Members of France’s Jewish community wave Israeli and French flags at a ceremony outside the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris a year after four Jewish shoppers were killed in a terror attack at the store on January 9, 2015. (photo: Flash 90/Serge Attal)

Members of France’s Jewish community wave Israeli and French flags at a ceremony outside the Hyper Cacher supermarket in Paris a year after four Jewish shoppers were killed in a terror attack at the store on January 9, 2015. (photo: Flash 90/Serge Attal)

(JTA)–The prime minister of France, speaking at a ceremony to remember four Jewish victims of terror at a kosher supermarket in Paris, said he regrets that large numbers of his country’s Jews have left for Israel.

“France would not be France” without its Jews, Manuel Valls said Saturday evening at a commemoration held outside the Hyper Cacher supermarket on the first anniversary of the hostage siege there by an Islamist who was killed by police.

H&M is at it again–they’ve made a women’s scarf that looks remarkably like a tallit, a Jewish prayer shawl mainly worn by men.

Fashion website Racked reported that the fast-fashion retailer is currently hawking a beige scarf with black stripes on its website for $17.99. “H&M even incorporated its own version of tzitzit, the knotted fringe you’ll find on every tallit,” the story noted. The Stockholm-based chain also has a matching fringed poncho for $34.99.

This isn’t H&M’s first foray into prayer-shawl chic. In 2011, they issued a similarly-styled women’s poncho. (Three years later, the brand was accused of anti-Semitism when it issued a tank top with a skull superimposed atop a Star of David.) H&M is not the only major fashion retailer to wade into Jewish (or anti-Semitic) territory. In the summer of 2014 the Spanish chain Zara sold a children’s striped “sheriff” T-shirt which looked very similar to a concentration-camp uniform, complete with a six-pointed yellow star on the left breast. During the ensuing social media storm the brand apologized and pulled the item from stores.

Full story here.

AMSTERDAM (JTA)–Ukrainian-Jewish billionaire Igor Kolomoisky sued Russia in an international court over his inability to operate an airport in Crimea.

The Permanent Court of Arbitration, a Hague-based intergovernmental organization with 117 member states, announced Wednesday that it would review the lawsuit, Reuters reported.

Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian nationalist who funded military actions in the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and Aeroport Belbek sued the Russian Federation for compensation over what they say is their exclusion from operating a commercial passenger terminal at Sevastopol International Airport.

Full story here.

Public activities by the Israeli embassy opened in Lithuania last year have been noticeable. Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon said they hadn’t just settled in, they’d begun specific projects to bring the people of the two countries closer. In a special interview on the 15min.lt website by Paulius Gritėnas, the ambassador talked about plans to set up a modern museum of Jewish culture in Vilnius, bilateral projects and his impressions of Lithuania.

“I think I won’t make a mistake in saying during the last year you were one of the most noticeable ambassadors on the Lithuanian scene. You organized a basketball tournament, a bicycling event, an exhibit, appearances by Israel artists and traveled all over Lithuania and spoke with people. What goals which you listed at the beginning of 2015 have you been able to achieve?”

“It will probably surprise you, but the most important goal which was achieved was clarity on my mission. As I told you last year, this is a continuing process, but it’s more clear to me now what I should focus on. When I arrived in Lithuania a year ago I couldn’t say what the specific goals were. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t given tasks, as diplomats are, but after last year I realized my most important mission was to forge contacts between people. One of the first things I did when I became ambassador was to go to Ponar with the staff. Not because someone told me to, but because I wanted to.”

Full interview in Lithuanian here.

(JTA)–Russia must pay $35,000 to a Jewish activist from Moscow who was imprisoned for demonstrating against the government, the European Court of Human Rights ordered.

Tuesday’s ruling by the court in Strasbourg, France, relates to the 2012 arrest of Evgeny Frumkin, 53, an organizer of many rallies critical of the government of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Frumkin, a founder of Russia’s pro-democracy movement during the last days of Communism, was arrested at a Moscow square during riots which erupted during a demonstration the day before Putin was inaugurated as president in May of that year. He was sentenced to 15 days of administrative arrest for disobeying police orders.

Mark Rylance, center.

The New York Jewish magazine the Jewish Voice is reporting director Steven Spielberg is using back channels to try to influence the jury at the Golden Globe awards.

The magazine cited unnamed sources in the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and “Page Six” who were allegedly given intelligence the famous director had obtained a list of the jurists and was attempting to “influence” them to vote for Mark Rylance for best supporting actor. Rylance was the star of Spielberg’s recently released film Bridge of Spies, which recounts behind-the-scenes horse dealing to secure the return of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) and taken prisoner in the USSR on May 1, 1960. Mark Rylance played Rudolf Abel, the Soviet spy exchanged for Powers.

Jewish Voice quoted unnamed sources within the Associated Press as saying “He got their home numbers. He’s schmoozing them, like, ‘Hey, how’s it going.’ It’s the best Christmas gift they ever had.”

Story here.

VILNIUS, January 4, BNS–The Lithuanian state last year started paying more attention to the preservation of Jewish heritage and cemeteries, says Faina Kukliansky, head of the Jewish community in Lithuania.

“The state of Lithuania has started paying more attention to preservation of Jewish heritage and cemeteries. With no more Jews left in smaller towns across the country, old synagogues are being handed over to local towns and cities for cultural needs under loans for use,” Kukliansky said in a comment published Monday.

She also noted work started in Vilnius and New York to digitalize the unique archives of the YIVO Jewish research institute which operated in Vilnius before World War II on the life of Jews in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust.

Sales of Dorit Rabinyan’s “Gader Haya” skyrocket; publisher orders new printing

Israeli students at Beit Ezekiel elementary school (photo: Tsafrir Abayov/Flash90)

On Thursday a battery of Israeli politicians and writers lambasted a government decision to disqualify from high school curricula a book which contains a love story between an Israeli and a Palestinian.

The Education Ministry announced that Israeli author Dorit Rabinyan’s “Gader Haya” (“Hedgerow,” but known in English as “Borderlife”) had been rejected for inclusion.

Teachers had requested the book’s inclusion in the ministry’s reading list but its content was deemed unfit for high school students.

“Officials discussed the matter of including the book in the curriculum,” the ministry said in a statement Thursday. “After it seriously examined all the considerations, and weighed the advantages and drawbacks, they decided not to include the book in the curriculum.”

Full story here.

Right in the middle of holiday preparations, a seminar/meeting was held at the Center for the Various Ethnic Cultures of Kaunas on December 22, 2015 with representatives of the ethnic minority communities and Rasa Paliukienė, director of the Contacts with Ethnic Communities Department of the Ethnic Minorities Department of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania. The seminar/meeting was held for representatives of the ethnic communities who plan to submit applications for funding for projects in 2016 to strengthen minority cultures. The seminar detailed the entire process of preparing a project, implementing it and reporting, and examined in detail project application forms and how they should be completed with an example provided. It also answered questions by attendees. Representatives of eight ethnic minority community associations operating in Kaunas attended, including Kaunas Jewish Community chairman Gercas Žakas and administrator Ieva Černevičiūtė. Representatives from the Ethnic Minorities Department strongly encouraged the ethnic communities to apply for financial aid for projects before January 5, 2016 for making real their creative ideas for spreading the culture and traditions of their minority, encouraging civic-mindedness among ethnic minority children and youth, preserving the ethnic minority cultural heritage, sites and values and for Saturday and/or Sunday schools for the ethnic minorities.

The days are ticking by. The year is almost over, and another one about to begin. Yet, these past twelve months will linger with me for some time.

2015 was a wake-up call.

The year began with the brutal rampage at Charlie Hebdo, followed by murderous attacks at Jewish targets in Paris and Copenhagen and a terror wave in Israel. It ended with the slaughter of 130 innocent souls enjoying food, sport, and music in the City of Light.

First they came for the journalists. Then they came for the Jews. Finally, they came for all of us.

2015 was a wake-up call and a challenge. A challenge to all of us to rise up and meet the moment facing us.

We can’t afford not to.

AJC [American Jewish Committee for Global Jewish Advocacy] is working around the world and around the clock to meet the moment. Our global advocacy architecture spans six continents. We understand the issues in depth, maintain relationships with the world’s key leaders, and are having a real impact on policy decisions.

But our vital work requires your sustained support. From now until December 31, generous donors will match new gifts to AJC, up to $225,000.

It’s not too late to meet the moment with us.

With heartfelt thanks,

David Harris
Executive Director
Edward and Sandra Meyer Office of the Executive Director
ajc.org

Israel’s Supreme Court Tuesday partially upheld the conviction of Ehud Olmert in the Holyland corruption trial, making history by sending the former prime minister to prison. Olmert was one of eight officials and businessmen convicted in March 2014 in a real estate corruption case called the largest in Israel’s history.

While it struck down one bribery conviction for Olmert’s part in the so-called Holyland scandal, it upheld another, reducing the former prime minister’s sentence from six years to 18 months. He and others whose convictions were upheld Tuesday will begin to serve sentences February 15.

Speaking to reporters after the decision was issued, Olmert emphasized relief over his acquittal in the more severe of the two bribery counts while maintaining his innocence in the second one as well.

“The last four years were difficult,” he said, describing “a dark cloud that hung over” him and his family, and asserting that “a heavy weight had been lifted” from his shoulders.

Full story here.

by Raphael Ahren

At Israel’s request, the European Union may formulate a clear definition of anti-Semitism in a bid to better fight the phenomenon, the EU’s new point person for combating hatred of Jews said.

“The definition of anti-Semitism is very disputed, even among Jews themselves. The main dissent revolves around the question of manifestations against the State of Israel. We’re currently looking into this issue,” Katharina von Schnurbein told the Times of Israel in a telephone interview last week from Brussels. “One thing is clear: anti-Semitism can sometimes hide behind anti-Zionism. That is certainly our understanding here.”

German national von Schnurbein was named the European Commission’s coordinator on combating anti-Semitism earlier this month. Last week she participated in the ninth EU-Israel Seminar on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and Anti-Semitism in Brussels, together with about 30 representatives from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the European Commission, the EU’s External Action Service, the Fundamental Rights Agency, technology experts and NGOs.