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Friday April 20, 2007

Shorts: World

Rabbi to seek forgiveness during meeting with pope

A top Brazilian rabbi charged with shoplifting says he plans to seek God’s forgiveness when he meets next month with the pope.

Rabbi Henry Sobel, who has led the Sao Paolo Jewish congregation, told the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper that he still plans on joining other Brazilian religious leaders next month in a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI when the pontiff visits Brazil, a predominantly Roman Catholic nation.

“I am not Catholic, so I cannot ask for the pope’s forgiveness,” Sobel said in remarks translated by the Associated Press. “But I will ask the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Israel to forgive me. Perhaps in the pope’s presence I could feel his humility and have some of it enter my soul.”

Sobel faces shoplifting charges in Palm Beach, Fla., where he was arrested in March. He is well regarded in Brazil for his activism against the dictatorship in that country in the 1960s and for promoting inter-religious harmony. — jta

Study: Nazis used drugs

Nazi officers regularly used drugs, an Israeli study found.

According to the Hebrew University study released this week, many of Adolf Hitler’s top military brass were known to use narcotics, especially morphine. The study’s author, Jonathan Levy of the university’s Koebner Center for German History, said Nazi troops were sometimes sent out with Pervitin, a methamphetamine designed to stoke their battle lust. — jta

Ambassador wants study of Greek Jewry

Greece’s ambassador to Washington called for expanded study of his nation’s Jewish community, all but wiped out in the Holocaust.

Alexandros Mallias said Holocaust deniers pose a danger not just to Jews, but to the nations where they lived before the Holocaust. “I consider them to question an important part of my own history,” Mallias said.

Six out of seven Greek Jews died during the Holocaust. More information on the community is available at www.ushmm.org/greece. Mallias said Greek-Israel relations were never better. — jta

Medieval mikvah found in Germany

Archaeologists in eastern Germany uncovered the remains of a mikvah dating back to the 13th century. The Jewish ritual bath was found in the cellar of a building located in Erfurt, the capital city of Thuringia, according to a report by the German news outlet Deutsche Welle.

The two-story-high mikvah is in good condition, according to Sven Ostritz of the Thuringian state authority for historical protection and archeology. Though few German towns have evidence of Jewish life in the medieval ages, Erfurt also boasts the remains of a synagogue, which is being renovated. The city apparently is attempting to install a permanent exhibition on Jewish life within the region. — jta

Jewish teen attacked in Russia

Community leaders in a southern Russian city are pressing local authorities to protect a Jewish teen following an anti-Semitic attack. The AEN news agency reported that the 16-year-old boy was severely beaten by his neighbor in the village of Sulyaevsky.

The youth, whose name has been withheld, was hospitalized with head injuries and a broken nose. Citing the possibility of further attacks, the youth and his family will not return to their village.

The incident follows two significant anti-Semitic attacks last year in this southern region. In September, vandals attacked the Or Avner Jewish School in Volgograd, painting anti-Semitic slogans and severely wounding a guard from the interior ministry. The following day, 30 gravestones in the local Jewish cemetery were knocked over. — jta

Terezin music center launched

The Terezin International Music Center has been launched. The private institute is located in the Czech town of Terezin, site of a former Nazi concentration camp and ghetto, Theresienstadt in German.

The music center, which opened last week, will offer a series of concerts featuring the works of the many Jewish musicians murdered by the Nazis. In addition, the center will organize art exhibitions and festivals supporting tolerance education for young people.

The center will work closely with the state-funded Terezin Memorial. During World World II, 155,000 Jews from across Europe were sent to Terezin. Most were sent to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau; others died of starvation or diseases. — jta

Ukraine president orders action against vandalism

Ukraine’s president demanded that measures be taken to stop vandalism against Jewish and other memorial sites in the country.

In a letter sent last week to the prosecutor general, security service chief and interior minister, Viktor Yuschenko cited the recent increase in attacks on Jewish cemeteries as well as monuments honoring Ukraine’s national heroes and World War II victims, Yuschenko’s press office said.

According to the letter, the number of extremist groups in Ukraine is also on the rise. Yuschenko said the country’s law enforcement agencies should take measures to arrest and punish the vandals. — jta

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