Printer Friendly

Email to A Friend

Friday April 13, 2007

Shorts: World

Poland, Russia in dispute over Auschwitz memorial

Poland and Russia are in a dispute over a memorial at Auschwitz.

An exhibition dedicated to Russians who died during the war with the Nazis has been closed for three years, and its reopening at the former death camp has been delayed over a disagreement over just how many Russians were killed, according to Ha’aretz.

Russian historians say that nearly half of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis were Russian, while the museum at Auschwitz says that some 1 million of the dead that the Russians claim were actually citizens of Poland, Romania and the Baltics. — jta

St. Petersburg graves vandalized with graffiti

Russian Jewish media reported that vandals painted swastikas and extremist graffiti on seven headstones in a St. Petersburg graveyard that previously has seen some of the worst acts of cemetery vandalism in recent years.

Police are investigating the incident. In a separate incident, a swastika and the word “kikes” were painted on a Holocaust memorial inside a local Jewish cemetery in the city of Kaliningrad in western Russia, the Web site Jewish.ru reported. — jta

Homemade bomb rocks Jewish center in Montreal

A homemade bomb exploded outside a Jewish community center in Montreal in the middle of Passover week, injuring no one and causing little damage, police said.

Workers at the Ben Weider Jewish Community Center reported hearing an explosion late Tuesday night, April 3. “A homemade bomb exploded and there was a small fire,” police spokesman Lynne Labelle said. Labelle said they have not determined whether it was a hate crime.

With the explosion coming two days before the third anniversary of the firebombing of Montreal’s United Talmud Torahs elementary school library, many in the Jewish community are concerned.

— jta

Hillel center opens

in central Argentina

Hillel Argentina opened its first center in an Argentine province. The center, launched this month in Cordoba in central Argentina, will serve some 1,600 Jewish students in the area.

“We chose Cordoba because its local community has worked hard to achieve this dream,” said Gabriel Trajtenberg, executive director of Hillel Argentina. Two other Hillel centers are located in Buenos Aires. — jta

Did you find this article interesting? Subscribe to our FREE newsletter and you'll be notified each week when "J." goes online. We'll tell you about the most important stories of the week and give you a link to each one.

This page contains a BETA version of Amazon contextual links. They are marked by the dashed underline.  Your purchases support our site. At times they point to items which are not related to the actual link. Please alert us by email if you discover objectionable links.