Portland, ME - The city of Portland will not appeal a 5-0 Zoning Board of Appeals vote that will allow a local rabbi to continue to hold Saturday prayer meetings in his Craigie Street home. "We won't be appealing this," Penny Littell, director of the city's Plannning and Urban Development Department. The board's vote overturned a city decision that blocked Rabbi Moshe Wilansky from holding the...

Kiryas Joel, NY - New York State Police were requested to Garfield Road for a large fight that broke out between two groups in front of the main synagogue at location. Hatzolah responded for some aided, one of the emergency vehicles was also vandalized during the fighting. ...

Berlin, Germany - Police say they are investigating the desecration of the Holocaust Memorial after a caretaker for the monument discovered 11 Nazi swastikas on seven of the memorial's pillars. The memorial, which commemorates the six million European Jews murdered by the Nazis, covers 19,000 square metres in the heart of the capital, is a labyrinth of charcoal grey concrete plinths. It...

Israel - Leading ultra-Orthodox rabbis are waging a new offensive against Jews visiting Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Rabbis Shalom Elyashiv, Chaim Kanievsky and Ovadia Yosef sent a letter to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinovich, the overseer of holy places in the Western Wall complex, urging him to reiterate the religious decree signed 40 years ago by most rabbis in Israel forbidding Jews from entering the...

Queens, NY - A Brooklyn man has pleaded guilty to fifth-degree criminal possession of stolen property in connection with the fraudulent sale of a retired New York City correction officer’s Cambria Heights house. Moses B., 31, of Brooklyn, was charged in the case along with his brother, Joel B., 27, who was employed at a Queens real estate brokerage firm. The brother is a fugitive who is being...

Lauderdale Lakes, FL - Police say they will investigate the spray-painting of the word "JEW" on a homeowner's door as a hate crime. Henry Korz, 69, woke up Tuesday morning to find the word "JEW" spray-painted on the front door of his condominium at the Hawaiian Gardens complex, located at 4800 NW 35th St. Korz said the message hurts him deep because he went through the Holocaust as a child...

Orenburg, Russia - Police detained a neo-Nazi armed with a grenade near the city's main train station. A police spokesman said that the 23 year old man was a known member of a neo-Nazi gang who already faces a trial later this year on charges that he painted swastikas on the city's synagogue. "It's possible that he was preparing to use the grenade against people of non-European appearance," the...

Chicago, IL - Barack Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware late Friday night to be his vice presidential running mate, balancing his ticket with an older congressional veteran well-versed in foreign and defense issues. The announcement also was made in e-mails and mobile phone text messages to millions of supporters. "Barack has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate," the announcement...

Tel Aviv, Israel - Shimrit Tzuberi, 25, was fired from her job at the Holmes Place gym franchise after refusing to work on Shabbat. Shimrit's father died a few months after she began working at the Holmes Place branch in Tel Aviv's Azrieli Towers. In light of his death, Shimrit decided that she would like to begin abiding by tradition and stop working on Shabbat. The branch she worked at...

Palm Beach, FL - Every weekend, a group of well-dressed people walks from nearby subdivisions to the Indian Wells neighborhood west of Boynton Beach. The women wear hats, the men yarmulkes and prayer shawls. As Indian Wells residents mow the grass and wash their boats, the Orthodox Jews enter a house much like the others in Indian Wells. They hold their Shabbat services in the home. About two...