The following excerpt comes from the JewishGen Passover Companion 2019. It was written by Rabbi Chaim Yitzchak Greengrass, who describes how Jews imprisoned at Auschwitz-Birkenau managed to conduct a Seder. He writes: “The celebration of this Seder night left imprints on my soul. Now, when I perform the Passover service, I understand the meaning of [...]

Washington – Ecuador said Monday that it was not unfairly targeting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange when it revoked his asylum last week. Ecuadorian Foreign Minister José Valencia said that Assange’s behavior was “undeserving, disrespectful” and pointed to a video published by El País newspaper. The short video with no audio appears to show Assange arguing [...]

Berlin – The remains of 300 people killed by the Nazis and used by a German doctor for research will be buried in Berlin next month. The late Hermann Stieve kept tissue samples of the mostly female victims after he dissected their bodies for his research at the University of Berlin. He sometimes received the [...]

Washington – President Donald Trump spoke over the weekend with former President Jimmy Carter about his China policies and “numerous other topics.” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley says Trump reached out to Carter on Saturday after the former president wrote him “a beautiful letter” about ongoing trade negotiations between the U.S. and China. Trump’s norm-breaking [...]

Pittsburgh – The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was awarded the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in breaking news reporting for its coverage of the Tree of Life synagogue massacre last October. Eleven people were shot and killed by a gunman during the rampage, which came as congregants at the synagogue complex in Pittsburgh were gathering for Shabbat morning services. [...]

Brooklyn, NY – The Health Department today announced that it has closed a child care program in Williamsburg for repeatedly failing to provide access to medical and attendance records in violation of an Order of the Health Commissioner in response to the current measles outbreak. That Order requires child care programs to exclude unvaccinated students [...]

New York – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that cutting military and economic aid to Israel as a way to signal opposition to Israeli policies should be “on the table.” “I think it is certainly on the table. I think it’s something that can be discussed,” the prominent freshman Democratic lawmaker said on Yahoo’s Skullduggery podcast on [...]

San Francisco – When Arturo Balbino, a Texas construction worker, walked into his visa interview at the American consulate in the northern Mexican border town of Ciudad Juarez in March, he wasn’t nervous. He felt good. Balbino, a 33-year-old Mexican national who had entered the United States illegally 14 years ago, thought he had a [...]

New York – A New York City Council member has proposed opening a dual-language Yiddish-English program in a city public school. Councilman Mark Levine, who represents parts of upper Manhattan and is the chair of the City Council’s Jewish Caucus, is working to open the program in a kindergarten classroom in the fall of 2020, [...]

Jerusalem – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his brother, Dr. Ido Netanyahu, on Monday received personal items belonging to their late brother Yoni, who was killed in the hostage rescue operation in Entebbe in 1976, which he heroically commanded. Yosef Shemesh served with the late Netanyahu in the 71st Batallion of the Armored Corps [...]