U.S. Report

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Simon Wiesenthal, a Nazi concentration camp survivor who has devoted his life to finding evidence to prosecute Nazi war criminals, was among 15 people who received the highest U.S. civilian honor this week.

President Clinton awarded the Presidential Medals of Freedom at a White House ceremony on Wednesday to a distinguished group that included three senators, an economist, an admiral and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

In 1977, Wiesenthal founded the Simon Wiesenthal Center to fight bigotry and anti-Semitism. He received the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal in 1980 from President Carter and the French Legion Honor in 1986.

U.S. judge minces N.Y. kosher laws

NEW YORK (JTA) -- Declaring that New York state's kosher laws excessively entangle government with religion, a Brooklyn federal judge has struck down the 118-year-old statutes as unconstitutional.

Orthodox advocates immediately said they would appeal the July 28 decision by U.S. Eastern District Court Judge Nina Gershon. She ruled in favor of a Long Island butcher whose 1996 lawsuit claimed that the state's kosher laws violated church-state separation and that requiring items to meet Orthodox standards discriminates against his store, which is supervised by a Conservative rabbi.

The ruling marks the latest in a string of legal losses for kosher food laws across the country.

Yeshiva girls in shul as U.S. honors them

NEW YORK (JTA) -- A small girls' yeshiva in Brooklyn is among 198 public and private secondary schools honored this year by the U.S. Department of Education.

But teachers, students and administrators at the school -- the one Jewish school honored this year -- will be unable to attend the awards ceremony because it falls on Shabbat.

The 91-student Mercaz Bnos is one of 11 Jewish day schools named Blue Ribbon Schools since the Education Department started the program in 1982.

Filming under way on Shoah rescue tale

LOS ANGELES (JTA) -- The story of 1,000 Jewish refugees plucked from Europe in the midst of World War II and transported to safety in the United States is being filmed as a miniseries for CBS Television.

"Haven," featuring Natasha Richardson, Anne Bancroft and Martin Landau, is scheduled to be aired in February.

It is based on the book of the same title by the journalist Ruth Gruber, who is not related to the JTA journalist with the same name.