Syrian rebels nab UN peacekeepers near the Golan Heights. [Times of Israel] Oberlin students vote for divestment from the West Bank. [Forward] The Elie Wiesel Ethics Prize is awarded to a student for an essay on Hurricane Sandy. [Algemeiner] Israel backs the most recent ruling on the Women of the Wall. [ABC] Jack Lew's signature gets a makeover. [CNN] Jewish groups warn of neo-Nazi parties in Europe. [Fox] Daily Beast contributor Eli Lake shuts down an anti-Semitic rant during a C-SPAN call-in show. …More

Two decades ago, President Bill Clinton and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel inaugurated the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. This week, the two joined together once more to celebrate the museum’s 20th anniversary. “Our mission today remains the same as it was 35 years ago when Congress mandated the creation of a living memorial to the Holocaust on our National Mall,” said Wiesel at the commemoration. “Yesterday, today and tomorrow, we must bear witness. We must carry the memories of the …More

Every May Jews across the United States honor Jewish American Heritage Month, an annual commemoration begun by President George W. Bush in 2006. The decision to honor American Jewry with a national month was the result of immense effort on the parts of the Jewish Museum of Florida and politicians Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Sen. Arlen Specter, who each drafted resolutions urging the White House to begin the tradition. The resolutions passed unanimously in the House in 2005 and in the Senate in February …More

The New York teacher who assigned her students to write a persuasive essay on why Jews are evil was placed on leave and will be disciplined. The teacher, who has not yet been named, was placed on leave Friday from her job at Albany High School and could face a reprimand or firing, according to the Albany Times Union. Albany Public Schools Superintendent Marguerite Vanden Wyngaard, speaking Friday at a news conference with members of the Anti-Defamation League and Jewish Federations, said the teacher will be …More

“Keeping My Hope” is a story of Holocaust perseverance, an optimistic and thoughtful representation of what life was like living under Nazi oppression. It’s also authored by a 13-year-old Korean-American boy. Christopher Huh isn’t Jewish. He has no family that suffered through the Holocaust and has never visited a concentration camp. Nevertheless, when the eighth grader began learning about the Shoah in class, he felt compelled to investigate further. Christopher explains in the …More

Elie Wiesel, the speaker of Israel's Knesset and two former Israel Supreme Court justices are among those who will select the winner of a new $1 million prize for serving as a role model for Jewish values. The Genesis Philanthropy Group, a consortium of mega-wealthy philanthropist-businessmen from the former Soviet Union, announced the formation of the two committees that will determine the inaugural winner of the Genesis Prize, which will be given out annually. Dubbed the Jewish Nobel Prize by Time Magazine, …More

In late August 1948, general director of the Minister of Defense Levi Eshkol, code name Layish, sent the following message to his fellow operatives: “We are prepared to send two ships of ours to meet the Ishmaelite. The ships will go out in order to receive the cargo and will be careful not to enter the sea battle.” The ‘Ishmaelite’ was, in actuality, the Italian freighter Argero, which was loaded with rifles, ammunition and spare parts headed to Alexandria intended to aid the Arabs in the …More

A convicted Holocaust denier has been ordered to visit a Shoah memorial as part of his punishment. Gyorgy Nagy, 42, was arrested in 2011 after holding up a sign reading “The Shoah Did Not Happen” at a Budapest rally. Nagy was the first Hungarian brought in under the nation’s new law against Holocaust denial, which passed in 2010. Now, Nagy, an unemployed computer technician, has been ordered to visit either Hungary’s Holocaust memorial center, Auschwitz or Yad Vashem in Israel. If he …More

Elie Wiesel and President Obama are not writing a book together, as reported by an Israeli newspaper. The subscription-only Publisher's Lunch, citing a source close to Obama, reported that there is no book and no book deal, the Forward reported Tuesday. Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and author, told the Israeli daily Haaretz last month that the two would resume writing "a book of two friends" after the election. Haaretz had reported that Wiesel and Obama became friends in 2009 when Wiesel joined Obama on a visit …More

Elie Wiesel was among this year’s Jewish Peoplehood Award recipients, an honor handed out recently during a ceremony in Jerusalem. The Nobel Laureate was joined by Israeli jazz musician Avishai Cohen as recipients of the prize, which is organized by the NADAV Foundation. “I am proud to present the fourth consecutive NADAV Peoplehood Award to Elie Wiesel and Avishai Cohen for their personal commitment to empowering Jews around the world,” the organization’s founder, Leonid Nevzlin, said. …More

Elie Wiesel and President Barack Obama are working on a book together, the Nobel Laureate recently told Haaretz. "I am always working on something, even now. But I can't tell you about it. I believe in superstitions. You don't talk about a child who hasn't been born,” the famed Holocaust survivor and professor said. "[President Barack] Obama and I decided to write a book together, a book of two friends." Wiesel and Obama first became acquainted in 2009 and have kept up a relationship since. The pair toured …More

George McGovern is widely remembered for advocating immediate American withdrawal from Vietnam and sharp reductions in defense spending. Yet despite his reputation as a pacifist, the former U.S. senator and 1972 presidential candidate, who died Sunday at 90, did believe there were times when America should use military force abroad. Case in point: the Allies' failure to bomb Auschwitz, an episode with which McGovern had a little-known personal connection. In June 1944, the Roosevelt administration received a …More