Meridor steps down as ambassador
Israel’s ambassador to the United States is stepping down. Sallai Meridor told Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister–designate Benjamin Netanyahu on March 2 that he intended to leave the position he has held since October 2006 and return to Israel.
“In light of the sensitive nature of the position of ambassador to the most important country in the world and Israel’s strongest ally in the international community, it’s fitting and proper that the new government will have the opportunity to appoint, immediately upon its formation, the man or woman of its choosing as ambassador to Washington,” Meridor said in a statement.
Meridor added that he would remain as ambassador until his replacement arrives. — jta
Orthodox rabbi questions daughter in sex abuse trial
An ultra-Orthodox rabbi accused of sex crimes cross-examined his own daughter.
Rabbi Israel Weingarten, whose 27-year-old daughter accuses him of molesting her from age 9 to 16, is representing himself at the trial in Brooklyn federal court. He questioned her March 3, the day after she testified to the abuse she allegedly suffered.
The presiding judge called the situation “awkward” and “fairly untenable,” the Associated Press reported.
A member of a Satmar Chadissic community in upstate New York, Weingarten, 59, was arrested last year on charges he traveled outside the country to have sex with a minor. He is said to face up to 210 months in prison under sentencing guidelines. — jta
Touro Synagogue forced to cancel public tours
Touro Synagogue, the nation’s oldest Jewish house of worship, canceled public tours because of financial difficulties.
The last two paid staff members of the Newport, R.I., synagogue were let go last week, according to the Providence Journal.
Plans to open a museum of American Jewish history at the site this summer will go forward. Group tours already scheduled for the summer will take place, but no new ones will be booked, said a spokesman for the nonprofit foundation that runs the project. — jta