A preeminent journalism museum seems to have reversed its controversial decision to honor two Hamas reporters. DC’s Newseum announced last week that it would add Hussam Salama and Mahmoud Al-Kumi to its memorial wall of journalists slain in the line of duty. Salama and Al-Kumi died in Gaza last November during Operation Pillar of Defense. Both men were members of Al-Aqsa, Hamas’s media arm and a US-designated terrorist group unto itself. The decision was criticized almost immediately, particularly …More

A Bronx school is earning international attention for its newest addition—a professionally crafted Holocaust center. The Bronx High School of Science established the Holocaust Museum and Studies Center in its basement with the help of a now-deceased teacher who promoted Holocaust education among his students. Stuart Elenko worked at the Bronx school until his death in 2009, teaching a Holocaust Leadership Class. While teaching, he shared his extensive collection of Holocaust artifacts with his pupils. In …More

The Jewish Museum in Camden, London will host an exhibit about Amy Winehouse’s Jewish roots, and include many of her personal belongings. [Standard] The British lawyer who was overheard making anti-Semitic remarks at her firm was fined $12,000 for her actions. [Algemeiner] A documentary film, “The Optimists,” depicts how Bulgarians protested against shipping Jewish citizens to concentration camps in 1943, saving most if the country’s 48,000 Jews. [Washington Post] A Jewish café …More

Coca-Cola has personalized its cans with common Hebrew, Arabic, and English names. [Tablet] A Jewish women’s Greek cuisine offers a Shavuot-themed recipe. [Jewcy] The Bronx High School of Science now houses a hands-on, professionally designed Holocaust museum. [Times of Israel] Budapest’s historic Jewish quarter hosts memorials to the tragedies and re-building it has seen since Jews first arrived in Hungary in the 12th century. [Times of Israel] Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu continue to …More

“There’s a Jewish freethinker’s saying about Paris,” Saul Bellow wrote in the novel “Ravelstein,” “wie Gott in Frankreich [“like God in France”]. Meaning that even God took his holidays in France. Why? Because the French are atheists and among them God himself could be carefree, a flâneur, like any tourist.” Paris is one of the most touristy cities in the world, and for good reason. As a tourist you might stroll the narrow streets of the Marais in …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

A mysterious ancient stone containing Hebrew writing is on display in Jerusalem. The Gabriel Stone is named for its depiction of the archangel Gabriel and is believed to date back to the time of the Second Temple. It was discovered on the banks of the Dead Sea 13 years ago, and is on display now for visitors at the Israel Museum. "The Gabriel Stone is in a way a Dead Sea Scroll written on stone," said James Snyder, director of the Israel Museum. Researchers disagree on the original purpose of the stone, …More

A Spanish couple who built the first Jewish museum in Granada celebrated its opening day by being married there. Gabriel Perez and Beatriz Cavalier married earlier this month during the dedication ceremony of the Sephardic Museum of Granada, a small institution they established in the southern Spanish city after years of fundraising and lobbying. It is the city’s first Jewish museum, according to a report by the Spanish news agency EFE. The newlyweds--a historian and the daughter of a Jewish woman who fled …More

Rafael Medoff, JNS.org When President Bill Clinton stepped to the podium at the opening of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC 20 years ago, most of the audience no doubt expected him to offer the usual generalities about the importance of not forgetting the past. Instead, Clinton went much further, delivering the harshest words ever uttered by an American president about our country’s response to the Nazi genocide. Clinton made clear that the response of the US to news of the …More

The world’s largest and most expensive Jewish Museum opened to great fanfare in Russia late last year. And although it has only been open for less than six months, the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow has become a must-see for any visitors to the Russian capital. A high profile project, its construction cost around $50 million, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin donated a month’s wages. Israeli President Shimon Peres, who was born in what is now Belarus, flew to Moscow for the …More

Poland's Jewish community does not want a planned monument to righteous gentiles to be erected near the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The museum, which is due to open this month, is located on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. "The community of Polish Jews will never forget the heroism of people who, despite the threat of denunciation and death, were ready to bring aid to victims of the Holocaust," wrote representatives of the Jewish community in a statement released Thursday. "We believe that this monument …More

Businessman Leonard Lauder donated a collection of paintings to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York valued at more than $1 billion. The cosmetics tycoon's gift includes dozens of important works by artists Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Fernand Leger. It includes some 78 paintings, drawings and sculptures by Cubist artists. “In one fell swoop, this puts the Met at the forefront of early-20th-century art,” Thomas Campbell, the Met’s director, told The New York Times. “It is an …More