Letters written by a young J.D. Salinger give hints of his future works, literary ideas, and flirtatious personality. [NY Times] Beyonce wears a new dress specifically designed for her by Israeli designer and "Project Runway" winner, Alon Livne. [Times of Israel] Israel honors a Muslim man, Selahattin Ulkumen, for rescuing 50 Jews from being deported from Rhodes to concentration camps in 1944. [Times of Israel] An archaeological dig in Cologne, Germany has uncovered 2,000 years worth of Jewish artifacts. …More

The Jewish Museum in Warsaw, Poland has unveiled a historic and rare sculpture. [NY Times] The Jewish Museum of Greece has opened a temporary exhibit to display the role of Greek Jews during the Holocaust. [JPost] The recently deceased Jewish leader in Egypt was buried in a decaying cemetery she had worked to rebuild. [Fox] A Jewish woman, who hid and died as a Catholic citizen during the Holocaust, was recently provided a reburial in the Warsaw Ghetto. [Tablet] A British literary magazine has named five …More

Woodside Petroleum’s purchase of a controlling stake in Israel’s largest natural gas field is causing trouble for Woodside’s Arab-allied partial owner—the Shell gas company. Royal Dutch Shell, Shell Gas & Power’s masthead, owns a 23 percent interest in Woodside, which declared its intentions late last year to purchase a 30 percent stake in Leviathan, the innovative Israeli gas field the Jewish state hopes to use on the path toward energy self-sufficiency. Shell, on the other …More

A San Francisco-based site focused on sharing the story of Jewish refugees from the Middle East and North Africa is reporting monthly hits numbering near 100,000. Jimena is a series of 11 sub-sites, each focused on the 850,000 Jews that have been forced over the last century from their homes in Middle Eastern and North African nations like Egypt, Syria, Turkey and Libya. The stories are told through a series of photos and archival evidence, tracing the path of persecution over the course of hundreds of …More

A nuclear-armed Iran is a threat not only to Israel, but to the western world, French President Francois Hollande stated at a press conference in Paris today. Alongside Hollande was Israeli President Shimon Peres, who encouraged Hollande’s demand for the sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program to be “beefed up.” As Iran continues to deny inquiries by Western countries regarding their suspected building of atomic weapons, Peres said there may not be another way to resolve the situation …More

A Harvard alum has written an open letter to his former alma mater, after the venerated university apologized to an irate Facebook poster for its Israeli cafeteria buffet. Late in October, Lebanese former Harvard student Sara El-Yafi posted a picture of the Harvard Business School’s “Israeli Mezze Station,” taking umbrage with several of the items on the menu. El-Yafi claimed offerings like hummus, cous cous and halloumi were not Jewish, but Arab dishes, and accused the school of perpetrating …More

Despite what people are saying, regardless of who gets elected, America’s relationship with Israel is unlikely to change. [Foreign Policy] Gil Nadal weighs in on the EU’s pending move to classify Israeli goods made in settlements as entity’s not protected under the Israel-EU free-trade agreement. [Israel Hayom] Fritz Kahn, a German-Jewish doctor most known for his “man as industrial palace” depiction, is finally getting the recognition he deserves. [Times of Israel] In a peculiar …More

Mitt Romney surprises everyone at the Presidential debates last night; he’s almost an entirely new candidate. [Jewish Week] The experimental Jewish community in Birobidzhan, Russia may be small, but it’s not going away. [NYTimes] The LGBT community is now described by a similar stereotype used for Jews: one of a non-developed child. [Huffington Post] The Republican Jewish Coalition will spend $2.5 million to run Romney ads in swing states. [Sacramento Bee] Czestochowa, Poland is renaming its …More

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke over the phone Friday with both Barack Obama and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The Israeli leader spoke with the president for about 20 minutes, followed by a 10-minute talk with Romney. The conversations focused mainly on the contentious situation in the Middle East, and came after both Netanyahu’s and Obama’s addresses at the UN. "The two leaders discussed a range of security issues, and the president reaffirmed his and our country’s …More

Cartoons published in a satirical French magazine today threaten to escalate the contentious anti-West riots taking place in the Middle East. The Charlie Hebdo publication ran an illustration of an Orthodox Jew pushing the Muslim prophet Mohammad in a wheelchair on its front cover Wednesday, while the back cover depicted Mohammad naked from the waist down. Several other cartoons were also included in the inside pages. The Web site for the magazine crashed this morning as news spread of the drawings. Last year, …More

Rob Lattin is Jspace News' Foreign Affairs Correspondent. In addition to covering foreign affairs for Jspace, Rob is a blogger on Israeli and Middle Eastern foreign policy for the Foreign Policy Association, as well as a freelance writer. He can be reached by email at rob@jspacecorp.com. For conspiracy theorists everywhere, a new chapter has been written on the mysterious death of long-time Palestinian president and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader, Yasser Arafat. This past week Al-Jazeera reported that …More

A European Union statement, which the 27-country bloc worked on for a month, came out Monday criticizing Israel’s efforts in the Palestinian peace process. The pages-long write up outlined grievances the EU believes Israel has enacted on the Palestinian people, literature the Israeli government called “partial, biased and one-sided.” In the statement, the EU accused Israel of hurting the possibility of a Palestinian state, through its “developments on the ground which threaten to make a …More