Police raid homes of mohels in Antwerp
(JTA) — Police in Belgium searched three private homes on Wednesday as part of an investigation into illegal ritual circumcisions, according to local news reports.
Two of the homes were in Antwerp’s Jewish Quarter and the third was in the city’s Green Quarter, according to the Belgian news site VRT, which reported that the investigation was initiated in part by a complaint from a member of Antwerp’s Jewish community.
Last fall, Moshe Friedman, an Antwerp rabbi, filed a police complaint against six mohels who practice metzitzah b’peh, a custom in which the circumciser cleans the circumcision wound with oral suction. The custom, which can risk infecting infants with dangerous diseases, is practiced only in haredi Orthodox communities such as the substantial one in Antwerp. Several years ago, a number of babies in New York City were infected with herpes via metzitzah b’peh.
British neo-Nazi group convicted of planning attacks on synagogues, mosques in ‘race war’
(JNS) — Three men who were members of an online extreme right-wing group were convicted on Wednesday of planning to carry out terrorist attacks at synagogues and mosques as part of a “race war,” British police said.
Brogan Stewart and Marco Pitzettu, both 25, and Christopher Ringrose, 34, were found guilty of multiple terror and firearms offenses following their arrests over a year ago, Counter Terrorism Policing North East said.
“The self-styled ‘militant’ online group provided an echo chamber of extreme right-wing views where they shared horrific racial slurs, glorified mass murderers and encouraged violence against anyone deemed an enemy,” according to authorities, which noted that they idolized Nazism, “which was evident throughout their messages.”
For the first time since Henry VIII created the role, a Jew will helm Hebrew studies at Cambridge
(JTA) — In September 2025, Aaron Koller will become the first Jew to join the university’s department of Middle Eastern Studies as the Regius Professor of Hebrew, a role established by King Henry VIII. Koller is packing up from New York City, where he has taught at Yeshiva University, specializing in Hebrew from biblical to medieval texts, since earning his doctorate there in 2009.
According to Koller, it’s no surprise that Jews never made the cut before. Henry VIII, who founded the Church of England along with the professorship, intended it for Anglican churchmen to teach Hebrew in the Anglican tradition. That idea lasted until recently.
South Africa’s chief rabbi supports Donald Trump — but says his refugee program for Afrikaners is a ‘mistake’
(JTA) — Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein said in February that South Africans “should welcome the Trump administration’s interventions” in the country’s affairs, praising the president in a widely distributed video message.
A vocal critic of the South African government, Goldstein backed Trump’s opposition to South Africa for its cooperation with Iran and its new land expropriation law, which Goldstein believes will slow the country’s already sluggish economy.
But since Trump decided to admit some white South Africans into the United States as refugees — the only refugees he is letting in — Goldstein has changed his tone. He told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he sees the move as a “mistake.”
