Author: Joseph Feldman

Pearl Berg, the ninth oldest person in the world, the third oldest person in the United States, and the oldest Jewish person, died on Feb. 1 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 114 years old. She was born on Oct. 1, 1909, in Evansville, Ind., to Archie Synenberg and Annie Gerson. Raised in Pittsburgh, she later moved with her family—she had a sister and a brother—to Los Angeles, where she met her future husband. In 1931, she married Mark Berg, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine who worked as an investor and businessman. The couple had two sons, Dr.…

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees fired a number of its staffers in Gaza suspected of taking part in the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas and other militants on southern Israel, its director said Friday, prompting the United States—the agency’s biggest donor—to temporarily halt its funding. The agency, known by its acronym UNRWA, has been the main agency providing aid for Gaza’s population amid the humanitarian disaster caused by Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza triggered by the Oct. 7 attack. UNRWA officials did comment on the impact that the U.S. halt in funding…

BRUSSELS (AP) — The number of antisemitic acts registered in France and Belgium rose sharply since Hamas’ attack on Israel triggered the war in Gaza, according to figures released Thursday in both countries. In France, data from the Interior ministry and the Jewish Community Protection Service watchdog showed that 1,676 antisemitic acts were reported in 2023, compared to 436 the previous year. According to the Council of Jewish Institutions in France—the country’s main Jewish interest group—the number of antisemitic acts in the three months that followed the Oct. 7 attack equaled those of the previous three years combined. In neighboring…

War cabinet minister Minister Gadi Eisenkot, Family and friends attend the funeral of Master Sgt. (res.) Gal Meir Eisenkot in Herzliya on December 8, 2023. He was killed during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip. Photo by Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90 JERUSALEM (AP) — A member of Israel’s War Cabinet confirmed that early in the war against Hamas in Gaza, an Israeli preemptive strike against Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia was called off at the last minute. <!– Click to get Text Message Updates right to your phone –> Join our WhatsApp group Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email Gadi Eisenkot, a…

For months, a subset of New Yorkers has railed against reductions to the city’s public library budget, which has already forced some of them to close on Sundays. This week, a few denizens of social media said they found a culprit for the cuts: Israel. “New York Public Library now closed on Sundays because of $36.2M in budget cuts,” the posts say. “But NYC taxpayers sent $118,929,729 to Israel to commit genocide?” The posts have spread far and wide in recent days. On Monday, a left-wing Twitter account posted that text, garnering more than 3 million views. The following day,…

Minister Galit Distel Atbaryan reacts during a plenum session for Israeli Knesset’s 74th birthday, in the assembly hall of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, on February 6, 2023. Photo by Yonatan Sindel/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** îìéàä ëðñú è”å áùáè éåí äåìãú ëðñú îìéàä âìéú ãéñèì ùøú ääñáøä JERUSALEM (AP) — A former member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Cabinet offered a rare public apology Sunday for contributing to the internal strife in Israel that preceded the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip. <!– Click to get Text Message Updates right to your phone…

Tzipi Shavit take part in a protest calling for the release of Bibas family, 10 month old Kfir, 4 year old Ariel, and their parents Shiri and Yarden Bibas, at “Hostage Square” in Tel Aviv, December 8, 2023. Photo by Tomer Neuberg/Flash90 *** Local Caption *** מלחמה חטופים משפחות ציפי שביט תל אביב חרבות ביבס ברזל מלחמה NIR OZ, Israel — An American family has donated a Torah that survived the Holocaust to relatives of a family whose members’ fate remains uncertain after they were taken hostage by Hamas in the Oct. 7 attack on their kibbutz in southern Israel.…

WASHINGTON (JNS) – U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) on Wednesday told CNN‘s Jake Tapper that the popular social media app TikTok is distorting Americans’ perception of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Tapper, who is Jewish, had asked Fetterman—who is not, but has been one of the most vocal Zionists in Congress of late—about a New York Times/Siena College poll which found that 72% of registered voters aged 18 to 29 disapprove of the way U.S. President Joe Biden is handling the Israel-Palestine conflict. Why do so many younger people, especially Democrats, see Israel differently from…

FRANCE (JNS) – A man remains at large after storming into a Paris nursery and threatening its Jewish director with a six-inch knife and antisemitic death threats. The attacker used an unlocked door on Dec. 12 to enter Les Minis Kids nursery, per Le Figaro. The school, in the Créteil suburb of southeastern Paris, is home to a large Jewish community. “I will r— you, filthy Zionist. I will kill you, dirty Jew, dirty Zionist. I will come back with others and treat you like in Gaza,” the man reportedly said. Nine children were present at the school but were…

JERUSALEM (JNS) – A prominent Christian evangelical organization in Jerusalem has renovated 140 underground bomb shelters in the Upper Galilee as intermittent Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon continue for the third straight month, the group announced on Monday. The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem funded the $775,000 project, refurbishing 73 shelters in the town of Shlomi and 67 in the city of Ma’alot-Tarshiha, both near the northern border. The shelters had fallen into disrepair since they were last used during the 2006 Second Lebanon War, with deficiencies including a lack of proper lighting, ventilation and plumbing.