Shorts: World

Shoah claims may pay for survivor care

berlin (jta) | The Claims Conference will urge Germany to pay for home care of ailing Holocaust survivors worldwide.

The decision to push the German government for additional support of survivors around the world came at a Claims Conference executive meeting in Jerusalem on Nov. 24.

The conference also said it would pressure the Karstadt company to drop its claim to disputed property in Berlin that belonged to a prominent German-Jewish family before World War II.

Last week, the German government dropped its opposition to a court decision awarding the Claims Conference rights to the property, originally owned by the Wertheim family and estimated to be worth several hundred million dollars today.




Chabad hits record: presence in 70 nations

london (jta) | Chabad-Lubavitch announced it has emissaries in more than 70 countries, a record for the movement.

New countries that added full-time emissaries this year include Cyprus, Croatia, Finland and India.

Also for the first time, Chabad had a representative in Iraq during the holidays, Col. Jacob Goldstein, state staff chaplain of the New York Army National Guard.

The announcement was made at Chabad's 20th annual shlichim convention, which drew about 2,000 Jewish outreach emissaries, or shlichim, to the five-day conference in Brooklyn.

Chabad has about 4,600 emissaries worldwide, including permanent representatives in 45 states and 67 U.S. campus representatives.