Political, social turmoil worries Hungary’s Jews

By Gavin Rabinowitz Jewish Telegraphic Agency ATHENS, Greece (JTA) — Jewish leaders in Greece expressed concern and disappointment after the fascist Golden Dawn party was poised to enter the Greek parliament for the first time. With most of the ballots counted, Golden Dawn received nearly 7 percent of the vote in Sunday’s elections as Greeks [ Read More...]

Amid security concerns in Tunisia, a smaller Hiloula celebration DJERBA, Tunisia (JTA) — Amid political uncertainty and security concerns, the The El Ghriba Synagogue Lag b’Omer celebration drew more journalists and police than pilgrims. “We have about 300 people here from abroad today, but most are locals,” said Rene Trabelsi, a Paris-based organizer of the [ Read More...]

By Alina Dain Sharon JointMedia News Service In France, the election results are in—but what do they mean for the local Jewish community? Francois Hollande of the Socialist Party defeated incumbent president Nicolas Sarkozy of the center-right Union for a Popular Movement on Sunday with about 52 percent of the vote. Although Sarkozy attempted to [ Read More...]

By Cnaan Liphshiz Jewish Telegraphic Agency BRUSSELS (JTA) — Few Jewish couples define their marriage as “mixed” just because bride and groom were born and raised 30 miles apart in the same country. But Linda and Bernard Levy live in Belgium, a country whose long experiment in fusing two distinct cultures recently has been showing [ Read More...]

By Eva Munk Jewish Telegraphic Agency BRNENEC, Czech Republic (JTA) — The windows are smashed, the doors stand agape and the keys in the rusting padlocks have not been turned for years. Still, despite the plaster clinging to the crumbling bricks in leprous sheets, the front looks salvageable. The back, however, tells a different story. [ Read More...]

By Cnaan Liphshiz Jewish Telegraphic Agency BRUSSELS (JTA) — Jihadist websites eat up a fair share of Bart Olmer’s workday. He even has passwords to some closed hate forums. “Reading hate speech is part of the job,” says Olmer, who reports on intelligence services for Holland’s largest circulation daily, De Telegraaf. It’s an explanation he [ Read More...]

French group suing Google for Jewish auto-complete searches (JTA) — A French anti-discrimination group is taking Google to court for offering to search if celebrities are Jewish. SOS Racisme, a French organization that fights discrimination, is scheduled to meet Google attorneys in a French courtroom on Wednesday for a hearing on the matter, according to [ Read More...]

Sarkozy falls in first round, but not in Jewish eyes

By Ruth Ellen Gruber Jewish Telegraphic Agency NIS, Serbia (JTA) — In some alternate universe, it might be a Jewish dream: a Jewish cemetery with a restaurant and discount department store on its doorstep. But in this old Serbian town about 125 miles south of the capital of Belgrade, it’s more like a nightmare, say [ Read More...]