U.S. Report

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- A Jewish woman lost her bid for a U.S. congressional seat in a Florida region stretching from Miami Beach to just north of Palm Beach -- one of the most Jewish-populated regions in the country.

After a closely watched race, Elaine Bloom -- a longtime Democratic legislator, former regional president of the National Council of Jewish Women and a top United Jewish Communities activist -- conceded defeat to the 10-term Republican incumbent Clay Shaw last Friday.

Meanwhile, in another much-touted Jewish bid for office in New Jersey, former U.S. Rep. Dick Zimmer is calling for a recount in his race to unseat Democrat Rush Holt, who has already declared victory.

Boston gays, lesbians kvelling over rabbis

BOSTON (JTA) -- A gay-rights group here honored Reform Judaism's rabbinic arm for its resolution affirming the right of rabbis to officiate at same-sex unions.

The Pride Interfaith Coalition for Greater Boston's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered People of Faith presented the "2000 Pride Interfaith Award" to the Central Conference of American Rabbis on Nov. 15.

After years of heated debate, Reform rabbis overwhelmingly passed a resolution in late March acknowledging "the relationship of a Jewish, same-gender couple is worthy of affirmation through appropriate Jewish ritual."

However, the almost unanimously passed resolution is not the wholesale endorsement of gay marriage that some proponents originally had hoped for.

Museum to return looted art to heirs

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- The National Gallery of Art said it would return a painting it believes was confiscated by the Nazis from the Stern family in Paris in 1941.

"Still Life with Fruit and Game" by Flemish artist Frans Snyders brings to 11 the number of paintings the gallery has found in its collection that passed through Nazi hands.

In related news, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was just given a newly revised English translation of the history of the Auschwitz death camp.

The five-volume "Auschwitz: 1940-1945," presented by the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, contains diagrams, photographs and copies of Nazi documents. It was originally published in Polish in 1995.

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