World Roundup: 26/1: Sheltering Ukraine’s Jews

Country: Ukraine

The Jewish community of Zhitomir in central Ukraine is providing shelter and housing to Jews from the eastern city of Mariupol. Hundreds are leaving as fighting intensifies between ethnic Ukrainians and Russian-backed rebels in the strategic port city. A shaky ceasefire broke down last week.

Country:  The Netherlands

Jewish groups have continued to protest the name of the world’s largest crane ship, the £2 billion Pieter Schelte, which is docked in Rotterdam and named after a Dutch officer in the Nazi Waffen-SS military force. Jonathan Arkush from the Board of Deputies urged the parent company to reconsider.

Country: Argentina

Argentina’s Jewish community will boycott the government’s Holocaust commemorations this year following the suspicious death of a federal prosecutor. Alberton Nisman, 51, had accused the president and foreign minister of protecting Iranian agents suspected of blowing up a Jewish centre in 1941.

Country: Switzerland

Swiss Jews are to set up information stands outside theatres ahead of two performances from French comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala. The comic, who has several convictions for anti-Semitism, originated the ‘quenelle’ salute, which is widely viewed as an inverted Nazi salute. He performs this week.

Country: United States

A rabbi is to appear in court charged with child sex abuse following his arrest at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. Rabbi Frederick Karp, 50, from Ohio, who is president of the Association of Jewish Chaplains, is charged with sex offences, including the sexual abuse of a minor over several years.
Country: Poland

A Polish university has restored degrees to Jewish doctors 75 years after they were rescinded by occupying power Nazi Germany. The University of Wroclaw honours list includes physicists Otto Stern, Max Born and Erwin Schrödinger, chemist Eduard Buchner and historian Theodor Mommsen.