Rabbis ordained for first time in 70 years

For the first time in seven decades, two Orthodox rabbis were ordained in Germany.

The ceremony, which was broadcast live on television, is seen as further evidence of the return of Jewish life to Germany – and in particular, of Orthodoxy, which has revived at a far slower pace than the other denominations.

The new rabbis, Zsolt Balla, 30, and Avraham Radbill, 25, were both born behind the former "Iron Curtain" and emigrated to Germany as part of the post-unification influx of former Soviet Jews. Both were introduced to Jewish studies through Lauder foundation programs.

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Chabad member aboard Air France crash jet

The missing Air France flight that left Rio de Janeiro but is feared to have crashed en route for Paris had at least one Jewish passenger on board.

An American strictly Orthodox website, VIN News, has carried a report saying that Serge (Shlomo) Anidjar, 40, a resident of Boulogne-Billancourt, in France, was on his way back home after spending three days in Brazil on a business trip.

The report said Mr. Anidjar was an active member of the Chabad Jewish community and has a wife and three children, the oldest of whom is 12, who attend local Jewish schools.

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Phil Spector gets 19 years for murder

The music producer Phil Spector has been jailed for a minimum of 19 years over the murder of the actress Lana Clarkson.

Spector, 69, was given 15 years to life for second-degree murder and an additional four for personal use of a gun in Los Angeles on Friday.

The actress was found dead from a gunshot wound at Spector's mansion in February 2003. He is reportedly now selling his 30-room mansion in Los Angeles to fund an appeal.

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How serious is the terror threat to American Jewry?

After a sabbatical in Jerusalem in the mid ‘90s, we moved for a time to Riverdale, NY, in large part because it reminded us of… Jerusalem. Set on a hill above the rougher-edged Bronx, leafy Riverdale has low-slung apartment buildings and pricey single-family homes and good parks. Most importantly for us, it also has a burgeoning shomer Shabbat community, centered around two big modern Orthodox synagogues — the buttoned-down Riverdale Jewish Centre and the Hebrew Institute, home base for the political firebrand and Orthodox maverick Rabbi Avi Weiss.

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Austrians fear rise in hate crimes

A series of antisemitic incidents in Austria has raised worries among political and Jewish leaders on the eve of European Parliament elections.

An attack by right-wing youths on Holocaust survivors in Ebensee; antisemitic statements by pupils visiting Auschwitz; a columnist blaming Jews for the world financial crisis: all suggest that Austria may be fertile ground for hate and conspiracy theories.

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Amos Elon, Israel’s critical voice, is silent

One of Israel’s most distinguished authors and journalists, Amos Elon, a longstanding critic of the country’s occupation of the West Bank, died in Italy on Monday aged 82.

Vienna-born, Elon moved to Palestine when he was seven, in 1933. He grew up in Tel Aviv and served three years in the Hagana, before going on to begin his life-long love affair with history, reading history and law first at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and then at Cambridge.

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