Threats to cut Egypt assistance could impact Israel

Grandson of Auschwitz survivor takes the ice for Germany

By Mati Wagner Jewish Telegraphic Agency JERUSALEM (JTA) — Is Hamas trying to change its stripes? Terrorist attacks against Israelis appear to be on pause, and rocket fire from Gaza is down significantly. The Hamas leader in Damascus, Khaled Meshaal, is trying to distance himself from the Assad regime and align Hamas with the forces [ Read More...]

Son of Shoah survivors to challenge Chavez (JTA) — Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles Radonski, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, will challenge President Hugo Chavez in upcoming elections. Capriles, 39, governor of the Miranda state, won a primary Sunday with 61 percent of the vote to become the unity candidate against Chavez, who has been [ Read More...]

By Devorah Lauter Jewish Telegraphic Agency PARIS (JTA) — Trailing in the polls and with elections just 10 weeks away, French President Nicolas Sarkozy went to one of his most reliable bases of support — French Jews — to drum up enthusiasm. On the morning of Feb. 8, Sarkozy met at Elysees Palace with released [ Read More...]

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — Iran and Israel appear to be locked in an assassination contest. Israeli leaders blamed Iran for two assassination attempts late Sunday and early Monday — in Tbilisi, Georgia, and in New Delhi, India. The bomb in Tbilisi was disabled before it could be activated, and the [ Read More...]

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — When America’s top intelligence official said that Iran’s regime is considering attacks on U.S. soil, he cited a single incident and qualified the assessment with a “probably.” But intelligence and law enforcement experts say the Jan. 31 warning by the director of national intelligence, James Clapper, [ Read More...]

By Ron Kampeas Jewish Telegraphic Agency WASHINGTON (JTA) — It’s one of those coincidences too tempting to believe it is a coincidence. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is delivering a speech to AIPAC about what should happen next with Iran and likely meeting with President Obama to discuss Iran options on the same day that [ Read More...]

By Hillel Kuttler Jewish Telegraphic Agency BALTIMORE (JTA) — John Schwabacher was 12 years old when World War II ended. He and his brothers, Michael and Thomas, emerged from hiding in their hometown of Wurzburg, Germany and joined their father in San Francisco. Their grandmother and countless other relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, and [ Read More...]

By Joel N. Shurkin Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) — Scientists using ground-probing electronics may have discovered the missing mass graves at the site of Treblinka, one of the Nazis’ most notorious death camps. No actual bodies were found and the graves were not excavated, in keeping with Jewish law, but bones and bone fragments were [ Read More...]