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New York Dispatch Heir Challenges Sale of Long-Lost Klimt, Alleging Shoah-Era Theft Was Concealed A legal battle has erupted over a Gustav Klimt masterpiece valued at approximately $100 million, with the last known blood descendant of the family that originally owned the painting accusing a Vienna auction house of disguising the work's identity in order to sell it rather than return it to its rightful heirs. Patricia Leahy, an American descendant of the prominent Austrian Jewish Lieser...

A nation cannot claim to welcome Jews while criminalising one of the oldest and most fundamental commandments of Judaism

by Ram ben Ze’ev The Price of Misalignment: Memory, War, and the Illusion of Strength Today, Israel stands still. At the sound of the siren, the nation pauses in collective remembrance for those who were killed—soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces whose lives ended in battle. The numbers are heavy: 25,644 since 1860, leaving behind tens of thousands of bereaved families. Yet numbers, as vast as they are, do not capture truth. Words do. We say “fallen soldiers,” as though they stumbled. But...

by Ram ben Ze’ev The United Nations and the Politics of Historical Guilt The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade to be the “gravest crime against humanity.” While the horrors of slavery are undeniable and no moral person today would defend such a practice, the resolution itself reveals more about the modern political agenda of the United Nations than it does about historical reality. Before the vote, the United States...

by Ram ben Ze'ev The Repeated Error of Assimilation Judaism teaches that words have power. Speech can wound, heal, elevate, or destroy. That is why our sages warn against לשון הרע (lashon hara – evil speech), the misuse of words to belittle or harm. This prohibition applies even to words that are true, if their purpose is to shame or diminish another Jew. But guarding against lashon hara does not mean we must remain silent when Torah itself is distorted. On the contrary, the Torah obliges us...

by Ram ben Ze'ev How Public Talk of Terror Strengthens Our Enemies In times of terror and tragedy, good people often struggle to know how to respond. The natural instinct — particularly in an age of relentless media and instant communication — is to speak: to share, to bear witness, to denounce evil aloud. Yet in doing so, many unintentionally serve the very purposes of those who commit such heinous acts. This truth must be confronted, particularly by those who seek to live in accordance with...

by Ram ben Ze'ev The Tragic Consequence of Assimilation: When We Let the Nations Define Us Assimilation has consequences. Not only in how we dress, eat, or celebrate—but in how we speak, and even more dangerously, in how we think. The Holy One, Blessed is He, commands us in ספר ויקרא (Sefer Vayikra – Leviticus) 19:2: דבר אל כל עדת בני ישראל ואמרת אלהם קדשים תהיו כי קדוש אני ה אלקיכם “Speak to all the congregation of the children of Yisrael, and say to them: You shall be holy, for I, the L-RD...

by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen The anniversary of Hillel Kook’s death was this week. A Jewish Walter Mitty and a colorful, complex, dual...

by Rabbi Jeremy Rosen Next Monday we will observe our Yom HaShoah. We may hear the cliché “Never Again” and realize it means nothing to...

As part of the Yom HaShoah commemoration, the concert will remember the Kitchener Camp in Kent which saved the lives of 4,000 Jewish refugee men On Thursday 28 April 2022, a special concert to evoke memories of the Kitchener Camp will take place at London’s Wigmore Hall as part of this year’s Yom HaShoah commemoration. The Kitchener Camp opened in Sandwich, Kent, in January 1939, and saved the lives of 4,000 Jewish refugee men from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland. Many of these...

On April 29, 2022, NY State Senator Elijah Reichlin-Melnick (D-38th) will present a Proclamation declaring that day to be #EndJewHatred...

by Anthony Stefano My 12-year-old daughter Jenny woke me at 7 am Sunday morning by pouncing on me like she was still a three year old. My...

by Mar­tin Bodek Every eon has its eras; every era its peri­ods; every peri­od has its epochs; every epoch has its ages. Out­side of what...

British Ambassador to Italy, Jill Morris, hosts a workshop on how to combat rising intolerance and antisemitism On 27th February, British...