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

We told you recently that Sarah Silverman had launched JASH, a new YouTube project, and there’s now a new JASH video! Silverman, the queen of very strange, offbeat humor, has one-upped herself. The “Jesus is Magic” and “Sarah Silverman Program” star loves making hilarious videos ripe for Internet consumption and her latest is all about France. In the new clip, Silverman takes on black and white French art house cinema. The short, “Féte des Pets” (“Fart …More

An annual chocolate celebration in France will pay tribute to the Jewish community for the first time, 500 years after European Jewry brought he sweet delight to France in the first place. The city of Bayonne, noted as France’s chocolate capital, will include a nod to Jewish heritage on the region’s Chocolate Day this Friday. The tribute is in reference to the 16th century Portuguese Jews who first brought chocolate to Bayonne when fleeing the Inquisition. “Since we are the inheritors of the …More

The descendants of a renowned Parisian art collector are in a dispute with a Norwegian museum over ownership of a valuable, Nazi-looted Matisse painting. Paul Rosenberg purchased “Woman in Blue in Front of Fireplace” in 1937, the same year Henri Matisse painted the work. It was confiscated by Nazi forces in 1941, just one of an estimated 160 pieces—including Picassos, Renoirs and Cezannes—that SS guards were sent to seize from Rosenberg. Rosenberg fled to the US to escape deportation to …More

Iron dome batteries are deployed in northern Israel as tension with Syria heats up. [ABC] Ultra-Orthodox Jewish college wins $10.6 million in public funds. [NJ.com] Israel asks Google to re-think its move to change "Palestinian territories" to "Palestine." [JPost] France thanks Sephardic Jews for bringing chocolate to the nation. [Times of Israel] A high profile neo-Nazi terror trial begins in Germany. [Arutz Sheva] Survivors say "never again" at Mauthausen. [Arutz Sheva] Young Israeli scientists conquer …More

A “Seeking Kin” column in April 2012 excited Gal Adam Spinrad – and now the Cincinnati woman has reason to be happy anew. Adam Spinrad has long been fascinated by the legend of her relative, Jacques Faitlovitch, who more than a century ago left his native Lodz, Poland, bound for Ethiopia. He devoted much of his life to the Jews living there, becoming one of the first European Jews to vouch for them as co-religionists and bring them into the fold. As a UCLA student in 1992, Adam Spinrad wrote a …More

Jorgen Nilsson, an officer in the Swedish military and a Knight Hospitalier in the Order of St. Lazarus, has arrived in Israel after a six-month journey on foot from his home in Sweden, Israel Hayom reported. Nilsson arrived in Jerusalem on Sunday, where he was given a medal of honor on behalf of the city. He took more than 7 million steps in a walk through Denmark, Germany, France, Italy and Greece on his way to Israel, and timed his journey so that he would arrive for the start of the First International …More

Meet the only Jewish MP in the Muslim world. [Arutz Sheva] Tens of thousands of Hungarians gathered yesterday to protest rising anti-Semitism. [JPost] Thousands are stranded in Israel as an airstrike continues. [Times of Israel] Rumors are mounting that France will soon name Hezbollah a terrorist group. [Times of Israel] Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to China. [Algemeiner] An Iranian has been arrested in Burgas for monitoring a Chabad. [JPost] Babs answers readers questions for the Times. [NYT] …More

A letter written by Alfred Dreyfus, a French-Jewish soldier who was wrongfully convicted of spying, is expected to fetch at least $130,000 at an auction in Paris. The letter will be sold at auction next month by Sotheby’s Paris branch. Dreyfus, a captain who was cleared of accusations that he spied for Germany, sent the letter from prison in 1895 to the French Interior Ministry, the French news agency AFP reported Wednesday. His 1894 trial and eventual conviction for acts of treason--which came to be …More

After a two month investigation, a report concludes four Jewish students were unjustly removed from a BDS meeting at Brooklyn College. [Algemeiner] Carmen Weinstein, who led the Jews of Cairo, dies at 82. [NYT] German Chancellor Angela Merkel will receive the Rabbis' Award for her support of Jews and circumcision. [Bloomberg] A French Jewish group lodges another complaint against Twitter for anti-Semitism. [Haaretz] The nation's first sex segregated park opens up in a Satmar community. [Observer] A Canadian …More

The Bahrain Council of Ministers has approved adding Hezbollah to its list of designated terrorist organizations, making Bahrain the first Arab nation to blacklist the Lebanese group, Saudi Arabian news outlet Al Arabiya reported on Wednesday. France recently expressed its support for the designation of Hezbollah—implicated in last summer's Burgas bus bombing that killed five Israelis and their bus driver by Bulgaria's investigation into the attack—as a terrorist organization, a decision that could …More

US and Jewish leaders welcomed news that France intends to add Hezbollah to its list of designated terror groups. The announcement came following months of pressure for the French government to make the designation, which could mean renewed effort to also add the group to the European Union’s terror list. France reportedly shared the information Wednesday with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who is in the country on a diplomatic tour. Hezbollah is already labeled a terror group by the US, Israel and the …More