Multiple anti-Semitic attacks in Sweden have prompted the European Jewish Congress to call for a meeting with the Swedish Prime Minister. [Israel National News] There is lower enrollment in Jewish day schools in Massachusetts due to a combination of lower income for parents and less funds for scholarships. The solution may be a statewide education tax credit program. [Boston.com] A Jewish Buenos Aires radio station, launched after the Israeli embassy bombing, will mark its 20th anniversary with a street party …More

Jewish-American contractor Alan Gross asked the US government to sign a non-belligerency pact with Cuba in an effort to obtain his release from a military hospital there. In a meeting with a Cuba specialist from a non-profit research center in Washington, Gross asked that the United States negotiate for his release and a dialogue with no preconditions be held between the two governments, NBC News reported. On Sunday, about 300 people held a candlelight vigil in front of the Cuban Embassy in Washington to mark …More

More than 500 rabbis urged the release of Alan Gross, citing the possibility that he has a cancerous growth. "We would urge your government to release Mr. Gross on humanitarian grounds," said the letter sent Sunday to Cuban President Raul Castro. "Alternatively, if despite his and his family’s suffering over the past three years in prison you remain determined to detain him, we would urge you to allow a doctor of his choosing to evaluate and treat him for whatever medical conditions that he may have." The …More

US prisoner Alan Gross may be suffering from cancer, according to a review released today. "Gross has a potentially life-threatening medical problem that has not been adequately evaluated to modern medical standards," U.S. radiologist Alan Cohen said in a statement released by Gross' attorney Jared Genser. Gross’ wife Judy originally reported her husband had developed a mass on his shoulder, after her last visit to his Cuban prison. A Cuban doctor deemed the mass as a “hematoma,” stating it …More

A Cuban Jewish leader visited Alan Gross last week in honor of Yom Kippur, saying she found the imprisoned contractor to be in “good spirits.” Adela Dworin, president of the Hebrew Community of Cuba, described her meeting with Gross to Reuters. Gross is a 63-year-old Jewish US citizen serving 15 years in a Cuban cell for installing illegal Internet connections in 2009. Since then, activists have petitioned the Cuban government for Gross’ release. Last month, his wide Judy Gross said she was …More

Cuban President Raul Castro's daughter said that jailed American Jewish contractor Alan Gross should be released in conjunction with the United States release of the so-called Cuban Five. In an interview on CNN to be aired Monday, Mariela Castro told host Christiane Amanpour: "Alan Gross has been granted everything that he’s asked for: He has been able to see his wife, he has been able to have matrimonial, conjugal visits, and he has been treated with respect and dignity the way we always treat prisoners in …More

Alan Gross supporters are pushing for concessions to be made toward the Cuban Five in exchange for the release of the Jewish-American prisoner. Gross was jailed in 2009 for installing Internet systems in a small Jewish community on the island nation, sentenced last year to 15 years in prison. An official in the Cuban Foreign Ministry recently intimated that the fate of the Cuban Five, a group of Cuban spies imprisoned in the US, would be a contingency of Gross’ release. Anonymous sources close to the issue …More

The Cuban Jewish community seeks news from the outside world about the global Jewish community. [Times of Israel] The Danish government will introduce an optional label to distinguish Israeli products from those produced in West Bank settlements. [Times of Israel] The Shin Bet, the Israel Security Agency, discovers a Hamas-affiliated cell planning a series of attacks, including a kidnapping. [The Jerusalem Post] Yerach Tucker believes the Torah is our foundation. What do you think? [Israel Hayom] Archeologists …More

Authorities in Cuba are ready to negotiate the status of jailed American Alan Gross, a senior Cuban official said. "We have made clear to the US government that we are ready to have a negotiation in order to try and find a solution, a humanitarian solution to Mr. Gross' case on a reciprocal basis," Josefina Vidal, the top official in the Cuban Foreign Ministry handling North America, said in an interview on CNN on May 10. Vidal would not offer specifics, but prompted by interviewer Wolf Blitzer, she said the …More

Alan Gross pledged to return to Cuba should the government release him to visit his ailing mother. "I would return to Cuba," Gross told CNN in a home interview last Friday. "You know, you--you can quote me on that. I'm saying it live. I would return to Cuba if they let me visit my mother before she dies. And we've gotten no response, no response whatsoever." He dismissed a reported Cuban offer to fly his mother, who lives in Texas, to Cuba as "baloney," noting that she is too ill to travel. His mother, 90, is …More

One of the world’s most interesting, yet under-discussed Jewish communities is that of Cuba. Following an information session about Latino Jewry, Jspace spoke with Dr. Myra Levy, President of the Cuban Sephardic Jewish community about Jewish life in Havana. She told Foreign Affairs correspondent Rob Lattin that anti-Semitism largely does not exist inside of Cuba and that most of the Jewish materials used in Jewish Sunday school are provided by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Community. Jspace: What …More

Demonstrators in Egypt protest against a return of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak’s official. [Haaretz] Organizers of the pro-Palestinian “flytilla” say Lufthansa broke international law by cancelling their airline tickets. [Ynet] And a German songwriter picks up where Gunter Grass left off, uploading a YouTube video to sing, “Israel, I love you, but don’t attack Iran.” [Ynet] Elsewhere, a woman in Israel who acted as a Hasidic leader is remembered decades after her death. …More