Category World

Getting more kids into camp

image - Benefits of Jewish overnight camp in chart form

The Foundation for Jewish Camp serves more than 155 Jewish summer camps, close to 80,000 campers and 11,000 counselors across North America every summer. Among its initiatives is the One Happy Camper program, which is run in partnership with Jewish…

Victoria link to UK honours

photo - More than 20 girls were rescued from Nazi persecution and brought to Tynemouth (photo from Summerf

More than 20 girls were rescued from Nazi persecution and brought to Tynemouth (photo from Summerfield family via BBC) On Jan. 26, 2023, a blue plaque at a house in Tynemouth, a coastal town in northeast England near Newcastle, was…

Gondar in need of help

photo - With the economy in crisis in Gondar, aid groups are moving quickly to bolster food supplies to cover 1,500 Jewish households

With the economy in crisis in Gondar, aid groups are moving quickly to bolster food supplies to cover 1,500 Jewish households. (photo from SSEJ) The ethnic violence that engulfed Ethiopia’s Tigray region in recent years is now gaining a foothold…

Decline of Polish Jewry

photo - Dr. Kamil Kijek of the University of Wrocław, in Poland

Dr. Kamil Kijek of the University of Wrocław, in Poland. (photo from University of British Columbia) For Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust, the question of where to begin life anew after the cataclysm was not as clear as it…

Shul heritage sign replaced

photo - The signage at the site of 1,700-year-old synagogue ruins in Albania was recently replace after a Canadian tourist informed the municipal government of the old signs’ illegibility

The signage at the site of 1,700-year-old synagogue ruins in Albania was recently replace after a Canadian tourist informed the municipal government of the old signs’ illegibility. (photo from Dave Gordon) During a trip to Albania in September 2022, Toronto-based Jewish journalist…

Holocaust by bullets

The harrowing history of Ukraine’s past was recounted recently in the annual lecture honouring Rudolf Vrba, the late Vancouver scientist whose 1944 escape from Auschwitz brought the most concrete proof of the Nazi “Final Solution” to the world. Dr. Nataliia…

Jewish life in colonial Sumatra

photo - Hüttenbach in Medan in 1880s

Hüttenbach in Medan in 1880s. (photo from KITLV Album Or. 27.377) Jewish communities in Indonesia have always been tiny, though their history is long. Jewish merchants are recorded in Sumatra as early as the 10th century, and diasporic and Israeli…

A new philanthropic strategy

The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity (EWF) in New York is launching a new impact-driven philanthropic strategy to advance human rights around the world. The foundation, led by Elisha and Marion Wiesel, will adopt a hybrid approach that will not…

Israel’s Christian fellowship

photo - Yael Eckstein, president and chief executive officer of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews

Yael Eckstein, president and chief executive officer of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. (photo from IFCJ) Twice a year, the president and chief executive officer of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Yael Eckstein, heads into Ukraine’s…