Wiesenthal Center launches ‘Last Chance’ Nazi hunt
The Simon Wiesenthal Center last week launched Operation Last Chance in South America, a program to intensify the search for former Nazi war criminals.
The program, which started in Lithuania in 2002, has been running in nine European countries. They will be joined by Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Uruguay in an effort to locate some of the thousands of former Nazi war criminals believed still to be hiding in South America.
The Wiesenthal Center received the names of four suspects in Argentina on the day of the launch. “One of them seems quite serious,” said Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Wiesenthal Center office in Israel. — jta
Attacks against Jews hit high in Australia
Attacks against Australian Jews have reached a record high in 2007. The Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s annual report on anti-Semitism published this week logged 638 anti-Semitic incidents this year, including assault, intimidation, vandalism and harassment.
The previous record — more than 550 anti-Semitic incidents — was in 2002, when the second intifada was at its height.
The most reported instance of anti-Semitism in Australia in the past year was the assault in Melbourne on Menachem Vorchheimer, an Orthodox Jew, by an Australian Rules rugby player. Vorchheimer took three of the perpetrators to court; they were fined and one also received a conviction. A fourth man, who punched Vorchheimer, has not been apprehended. — jta
Jews give Catholics six-branched menorah
A Jewish group presented a six-branched menorah to a Catholic cardinal Dec. 2, a way of symbolizing the victims of the Holocaust and underlining positive changes in Jewish-Catholic relations in recent decades.
Rabbi Jack Bemporad, of the Center for Interreligious Understanding, the New Jersey-based organization that facilitated the gift, presented the menorah to Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, head of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, a Catholic study center in Jerusalem.
The menorah will remain on permanent display at the institute. — ap
Not a raw deal: kosher sushi in Ukraine
Those with a yen for kosher sushi now have a place to go in Ukraine.
A kosher Japanese restaurant and tavern called Panchovillo opened in Dnepropetrovsk. It will operate under the supervision of a kashrut supervisor and be open weekdays.
Jews and guests of the city attended a tasting where they sampled kosher sushi, sashimi, rolls and other Japanese specialties.
“Our menu will be updated on a weekly basis and soon will also offer Japanese-style salads and soups,” said Rabbi Arie Nizevich, a Chabad Lubavitch rabbi who is overseeing the new project. — jta
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California