Galliano was fired as the top designer at Christian Dior two years ago after being arrested for making anti-Semitic statements at a Paris bar. “We do not want money …More

Struggling to be heard over a flock of bleating sheep, Israel’s ambassador to Senegal invited a crowd of impoverished Muslims to help themselves to some 100 sacrificial animals that the embassy had corralled at a dusty community center. That event, which was broadcast last October on national television and takes place every year to mark Tabaski, the local name of the Muslim Eid al-Adha feast, provides Israel with a powerful platform to burnish its image in a country that is 95 percent Muslim. “It …More

“There’s a Jewish freethinker’s saying about Paris,” Saul Bellow wrote in the novel “Ravelstein,” “wie Gott in Frankreich [“like God in France”]. Meaning that even God took his holidays in France. Why? Because the French are atheists and among them God himself could be carefree, a flâneur, like any tourist.” Paris is one of the most touristy cities in the world, and for good reason. As a tourist you might stroll the narrow streets of the Marais in …More

A female solicitor in Rawtenstall, England was fined for telling a colleague she “could not stand Jewish people.” [LT] The Yale University Slifka Center for Jewish Life was threatened with an arson attack on Shavuot. [NHR] John Galliano was removed from his upcoming teaching position at Parsons The New School for Design, after a protest by the school’s Jewish Students Union. [Forward] Two women have volunteered to attempt to save the Canadian Jewish News, which plans to close its operations …More