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CNN —The Roald Dahl Museum in England, founded by the widow of the children’s author, has acknowledged his racism was “undeniable and indelible.”Dahl, who died in 1990, was the creator of characters such as Matilda, the BFG, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Willy Wonka and the Twits. Now the museum, based in the village of Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire where Dahl lived, has posted a statement on its website to say that it “fully” supports an apology released by the Dahl family and Roald Dahl Story Company in 2020 for the author’s antisemitic views. The museum adds that it “condemns all racism directed at any group or individual.”Based in Great Missenden in Buckinghamshire, where Dahl lived, the museum has condemned the author's racism. Greg Balfour Evans/AlamyIn the 2020 apology, the Dahl groups said they “deeply apologise for the lasting and understandable hurt” caused by his statements. ‘Providing the full story’The Roald Dahl Museum confirmed to CNN Thursday that the online statement issued this week is also on display in its entrance gallery.

Persons: Roald Dahl, ” Dahl, Matilda, Mr, Fox, Willy Wonka, Dahl, “, Greg Balfour Evans, Alamy, Hitler, ” “ Roald, Dahl’s, Marie van der Zyl, ” Organizations: CNN, Roald Dahl Museum, Roald Dahl Story Company, New Statesman, Jewish Leadership Council, Community Security Trust, ‘ Locations: England, Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, Missenden

☆ Roald Dahl Museum Calls Author’s Racism ‘Undeniable and Indelible’
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-20 | by ( Derrick Bryson Taylor | More About Derrick Bryson Taylor | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The organization said it was working to become more welcoming by conducting accessible and inclusive recruitment campaigns for staff and trustee positions. “We are working hard to do better and know we have more to do,” the museum said. Since 2021, the museum said, it had been working with multiple Jewish organizations and staff and trustees had received training from the Antisemitism Policy Trust. It was reported that hundreds of words, including descriptions of characters’ appearances, races and genders, had been removed from some of his books. A spokesman for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, referencing a work by Dahl, told the BBC at the time, “When it comes to our rich and varied literary heritage, the prime minister agrees with the BFG that we shouldn’t gobblefunk around with words.”

Persons: Rishi Sunak, Dahl, ” Organizations: Trust, BBC Locations: Britain

☆ Ponzi Schemer Freed From Prison by Trump Faces New Fraud Charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-19 | by ( Ed Shanahan | More About Ed Shanahan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A convicted Ponzi schemer, whose prison sentence President Donald J. Trump commuted in one of his last official White House acts, is facing new fraud federal charges of bilking investors in a series of phony deals. The man, Eliyahu Weinstein, a former used car salesman from Lakewood, N.J., was serving a 24-year sentence in connection with two schemes, when Mr. Trump freed him from prison in January 2021. One involved defrauding members of his tight-knit Orthodox Jewish community out of more than $200 million. On Wednesday, federal prosecutors in New Jersey charged Mr. Weinstein, 48, along with four other men, with defrauding at least 150 people out of $35 million. “These were brazen and sophisticated crimes that involved multiple conspirators and drew right from Weinstein’s playbook of fraud,” Philip R. Sellinger, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said at a news conference.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Eliyahu Weinstein, Weinstein, Philip R Organizations: White Locations: Lakewood , N.J, New Jersey, Covid, Ukraine, U.S

CNN —Remnants of Munich’s main synagogue, which was demolished by the Nazis in June 1938, have resurfaced – much to the amazement of the city’s Jewish community. Construction workers in the southern German city made the discovery while working on the renovation of a weir on the Isar river. Bernhard Purin, head of Munich’s Jewish museum, told CNN that he was surprised to hear the news the following day. Rubble from Munich's main synagogue was discovered at a weir on the Isar river. “The demolition of the main synagogue on Hitler’s orders marked the beginning of exclusion, persecution and destruction.

Persons: Bernhard Purin, “, ”, Mordechai Bernstein, Purin, Leonhard Moll, Charlotte Knobloch, Hitler, ” Katrin Habenschaden Organizations: CNN, Jewish Museum Locations: Munich, Germany, Austria, Jewish Museum Munich, Upper Bavaria, Nazi

☆ Britain's Orthodox Haredi Jews wary of state intrusion in education
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Jonathan Saul | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

This special faith-based education is profoundly important to Hamilton's strictly Orthodox Haredi Jewish community, which numbers 80,000 in Britain. All children in Britain from the age of five must be in full-time education. "Every child has the right to a safe and suitable education," said a spokesperson for the Department of Education. Underlying the tensions at play between the community and secular state, the government's educational standards office Ofsted, which inspects schools, said in 2021 the school's secular curriculum was too narrow. "Hear our pain and our deep request to leave us alone to allow us to keep our identity," said Rabbi Herschel Gluck, a Haredi community leader.

Persons: Yossi Hamilton, Asher Gratt, Randall Hardy, Flick Drummond, Elyon, Peter Cziborra Hamilton, Hamilton, Shakeel, Rabbi Herschel Gluck, Jonathan Saul, Alexandra Hudson Organizations: Jewish, Conservative, Department of Education, REUTERS, Ofsted, Alexandra Hudson Our, Thomson Locations: London, Britain, England, Israel, British, Birmingham

☆ Orthodox Men Dominate Mayor Adams’s New Jewish Advisory Council
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-06 | by ( Dana Rubinstein | More About Dana Rubinstein | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mr. Schumer declined to comment. The dispute comes just a week after Mr. Adams got into a verbal altercation with a Jewish housing activist whose family fled the Holocaust, and whom Mr. Adams compared to a plantation owner. Many of the Jewish leaders now criticizing him are of a progressive bent, and Mr. Adams is not popular with progressives. A City Hall spokeswoman noted that within Orthodox ranks, there is a great deal of diversity — there are both modern Orthodox, and Jews associated with the Lubavitch movement, for example. “This esteemed council comprises a diverse assembly of Jewish men and women hailing from various religious and cultural backgrounds, including Chabad, Conservative, Hasidic, nondenominational, Modern Orthodox, Reform, Sephardic, and Yeshiva Orthodox affiliations,” said the spokeswoman for the mayor.

Persons: Beth Elohim, Chuck Schumer, Nadler, Ruth Messinger, David Saperstein, Schumer, Adams, ” Organizations: Jewish World Service, Manhattan, Hall, Lubavitch, Conservative, Yeshiva Orthodox Locations: Brooklyn, Manhattan, New York

☆ Rabbi’s Brush With Danger in Ukraine Went Viral
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Cassandra Vinograd | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

His role as chief rabbi has particular resonance in a war that President Vladimir V. Putin has falsely claimed is about “denazifying” Ukraine, a country whose current president is Jewish and whose Jewish community has historically suffered persecution. Born in Leningrad, the rabbi emigrated to Israel in the 1980s to escape the former Soviet Union. After marrying a Ukrainian woman, he came to Ukraine in the early 1990s to help children affected by the Chernobyl disaster and later led the rehabilitation of Kyiv’s main synagogue. When Russian-backed fighters launched a war in eastern Ukraine in 2014, Rabbi Azman helped evacuate civilians from the fighting. Photographs of him shaking hands with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain and other notable people cover a wall in his office.

Persons: Vladimir V, Putin, Rabbi Azman, Anatevka, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Boris Johnson Organizations: denazifying, Soviet Union Locations: Ukraine, Leningrad, Israel, Ukrainian, Kyiv’s, Russian, Kyiv, Britain

☆ Jews should leave Russia 'before it's too late,' says former chief rabbi of Moscow
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-02 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The former chief rabbi of Moscow is urging Jews to leave Russia. Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt himself fled the country following last year's invasion of Ukraine. Russia on Friday labeled Goldschmidt a "foreign agent," citing his opposition to the war. In a statement on Saturday, Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, who himself fled the country in March 2022, noted that he had spent three decades supporting the Jews of Russia. "I call on the Jewish community to leave the country, before it is too late."

Persons: Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, Goldschmidt, —, " Goldschmidt Organizations: Service, Synagogue, Conference, Guardian, Russian, Ministry, Friday Locations: Moscow, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Jerusalem

☆ Chicago business executive and philanthropist Jim Crown killed in Colorado racetrack crash
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-27 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Crown, a grandson of industrialist Henry Crown and the chief executive of Henry Crown & Co., was involved in a single-vehicle accident at the Aspen Motorsports Park in Woody Creek, the Pitkin County coroner's office said in a news release. Crown's father, financier Lester Crown, said his son "was driving a race car, and it hit a wall going around a curve," the Chicago Sun-Times reported. "There never was a finer human being in every way," Lester Crown said. Crown's family business, Henry Crown & Co., invests in public and private securities, real estate, and operating companies. "The Crown family is deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Jim Crown in an accident earlier (Sunday)," his family said.

Persons: James, Jim Crown, Henry Crown, Lester Crown, Jim, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Brandon Johnson, Obama, Salomon, Lester, Renée Organizations: James Crown, University of Chicago, Chicago . Crown, Co, Aspen Motorsports, Chicago Sun, Times, Commercial Club of Chicago, Sun -, Chicago, Aspen Skiing Co, General Dynamics, JPMorgan Chase, The Aspen Institute, Museum of Science, Industry, President's Intelligence, Hampshire College, Stanford Law School, Salomon Brothers Inc, Capital Markets Service Locations: Chicago ., Chicago, Colorado, Woody Creek, Pitkin County, It's, Amherst , Massachusetts, New York

☆ Mexico asks Israel for second time to extradite ex-official accused of torture
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-20 | by ( Brendan O'Boyle | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MEXICO CITY, June 20 (Reuters) - Mexico's president said on Tuesday that he had asked Israel for a second time to extradite a former official accused of torture in the Latin American country. Zeron led the heavily criticized investigation into the disappearance of 43 student teachers in southwestern Mexico in 2014 under a government to which Lopez Obrador was opposed. "It can't be that Israel protects a torturer under any circumstance," Lopez Obrador said in a regular press conference. Lopez Obrador, who made a similar extradition request in September 2021, said he expected Mexico's Jewish community to support the effort to extradite Zeron. Reporting by Brendan O'Boyle in Mexico City Editing by Matthew LewisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Israel, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Benjamin Netanyahu, extraditing Tomas Zeron, Zeron, Lopez Obrador, Lopez Obrador's, Brendan O'Boyle, Matthew Lewis Organizations: MEXICO CITY, Thomson Locations: MEXICO, Mexico, Israel

CNN —A statue of an antisemitic politician who is said to have inspired Adolf Hitler is to be tilted 3.5 degrees to the right. In 2012, a section of the Ringstrasse, the city’s central boulevard, that had borne Lueger’s name since 1934, was renamed Universitätsring. Debate over the future of the statue, which was erected in 1926, has been raging for years. The future of the statue, which has been repeatedly defaced, has been hotly debated in Vienna. He was therefore one of Hitler’s teachers,” Ariel Muzicant, president of the European Jewish Congress and former president of the Jewish Community of Vienna, told CNN in an email.

Persons: Adolf Hitler, Karl Lueger, Karl Lueger Platz, Austrian Hitler, Mein, ”, Lueger, Klemens Wihlidal, JOE KLAMAR, Wihlidal, ” Ariel Muzicant, ” Oskar Deutsch, —, “ Organizations: CNN, Getty, Public Art, European Jewish Congress, Jewish, of, antisemites Locations: Vienna, Austrian, Lueger, Viennese, AFP, of Vienna, Austria

☆ The oldest, most complete Hebrew Bible that went missing for 600 years sells for a record $38 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Bethany Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An ancient Hebrew Bible has just sold at Sotheby's auction house in New York for $38 million. The ancient text, written in around 900 AD, is the most complete early copy of the Hebrew Bible. Hence, the auction house says the nearly 800-page Codex Sassoon is "definitively the most significant early biblical manuscript in private hands." It includes 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, divided into the Torah, or "Pentateuch," the Nevi'im, or "prophets," and the Ketuvim, or "writings." The Hebrew Bible is the basis for what Christians call the Old Testament.

In 2015 a jury in New Jersey found that a Jewish group offering sexuality conversion therapy had committed consumer fraud by claiming it could turn gay Orthodox men straight. In the Opinion video above, one of the plaintiffs in that case, Chaim Levin, describes the struggle of growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn that offered him no room to come out and thrive as a gay man. In his teens and still deeply in the closet, he sought help from the group Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, or JONAH, which employed practices based on the theory that homosexuality could be overcome with therapy. But the problem of homophobic groups wielding fake science to prey on young gay people — including in the Orthodox Jewish community — persists: Conversion therapy remains fully legal in 20 states. At a time when many states and localities are impeding discussion about gender and sexual identity, conversion therapy is yet another obstacle for people trying to find their place in the world.

☆ Tunisia synagogue attack toll up to 6, local media says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Tarek Amara | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

[1/5] Members of the security forces stand near the entrance of Ghriba synagogue, following an attack, in Djerba, Tunisia May 10, 2023. REUTERS/StringerTUNIS, May 10 (Reuters) - A Tunisian security officer who was wounded in Tuesday's shooting attack outside a synagogue on the Tunisian island of Djerba has died, hospital sources said, bringing the death toll to six including the shooter. Israel's Foreign Ministry described the attack as a "lethal shooting incident", with a spokesperson saying it was still under investigation. The United States and France said Tunisian security forces had responded quickly. The pilgrimage has had tight security since al Qaeda militants attacked the synagogue in 2002 with a truck bomb, killing 21 Western tourists.

London CNN —Britain’s Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, will walk to King Charles III’s coronation, in keeping with Shabbat laws as the ceremony takes place on a Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath and day of rest. “So (they) have invited us to be their guests in St. James’ Palace over the Sabbath.”St. James’ Palace is about 15 minutes’ walk from Westminster Abbey, where the coronation will take place. As well as refraining from using vehicles during Shabbat, Jews also observe a “digital detox,” as the Chief Rabbi put it. The Chief Rabbi spoke to CNN's Bianca Nobilo outside Buckingham Palace. Although the monarchy is steeped in Christianity – the sovereign is also the head of the Church of England – the Chief Rabbi praised Charles’ “wonderful sensitivity” and inclusion of other faiths.

☆ The University of California Santa Cruz is condemning recent antisemitic and anti-LGTBQ actions, including an event to celebrate Hitler’s birthday
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Elizabeth Joseph | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —The University of California, Santa Cruz, is condemning recent antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ incidents reported on and near the campus, including a group of students who allegedly gathered to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday. “They sang happy birthday and ate cakes adorned with hateful and horrific symbols,” UC Santa Cruz Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Success Akirah Bradley-Armstrong said in a statement. A second reported incident involved a student who “found an antisemitic and anti-LGBTQIA+ flyer” on their vehicle’s windshield in downtown Santa Cruz on April 21. UC Santa Cruz is encouraging students impacted by “worry, fear, and anger” surrounding the reported incidents to reach out to the school’s Counseling and Psychological Services for support. “White supremacy has no place at UC Santa Cruz.

☆ As sales decline, Adidas faces pressure to find Yeezy fix
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Helen Reid | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Gulden in March said the company could donate the proceeds of the Yeezy sale to charities, but Adidas has given no updates since. The Anti-Defamation League, an international Jewish non-governmental organisation based in New York, told Reuters it "stands ready and prepared to work with Adidas". The American Jewish Committee met with Adidas executives in December to discuss their commitment to reject antisemitism. Shareholders want Adidas to draw a line under the Yeezy episode and develop ways to reboot the brand. "Being successful with Yeezy probably made Adidas lazy on finding other growth drivers," said Cedric Rossi, nextgen consumer analyst at Bryan Garnier in Paris.

☆ At 6 Catskills Resorts: Retro Design, Modern Comfort and Games, Lots of Games
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Amy Thomas | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Picture yourself on a sojourn in the Catskill Mountains of New York. Then again, with the variety of games on hand at nearly every one of the Catskills’ newest wave of stylish resorts, there should be more than one option that tickles your fancy. The influence of New York City, Brooklyn in particular, has been palpable in the Catskills — about 100 miles northwest of the metro area — for years. About a decade ago, indie hotels like the Graham & Co. in Phoenicia and Foxfire Mountain House in Mount Tremper imported urban cool to the country with their Moroccan poufs, Tivoli radios and linen bedding. It was where one of the country’s earliest resorts, ‌the Catskill Mountain House, made its home in 1824, followed by hundreds of others.

☆ In These Stories, Society Lets Individuals Down Again and Again
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-28 | by ( Gwen E. Kirby | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

The lens of the story moves from his point of view to that of the missing girl, who is found after three days of sheltering inside a hollow tree to hide her first period from the prettier, wealthier girls. To the outside world, she is missing; she sees it as protecting herself. Reich’s stories have a density to them: long paragraphs weighted with rich description, bricks placed carefully to build constructions capable of supporting the weight of history. Alejandro Varela’s THE PEOPLE WHO REPORT MORE STRESS: Stories (244 pp., Astra House, $26) is a master class in analyzing the unspoken. In “She and Her Kid and Me and Mine,” a gay, half-Salvadoran, half-Colombian father chats with a straight white mother while their young children have a play date.

☆ Inside the Wild World of Celebrity Keynote Speakers: Drugs, Alcohol
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( David Kushner | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +31 min

"I never saw myself as a speaker, let alone a motivational speaker," Leonard tells me while his assistant irons his jeans. 'When I ramble," Hunter told me, "hit me in the leg!" Every plane had been grounded, including the one stuck on the tarmac with an increasingly inebriated Hunter Thompson trapped inside. But by far the most all-consuming task was booking gigs for Hunter Thompson. Just before a debate with G. Gordon Liddy at Brown University, Hunter demanded that Betsy Berg, whom I now worked alongside at GTN, score him some crystal meth.

☆ 43 Years After Paris Synagogue Bombing, Canadian Man Is Found Guilty
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Constant Méheut | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Forty-three years ago, a bombing outside a Paris synagogue killed four people and stunned France, prompting huge crowds to protest antisemitism and exposing the country to violence it thought had disappeared with the end of World War II. The defendant, Hassan Diab, a Lebanese-Canadian sociology professor, was convicted in the bombing and sentenced to life in prison. Judges also issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Diab, who lives in Canada and was tried in absentia. Mr. Diab has long denied any involvement in the attack. The deadly attack, the first on the French Jewish community since World War II, took place in the Rue Copernic, in an upscale western Paris neighborhood, on Oct. 3, 1980.

☆ Israel’s Right-Wing Government Has Jewish Democrats at a Loss
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Jonathan Weisman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Last month, as demonstrations across Israel convulsed politics in the Jewish state, Jewish Democrats in the House who have made up the bulwark of Israel’s support on their side of the aisle met privately with the country’s ambassador. Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, a self-described progressive, was particularly blunt. In meetings with liberal groups on and off Capitol Hill, where support for Israel has grown more tenuous by the month, he had always fallen back on what he called the shared democratic values of Israel and the United States, Mr. Cicilline told the ambassador, Michael Herzog. But the new far-right government in Jerusalem, with its efforts to undermine Israel’s independent judiciary and its inclusion of extremist politicians, was making even that plea “much, much more difficult,” Mr. Cicilline recounted in an interview. In the ensuing weeks, the strains between Israel and the Democratic Party, and particularly an American Jewish community that remains predominantly liberal, have only grown worse.

Speaking alongside Netanyahu after talks in Berlin, Scholz said he hoped that a compromise on the reforms suggested by Israel's President Isaac Herzog was not off the table. Netanyahu visited Germany while protests erupted once again in Israel over the reforms by his far-right government that have triggered mass unrest in recent weeks. Netanyahu called criticism of the plans "absurd", assuring Scholz that "Israel will remain a liberal democracy". Netanyahu wanted the meeting with Scholz to focus on efforts to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption charges that he denies, says the judicial changes will strengthen democracy and boost business.

[1/5] The destroyed Habib-i Najjar Mosque is pictured in the aftermath of a deadly earthquake in Antakya, Turkey February 16, 2023. "What we learn from our elders is that Hatay witnessed seven earthquakes in its history but it was reborn from its ashes. PAINTINGS OF THE SAINTSThe bell tower lies on its side, with clothes placed on top for earthquake victims to take. Among the victims of the Feb. 6 earthquake were Saul Cenudioglu, leader of the Jewish community in Antakya, and his wife, Tuna Cenudioglu. The rabbi said he came to Antakya after the earthquakes to check on the Jewish community and take them to Istanbul.

☆ Ex-White House chief of staff Ron Klain said he flew home to Indiana and back every Sunday for months to be with his ill mother
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-14 | by ( Nicole Gaudiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Ex-White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain worked six days a week at the White House, he told the New Yorker. Klain, 61, mentioned this logistical feat and example of devotion as an aside during an interview with Evan Osnos for the New Yorker, while explaining why he decided to leave the Biden White House after two years. Klain left the White House this month after spending the first two years of the administration leading Biden's team. Biden spoke of Klain's mother during a chief of staff transition ceremony at the White House, when Klain turned over the reins to Jeff Zients. Klain's mother, Sarann Klain Warner, a retired travel agent, was reportedly too ill to attend.

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