Coming out - the coming-out videos

Gay and lesbian Jewish activists are stepping up their campaign to have Keshet UK, the Jewish lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender forum, advise Jewish schools on teaching about homosexuality, after the controversy over a reference to Jewish gay cure group JONAH in a JFS lesson on the topic.

This week, Channel 4 presenter and ex-JFS pupil, Benjamin Cohen, released a video, promoted by the bro

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Missionary runs Holocaust Memorial Day events

A "messianic Jewish" leader, actively seeking to convert Jews to Christianity, hosted a Yorkshire town's Holocaust Memorial Day activities last week, a move condemned as a "perversion" by anti-missionary activist Rabbi Shmuel Arkush.

Selby-based Adrian Glasspole, founder of the UK branch of Chosen People Ministries, who said he was halachically Jewish, described himself as "responsible" for the

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Protests force end to Nazi surgical tools sale

"Ghoulish" surgical tools belonging to a Nazi war criminal have been withdrawn from auction in Cornwall this weekend, after a furious series of protests to the auctioneers.

The hacksaw and scalpels, engraved with the name Anton Burger - SS commandant of the Theresienstadt ghetto - are set in a velvet-lined wooden box.

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Jewish Book Week...for the deaf

Jewish Book Week is to make four of its events accessible to deaf audience members.

Those deaf or hard-of-hearing will be able to use live speech-to-text translation, transcribed by a reporter using a special phonetic keyboard, using technology from charity Stagetext.

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Special-needs pupil barred from Israel trip

The father of a 14-year-old King Solomon High School pupil with moderate learning disabilities is "bitterly disappointed" that she is not being allowed to join the Redbridge school's Israel trip.

But King Solomon teachers maintain the girl is unsuited to a mainstream school and have "health and safety" concerns about her going on the Israel tour in May of next year.

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JFS head won't meet school's gay ex-pupils

The head-teacher of JFS has refused to meet gay and lesbian former pupils to discuss the methods of teaching of homosexuality at the school - but has promised to "review" the school's approach.

Former JFS pupils, including co-convener of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender forum Keshet UK, Dave Shaw, had asked to meet head Jonathan Miller to discuss the reference to "gay cure" organisati

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Israeli universities 'cheaper' for British students

Students should consider swapping baked beans in Birmingham for beach life in Tel Aviv – because undergraduate degrees at the city's university are cheaper than the UK, claims Tel Aviv University.

Jewish school-leavers, hit by the £9,000 tuition fees next year at most of the top-tier British universities, could pay around £2,000 less if they choose to study in Israel.

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More calls to open the Auschwitz files

Conservative MP Robert Halfon has called on Defence Secretary Philip Hammond to release the files on the P o W camp in Auschwitz.

Mr Halfon has written to Mr Hammond requesting he release the service record of Israeli President Shimon Peres’s father Yitzhak Persky and other British servicemen held in the camp.

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Anger over lawyer who defended Nazis

Anti-fascist campaigners have expressed their disgust at inaction by the Home Office over the impending visit to SOAS of "devil's advocate" Jacques Vergès.

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Former JFS pupils concern over 'gay cure'

Former Jewish school students and religious leaders have expressed "deep concern" about references to "homosexual cure" group JONAH in a JFS Jewish studies lesson, and have called for schools urgently to address the teaching of homosexuality.

Former JFS head girl Alma Smith has written to the school's headmaster, Jonathan Miller, saying that not making reference to lesbian and gay organisations

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Mixed-faith couples welcome Romain's discussion forum

Two Jewish women in relationships with vicars, and gay Jewish and Muslim couples, were among a substantially increased turnout at Rabbi Jonathan Romain's annual seminar for mixed-faith couples.

More than 100 people participated in the "I'm Jewish, My Partner Isn't" event at the Sternberg Centre, Finchley, on Sunday, travelling from as far afield as Glasgow and Nottingham.

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Stamford Hill shul is 'blocking the sunlight' of local residents

Hackney Council claims that a strictly Orthodox synagogue, built without planning permission in Stamford Hill, is "blocking the sunlight" of nearby families and says its extension must be demolished.

The synagogue, in Bethune Road, was served with an enforcement notice and given three months to demolish an extension and turn the building back into a family home.

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