By SHIRYN GHERMEZIAN (JNS) – A anti-Semitic website that is now shut down offered users the opportunity to trade a cryptocurrency called the “HoloCoin,” a reference to the Holocaust, in which Jews and the ashes of Jews burnt can be purchased or sold. Holocaust—Not Over TheHolocoin.net, which was purchased on April 2 and registered with the website-building platform SquareSpace, is no […]

By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ WARSAW, Poland (JTA) — Today, at 100 years old, Jozef Walaszczyk is Poland’s oldest living rescuer of Jews.He was fortunate enough just to survive World War II. As a partisan fighter who specialized in smuggling arms in Nazi-occupied Poland, Walaszczyk assumed that the Gestapo would catch up with him at some point. He just expected it to […]

By TOBY AXELROD NEW YORK CITY (JTA) – For more than three decades, thousands of teenagers from dozens of countries have trekked each April to Auschwitz to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust. This year, they’re staying home. With the coronavirus pandemic making travel and gatherings impossible, the March of the Living, like so much else, is taking place […]

By JACKSON RICHMAN (JNS) – Aron Bielski is the youngest and last living member of the Bielski brigade, which he founded along with three of his brothers. Their activities are widely known as one of the largest partisan groups that rescued Jews during the Holocaust. He was born on July 21, 1927, into the family of David and Beila Bielski, who […]

The corrupt, criminal regime wasted 40 days blocking information while it crushed domestic dissent and ensured COVID-19 would become a global pandemic By IRWIN COTLER and JUDITH ABITAN The Times of Israel – There is authoritative and compelling evidence — including a study from the University of Southampton — that if interventions in China had been conducted three weeks earlier, transmission of COVID-19 […]

By ALAN GRABINSKY NEW YORK CITY (JTA) – Unlike Shanghai or Hong Kong, which received Jews fleeing from World War II, Beijing does not have a robust Jewish history. In the words of Joshua Kurtzig, former president of the Reform congregation there, the massive Chinese capital is a “very transient city,” especially for Jews — meaning that many pass through without […]

By RON KAMPEAS WASHINGTON (JTA) – Iran by its own accounting is the fifth-ranked among nations in coronavirus fatalities. Outside experts say the rate is likely much higher. The confluence of hard-hitting sanctions on the country and Iran’s floundering theocracy frustrated an adequate response to the pandemic, according to most accounts, but the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, knows […]

By CNAAN LIPHSHIZ (JTA) — Anti-Semitism has plagued French society for centuries, flaring up in times of crisis — especially during epidemics. In the 14th century, for instance, Jews were massacred in France during the Black Death epidemic after they were blamed for spreading the disease by poisoning water wells. In the city of Strasbourg alone, 2,000 Jews were burnt […]

By RON KAMPEAS WASHINGTON (JTA) —The $2 trillion-plus stimulus bill has passed and the relief for nonprofits sought by Jewish and other groups are in. The big news is that nonprofits are eligible to tap into the $349 billion in payroll protection loans for small businesses administered by the Small Business Administration, as well as some other opportunities for relief. […]

NEW YORK CITY (JTA) — A court in Pakistan has overturned the murder conviction and death sentence of Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl’s killer, who was expected to be freed from prison for time served. He will remain in jail for at least another three months. The superintendent of Karachi’s Central Prison said he received an order from the Sindh provincial […]