American journalist Danny Fenster, who was freed after nearly six months in jail in military-ruled Myanmar, arrived Tuesday in the United States for an emotional reunion with his family. Fenster, who was sentenced last week to 11 years of hard labor, was handed over Monday to former U.S. diplomat Bill Richardson, who helped negotiate the release. He is one of more than 100 journalists, media officials or publishers who have been detained since the military ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February. It’s been a “long time coming, a moment I had been imagining so intensely for so long,” a bearded and shaggy-haired Fenster said after landing in New York.

Reb Yosef Ben-Gaon, z’l, the head of the tiny Jewish community in Alexandria, Egypt passed away recently at the age of 69, Kan News reported. Ben-Gaon davened at the Eliyahu Hanavi shul which was renovated in recent years by the Egyptian government. The magnificent Eliyahu Hanavi shul was closed in 2016 after the roof in the women’s section collapsed. In 2017, the Egyptian Antiquities Authority Ministry approved a $4 million renovation plan which was completed in 2020. It now has enough seats for 700 mispallelim, which of course remain empty, and is considered one of the largest shuls in the Middle East.

Three people have been arrested in Poland in connection with an antisemitic demonstration last week where far-right participants shouted “Death to the Jews!,” the country’s interior minister said Monday. The demonstration took place last Thursday, on Poland’s Independence Day, in the central Polish city of Kalisz. Participants also burned a copy of a medieval document that offered Jews protection and rights in Polish lands. Poland’s Jewish community said in a statement Monday that Polish Jews “have not experienced such contempt and hatred expressed in public for years.” Przyjechać do Kalisza, by na Głównym Rynku, wśród nienawistnych okrzyków spalić "Statut Kaliski" – świadectwo wielowiekowej tradycji tolerancji i otwartości, to jak napluć w twarz wszystkim kaliszanom.

A group of 40 members of a Har Nof shul traveled to Eastern Europe and visited the kever of Rebbe Shaya’la ben Rebbi Moshe of Kerestir on Sunday night. When the men got to the tzion, they saw a surprising sight: the non-Jewish guard at the site has a likeness of Rebbe Shaya’la tattooed on his arm. The members of the group took a video of the guard, which spread quickly on social media. A member of the group, Aharon Gatz, told Kikar H’Shabbat: “We’re a group of 40 friends that participated in a 40-day chizzuk program of not talking in shul for 40 days, together with our Rav, Rav Yosef Segal.” “We were surprised when we saw the guard’s tattoo, who excitedly told us how much he loves the tzaddik and that’s why his son did the tattoo for him.” (YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)

Danny Fenster, a Jewish-American journalist and son of Holocaust survivors who was sentenced by a Myanmar court on Friday to 11 years in prison with hard labor, has been released, CNN reported on Monday. A spokesman for Myanmar’s military told CNN that Fenster “has been released and deported. We will release details why he was released later.” Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who was on a private humanitarian visit to the country, accompanied Fenster on a flight headed to Qatar on Monday. Earlier, he released a statement saying that Fenster will be traveling back to the US “through Qatar, over the next day and a half.” Richardson, a former US ambassador to the UN, said that he held face-to-face negotiations, with Min Aung Hlaing, the leader of Myanmar’s military junta.

A court in military-ruled Myanmar on Friday sentenced U.S. journalist Danny Fenster to 11 years in prison with hard labor, the maximum penalty under three charges, despite calls by the United States and rights groups for his release. It was the harshest punishment yet among the seven journalists known to have been convicted since the military ousted the elected government of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi in February. Fenster, the managing editor of the online magazine Frontier Myanmar, still faces additional terrorism and treason charges under which he could receive up to life in prison. Fenster, 37, the grandson of Holocaust survivors, grew up in Huntington Woods, Michigan.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Tuesday marked the 83rd anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom that was labeled “Kristallnacht” — the “Night of Broken Glass” — when Nazis, among them many ordinary Germans, terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria. In a speech in Berlin, Steinmeier talked about Nov. 9, 1938, when the Nazis killed at least 91 people, vandalized around 7,500 Jewish businesses and burned more than 1,400 synagogues. The president also pointed out that other significant events also happened on Nov. 9: in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, sending East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country’s reunification. And in 1918, when Social Democrat Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed Germany a republic at the end of World War I.

Twelve Jews from Brooklyn who left Syria decades ago recently visited Damascus with the encouragement of the Assad regime, Israel’s Kan News reported on Tuesday. One of the visitors, who wished to remain anonymous, told Kan that the main purpose of their trip was to receive dental treatment, which is cheaper in Syria than in the US, and that their visit had no connection to political interests. He said that they met with three Jews who still live in Damascus and were even asked to meet with senior government officials but the meeting never materialized. He added they were warmly welcomed by Syrian locals. “Everyone understood from the way we talked that we’re Syrian Jews, everyone remembered us. We went around to all the stores.

There are 85,000 intermarried couples in Israel with one Jewish spouse, according to data recently published by the Interior Ministry’s Central Bureau of Statistics, Yisrael Hayom reported on Monday morning. According to the report, it is the first time in years that official data on the number of intermarried couples in Israel has been published. The report indicates the extent of assimilation in the world’s only Jewish state, a phenomenon that experts have been warning about in recent years. According to the data, there is a total of 1.345 million couples in Israel with at least one Jewish spouse, out of which 1.260 million are couples with two Jewish spouses, and 85,000 are couples with one non-Jewish spouse – 6.3% of marriages with at least one Jewish spouse.

A shocking story came to light on Sunday of a Jewish newlywed Sephardic woman in Brooklyn who recently discovered that her new husband, supposedly named Eliya, may not be a Lebanese Sephardi Jew as he claimed but possibly a Muslim Palestinian who may have lived in Beirut. Sources tell YWN that the FBI is involved in the shocking incident and the Jewish newlywed, who only got married a couple of weeks ago, is reportedly now living in a safe house. The woman had become suspicious of various things after living with him for a number of weeks, and one night she discovered a Lebanese passport with his photo and another name. She immediately contacted family and friends, who reached out to the authorities.