JEWISH WORLD NEWS

Narendra Modi is the first prime minister in India’s history to visit the Holy Land last month. Modi met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussing matters of mutual interest in business and trade. He also visited the Indian Jewish community and paid his respects to Indian soldiers buried in a Haifa cemetery. Israel has recently become an important defense supplier for India with the two countries signing an air and missile defense deal worth almost $2 billion in what Israel termed the “largest defense contract deal” in its history. Read More

A synagogue in Lviv was recently faced with a possible hate crime when unidentified individuals threw a firebomb at the synagogue located on Mikhovsky Street. The building sustained no structural damage and no one was injured by the senseless attack. In a separate incident, someone wrote “Down with Jewish power” and “Jews remember July 1” on a Jewish community building on Sholem Aleichem Street in the western Ukrainian city. The July reference was meant to suggest a connection to a 1941 pogrom that took place in the area. In recent days, Jewish groups in Ukraine and abroad protested by the municipality sponsorship of a celebration of Roman Shukhevych, a Nazi collaborator whose troops perpetrated the July 1 pogroms.

Alon Day became the first Israeli driver to compete in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at the Sonoma Raceway in California, coming in at 32^nd out of 40 in late June. Day was named Israel’s Athlete of the Year in 2016 and won the NASCAR Whelen Euro race in England before getting the call to compete at the sport’s highest league of competition. The 25-year-old resides in Tel Aviv and grew up in Ashdod, where he learned about NASCAR by simply playing video games such as Grand Prix Legends. In his early teens, Day became champion of the country’s only semi-professional motorsport league: go-karting. His father, realizing his son’s talent, sent him to compete in Europe, but Day quickly realized that the world of motor racing is driven by sponsorships. Since Israel’s business ties with the US are much stronger than those with Europe, he recognized that he had a greater likelihood of being sponsored to drive for NASCAR.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington has surpassed its $250,000 goal in an effort to preserve and digitize more than 200 diaries from Holocaust victims and survivors. “The backers of this campaign are helping to make the voices of the survivors and victims of the Holocaust heard,” said Dana Weinstein, the museum’s director of membership. The museum announced that its first crowdfunding campaign, launched on Kickstarter, met its goal with pledges from more than 4,500 people. The campaign launched on June 12, the birthday of Holocaust diarist Anne Frank. The funding will make it possible to translate three diaries into English. The museum is now launching a stretch goal of $50,000 to translate 10 more diaries into English. Museum officials say the diaries are important because they offer evidence that the Holocaust happened at a time when Holocaust denial is on the rise. The campaign can be followed on social media under the hashtag #SaveTheirStories.