A force for constructive communal consciousness
(JTA) – Anti-Semitic crime in the United Kingdom rose 44 per cent in the past two years, according to a new audit released by the Campaign Against Antisemitism.
The 2016 National Antisemitic Crime Audit registered a total of 1,078 anti-Semitic crimes, including 105 that were violent – about one in 10. Only one of the violent crimes was prosecuted, according to the audit. [Read more…]
Emergency responders arriving at the Manchester Arena following a bomb attack after an Ariana Grande concert, May 22, 2017. (Dave Thompson/Getty Images)
(JTA) – Britain’s bloodiest terrorist attack in over a decade occurred Monday just two miles from Rabbi Yisroel Cohen’s synagogue.
Yet one day after the deadly bombing in Manchester, Cohen told JTA he has no intention of changing security arrangements at his congregation. [Read more…]
ROME (JTA) – Unidentified individuals damaged dozens of gravestones and memorials in both the Catholic and Jewish sections of one of Rome’s main cemeteries.
According to the Italian media, the damage was discovered Friday morning during an inspection before the Verano cemetery opened. [Read more…]
(JTA) – The head of a prestigious Cambridge college apologized to two students whose complaints of anti-Semitic abuse were not upheld fully and inadequately handled.
Jane Stapleton, master of Christ’s College, Cambridge, said on Thursday that the college now “accepts that racist and anti-Semitic conduct occurred and has apologized to the students who reported it.” Stapleton, whose title is equivalent to dean, also announced changes to the college’s complaint-handling procedures, the Jewish News of London reported. [Read more…]
(JTA) – An unidentified man waving a meat cleaver and a large knife who allegedly threatened Jews in a heavily Jewish neighbourhood in North London was arrested.
The man reportedly tried to enter a kosher food shop during the incident on Tuesday but was prevented from doing so when staff locked the door, according to a statement issued by the London-based Campaign Against Antisemitism. [Read more…]
(JTA) – Plans for Prince Charles to visit Israel have been scrapped by the British Foreign Office, a London newspaper is reporting.
Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, would have been the first member of the Royal Family to make an official state visit to Israel since its founding. Though the visit was not officially announced, senior officials had been cited in British and Israeli media in recent weeks saying that Prince Charles or another member of the Royal Family would travel to Israel to mark the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration. [Read more…]
(JTA) – A Muslim activist who supports boycotting Israel and Palestinian resistance to the Jewish state has lost in her bid to be re-elected as president of the United Kingdom’s National Union of Students.
Jewish groups welcomed news that Malia Bouattia, who once described Birmingham University as a “Zionist outpost,” lost Wednesday to Shakira Martin, who received 402 votes to Bouattia’s 272. [Read more…]
(JTA) – The British government has rejected a Palestinian request to apologize for the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which led in part to the creation of Israel.
The British government sent a letter to the Foreign Ministry of the Palestinian Authority (PA) saying it would not apologize for the statement, as called for by PA President Mahmoud Abbas in an address to the General Assembly in September, Reuters reported. The news agency cited Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian ambassador to Britain, who told the Voice of Palestine Radio of the refusal in an interview Tuesday. [Read more…]
(JTA) – Two-thirds of Jewish British university students believe they have been targeted due to their religion and more than a quarter worry about being the victim of an anti-Semitic attack, a new study found.
Twenty-six per cent of Jewish university students told a survey conducted by the National Union of Students that they were either “fairly worried” or “very worried” about suffering a physical attack, property damage, verbal abuse or theft because they are Jewish. [Read more…]
Paramedics loading a victim into the back of an ambulance as members of the emergency services work on Westminster Bridge, alongside the Houses of Parliament in central London after a shooting, March 22, 2017. (Niklas Halle’n/AFP/Getty Images)
(JTA) – At least two civilians and a police officer were killed in a car-ramming and knife attack outside of the houses of Parliament in London.
British authorities are calling the attack a “terrorist incident” as they continue to investigate the motive in the Wednesday afternoon attack. [Read more…]