Shorts: World

Putin makes history in Israel

jerusalem (ap) | Greeted by beaming Israeli officials, Vladimir Putin this week became the first Kremlin leader to visit the Jewish state, capping a historic rapprochement between two nations that once faced each other as bitter enemies across the Cold War divide.

Putin, on his first Middle East trip, was also hoping to restore his country's profile as a major player in the region and the world, bringing with him a fresh proposal for a conference to be held in Moscow in the fall.

Israel, wary of international involvement in the conflict, said it would not object to a conference but that much work needed to be done first.

"Israel has accepted the road map, and in the second stage of the road map it specifically mentions a conference," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said. "So we don't have a problem with a conference ... but obviously we have not reached the second stage of the road map yet."




Dutch crown prince opens Auschwitz exhibit

oswiecim, poland (ap) | Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his wife, Maxima, opened a newly refurbished exhibit this week honoring the almost 60,000 Dutch Jews who perished at Auschwitz.

The new exhibit uses audio recordings, photographs, films and personal documents to show how almost the entire Jewish population of the Netherlands was isolated and then deported, mainly to Auschwitz.




Berlin graves overturned, others returned near Prague

berlin (ap) | Vandals overturned 13 gravestones at a Jewish cemetery in western Germany, police said this week.

The vandals, who appear to have climbed over a wall into the cemetery in the town of Babenhausen, south of Frankfurt, caused an estimated $10,400 in damage, police spokesman Heiner Jerofsky said.

Also, seven tombstones were returned to a Jewish cemetery in an eastern Czech town after a family found them in the yard of their grandparents' house, an official said this week.

Magdalena Gladisova, a town hall spokeswoman in Lipnik nad Becvou, 156 miles southeast of Prague, said the tombstones, dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries, had been found earlier this year. They were returned to the town's old Jewish cemetery where they belonged, she said.




Housewares chain renames 'Mauthausen' tool shed

vienna (ap) | One of Austria's biggest housewares chains found itself with unwanted publicity this week after protesters complained its summer catalog lists a tool shed as the "Mauthausen" model, the same name as one of the worst Nazi concentration camps.

Karlheinz Essl, the Baumax chain's chief executive officer, expressed "deepest regret" at what he called an oversight and said the shed would be renamed the "Linde" — or Linden tree. He said tens of thousands of catalogs at the company's stores were being recalled and the offending name crossed out.




Pope praises Jews in sermon

rome (jta) | Pope Benedict XVI extolled Jews for sharing a "spiritual heritage" with Christians.

In a Vatican sermon this week marking his installation as pontiff, Benedict offered greetings to "my brothers and sisters of the Jewish people, to whom we are joined by a great shared spiritual heritage, one rooted in God's irrevocable promises."

Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo di Segni, received a personal invitation to the Sunday Mass but could not attend due to Passover.