For the third year since US Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman took office a Hanukkah Menorah has its place in the lobby of the US Embassy in Brussels.
The Dutch government said it will appoint a commission to study new tightened rules for ritual slaughter to satisfy animal rights activists without infringing on Jewish and Muslim traditions.
A delegation of Dutch Rabbis representing the Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE) met with two high-ranking representatives of the Dutch Parliament on the eve of the first night of Hanukah, the Jewish festival of light, to express their gratitude for the rejection by Holland of a ban on kosher slaughter or shechita.
Former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel, who died on Sunday, was known as a great friend of the Jews and did much to confront anti-Semitism and teach the lessons of the dark chapter of the Holocaust during his two terms in office.
A proposal bill to ban shechita, the Jewish kosher slaughter of animals, in Holland, was rejected late Tuesday by the Dutch Senate, the upper house of the Parliament, on the ground that it violates freedom of religion.
France's ambassador to Israel, Christophe Bigot, met Sunday with a senior rabbi to seek his approval for the release of French-Palestinian convicted of trying to assassinate the religious leader.
Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel has been in talks with Libya’s Transitional Council in a bid to establish ties with the country and open an Israeli embassy in Tripoli.
