Israel and Australia jointly released stamps marking the charge of the Australian Light Horse Brigade at Beersheba in 1917. The official release Friday in the office of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy celebrates the friendship between Australia and the Zionist enterprise that has endured since the battle. Israel’s Ambassador to Australia, Yuval Rotem, noted the friendships forged between Australian soldiers and Jewish residents amid the 1917 battle. “Despite great geographical distance …More

Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, was made Australia's first honorary citizen. At a ceremony Monday at Government House in Canberra, Prime Minister Julia Gillard said it was "entirely fitting" that "this man of moral courage and heroic example” be named as Australia's first honorary citizen. Among the guests was Frank Vajda, who faced near-certain death from a firing squad in 1944 when Wallenberg arrived to secure his release. Also present was …More

US, Canadian and Australian officials walked out of a meeting of United Nations nuclear watchdog agency when the Iranian envoy accused Israel of genocide. Joseph Macmanus, the US ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, stormed out of the meeting in Vienna on Wednesday after Ali Asghar Soltaneh made the accusation, as did Canadian and Australian officials, according to a Reuters report. Macmanus earlier had accused Iran of "deception, defiance and delay" in its dealing with the agency. The meeting …More

The Seeking Kin column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. Several “Seeking Kin” columns have presented people’s searches for descendants of relatives who emigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States. Now comes Naomi Bloch of Melbourne, Australia, with a search involving a twist: She hopes to find cousins who remained in the Old Country. Early in World War I, Russia expelled communities of Lithuanian Jews after fabricating charges that they were spying for and otherwise …More

An Australian Jewish school faces accusations of abuse. [JPost] Is Montreal a virtual Jewish museum? [Tablet] France is set to return stolen art to Jewish owners. [Arutz Sheva] A Jewish cemetery in Romania is vandalized. [Arutz Sheva] A Jewish MP asks the UK's Liberal Democrats to condemn anti-Semitic members. [Jewish Press] The Burgas report may give the US and Israel leverage to make Hezbollah a terror group in Europe. [Forward] Yeshiva University beats Columbia in the Harlem Shake. [Tablet] …More

Australia has ordered an investigation into the case of “Prisoner X,” a two-year old story concerning an alleged Australian Mossad agent who killed himself in Israeli prison. The story, which is shrouded in secrecy, circulated among headlines yesterday, though Israeli media remained absent due to a government-issued gag order. The case involves Ben Zygier, a Melbourne-native who reportedly joined Mossad as a secret agent after immigrating to the Jewish state in 2000. In 2010, Zygier hung himself …More

Australia’s prime minister is taking some flak, after calling for a national election to take place on Yom Kippur next September. PM Julia Gillard made the announcement yesterday, a move that would mean a shut out at the polls for the nation’s 100,000-strong Jewish community. Jewish leaders within Australia have taken varying sides on the debate, with some calling it an insensitivity and others labeling it a non-issue. Executive Council of Australian Jewry Director Peter Wertheim told reporters, …More

A 92-year-old Auschwitz survivor was among more than a dozen Jews to be honored on Australia Day. Eddie Jaku, a guide at the Sydney Jewish Museum since 1992, received a Medal of the Order of Australia in Saturday's awards that featured 425 men and 146 women. Jaku travels frequently to the country's capital of Canberra to recount his story to newly commissioned officers at the Defense Academy. "I survived Auschwitz but I lost so many family and friends," he told J-Wire, a local Jewish website. "My life was …More

A major section of the border fence between Israel and Egypt has been completed, reducing the number of infiltrators to near zero. [Algemeiner] Celebrations marking the anniversary of Fatah's conception include masks, axes and firearms. [Ynet] The man behind the Tel Aviv bus bombing during Pillar of Defense has been indicted. [Times of Israel] Reports show a sharp rise in the number of Israeli Orthodox children not learning math or English in school. [Times of Israel] Israel hopes to reclaim a share of the …More

A hidden camera investigative report that aired recently on Israeli’s Kolbotek program has enraged animal rights activists in Australia and Israel. Groups from both nations are banding together to demand Tnuva’s Adom-Adom slaughterhouse in Beit Shean to be closed and the workers investigated after horrific animal abuse at the plant was revealed. Israeli journalist Ronen Bar’s expose showed soon to be slaughtered animals at the Tnuva plant being stunned in their anuses and genitalia and being …More

Teaching the Holocaust will be mandatory in schools across Australia. The Holocaust will be taught in all states and territories to students in years 9 and 10, or aged 14 to 16, as a major world event of World War II, a spokesman for the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority said last week. The state of New South Wales will be the first to introduce the lesson, beginning in 2014, with the other states and territories to follow. The move follows a submission first lodged by the Executive …More

A Palestinian youth in Hebron was killed when he pulled a fake gun on a border police officer. [Times of Israel] Are anti-Zionist policies in South Africa tarnishing the legacy of Nelson Mandela? [Forward] New clues surface in the 1982 bombing of Sydney Jewish sites. [Haaretz] A suspicious package was found at a Jewish center in New Jersey. [NJ] Israel and Canada have signed an agreement to strengthen ties and aid. [Algemeiner] Is there some sort of battle going on between Lena Dunham and Gawker we should …More