Shorts: World

Royal couple get Kabbalistic gift

london (jta) | Prince Charles got a Jewish good-luck charm for his wedding from the wife of Israel's foreign minister.

Judy Shalom-Nir-Mozes, who accompanied Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom to the funeral of Pope John Paul II, said she used the opportunity to bestow on Charles a golden amulet with a Hebrew prayer that had been blessed by an Israeli kabbalist.

"Prince Charles was very charming about it, not at all the drip that Israelis assume he is," Shalom-Nir-Mozes told Army Radio. A multiple divorcee, she said she hoped Charles and his second wife, Camilla Parker Bowles, would find happiness.

"It's all about love, isn't it?" she said. At the Vatican for last week's funeral, Shalom-Nir-Mozes also found time to appear in a photograph with Syrian President Bashar Assad. In the picture, published by Ma'ariv, she is seen smiling while the unwitting Assad converses with his wife.




British politician pelted at service

london (jta) | Eggs and vegetables were thrown at a black Jewish politician at a British service commemorating those who died during a World War II missile attack.

It wasn't clear who threw the items at Oona King at last week's event in London, though she has come under intense criticism in a Muslim district for her support of the war in Iraq.

The funeral commemorated the 1945 Hughes Mansions disaster when 134 people, most of them Jewish, were killed by a missile landing on London.




Politician 'tired' of Holocaust

wellington (jta) | A New Zealand politician was placed on "temporary leave" from his party after insensitive remarks regarding the Holocaust.

The country's Labor Party announced John Tamihere would not participate in party activities this week after he was quoted in a weekend interview as saying, "I am sick and tired of hearing how many Jews got gassed."

In a statement, Prime Minister Helen Clark said Tamihere's remarks are deeply offensive.




Efforts continue to retrieve Lubavitch texts

moscow (ap) | A group of rabbis and human rights advocates urged the United States last week to step up efforts to help reclaim a collection of religious texts held for two decades by the Russian government.

At a hearing of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, rabbis affiliated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement said Russia's refusal to return the works despite years of negotiations violates international law and deprives them of part of their cultural heritage.

"To us, their value is not about art and perhaps not even sanctity, but family,' said Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of Chabad's social services and educational organizations. "These books are like human beings. They give life to life."

The hearing is the latest chapter in Chabad's 20-year effort, with the help of U.S. officials, to reclaim the collection. Last month, all 100 senators signed a letter urging the Russian government to return the works to Chabad.




Russian city gets synagogue

moscow (jta) | A new synagogue and Jewish community center was inaugurated last week in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg.

The Rohr JCC and Synagogue was built on the site where the city's synagogue stood until it was destroyed some 40 years ago, during communist rule.

According to the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, the group that will run the new facility, the center will become a hub for most Jewish activities in the city, located in the Ural Mountains and home to an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 Jews.

The construction was made possible through a more than $2 million capital grant from the U.S.-based Rohr Family Foundation, as well as gifts from some 150 local donors that included local Jewish public officials, businessmen and community members.




German state bans neo-Nazi groups

berlin (jta) | The German state of Brandenburg this week banned two neo-Nazi organizations — Hauptvolk and Sturm 2 — The Associated Press reported.

"By banning these organizations, we are sending a clear signal against far-right extremism," said Jorg Schoenbohm, Brandenburg's interior minister.




Museum marks liberation anniversary

berlin (jta) | A new museum was opened on the site of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp in Germany to mark the 60th anniversary of its liberation.

Warren Miller, chairman of the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, said the museum would be part of a "never-ending obligation to truthfully remember what happened and to honor the memory of the victims of National Socialism who suffered and died in places like Dora."

The U.S. commission helped develop a site model of the concentration camp in front of the museum.