World news roundup 23/10: Israelis stranded In Nepal disaster

Country: Nepal

Chabad emissaries and volunteers in Nepal have spent the past week helping stranded tourists and talking to worried relatives in Israel, after a blizzard hit climbers trying to cross part of the famed Annapurna Circuit. Three Israelis were among the 400 hikers hit. Dozens have been killed and over 250 injured.

Country: Germany
A Frankfurt court has heard how a glatt kosher butcher with close ties sold more than 88,000 pounds of treife (non-kosher) meat to Orthodox Jews for years until the fraud was uncovered. The two well-known male owners, who admitted the fraud, were sole suppliers to a Jewish nursing home and a Jewish school.

Country: Switzerland
Swiss bank UBS is being sued for auctioning off the artworks of a German Jewish couple without their knowledge. Relatives of Ludwig and Margret Kainer say the banking giant sold priceless paintings by Monet, Degas and Renoir without making a diligent effort to find them, creating a ‘sham’ foundation instead.

Country: United States
Over 350 students gathered at Harvard for ‘If Not Now When,’ the inaugural conference of Open Hillel, a student group that seeks to abolish Hillel International Standards of Partnership rules that prevent campus Hillels from collaborating with people or groups that ‘delegitimize’ Israel or support BDS.

Country: Belgium
An Orthodox follower of a suspected paedophile rabbi has drowned near Antwerp. Nissim Levy, 27, travelled to Europe to be near Rabbi Eliezer Berland, who was finally captured in Amsterdam after going on-the-run in Africa. Last year Berland fled Israel after being accused of sexually assaulting a young girl.

Country: Russia
Gay Russians are being helped out of the country by a US group founded by Jews from the former Soviet Union. RUSA LGBT, originally comprising Russian-speaking Jews, is helping organisations offering relief to asylum applicants, who are not allowed to work in US and are sometimes forced to live on street.