World News in Brief

JTA

Beatie Deutsch, 29, was the top woman finisher in Sunday’s 13-mile (21km) race in Riga in a time of 1 hour, 17 minutes, 34 seconds, reportedly becoming the first haredi woman to win an international athletics competition.

She has a coach, and is receiving partial funding by the state to train for the 2020 Olympics.

“So many of you shared stories of your families that had perished in Riga, and it felt truly incredible to be running through the streets as a proud Jewish woman,” Deutsch, who uses the moniker “Marathon Mother”, wrote on Facebook after the race.

Deutsch won the 2018 Jerusalem Marathon and the Tiberias Marathon in January. She ran the Tel Aviv Marathon in 2017 while seven months pregnant.

Deutsch, who made aliyah from New Jersey in 2009, is known for running in modest clothing including a skirt, shirt sleeves below her elbow, and headscarf.

Palestinians reject economic workshop

Palestinian leaders have rejected a plan for an economic workshop announced as the first part of the Trump administration’s Middle East peace plan.

The Palestinians said they were not consulted on the plan to hold the conference next month in Bahrain.

Finance ministers and global and regional business leaders will meet from 25 to 26 June in Manama to encourage capital investment in the West Bank, Gaza, and countries in the region, CNN reported on Sunday.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in law and senior White House adviser, and White House Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt have worked on the peace proposal since the beginning of the Trump presidency. The plan contains political and economic components and reportedly will be announced later this year.

“All efforts to make the oppressor and the oppressed co-exist are doomed to fail,” said Palestine Liberation Organisation Secretary-General Saeb Erekat. Attempts at promoting an economic normalisation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine will be rejected. This is not about improving living conditions under occupation, but about reaching Palestine’s full potential by ending Israeli occupation.”

Comedian feels the heat

Netflix has dropped an Australian comedian who made jokes about the Holocaust, and insulted a Jewish audience member who later complained in an email.

Last month, Isaac Butterfield asked his audience at the Melbourne Comedy Festival to “imagine the joy of people when they heard the Jews were sent to the gas chambers”, the city’s Herald Sun newspaper reported. The email sent to Butterfield from a Jewish woman said the joke was “not remotely funny”.

He responded, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the oven.”

Butterfield had what the London-based Daily Mail described as “a lucrative comedy special deal” with Netflix to air his stand-up show, The Butterfield Effect. But the video streaming company cancelled the deal following the offensive riposte.

Butterfield has nearly one million subscribers on YouTube.

In a video posted on 24 April on YouTube, he pretended to apologise for his comments, and then took it back, accusing the mainstream media of “an all-out assault on me”. Butterfield also defended his right to free speech as part of the 16-minute video.

Polish govt says no to reparations

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki vowed that his government would never pay damages in connection with World War II.

“If today anyone says that Poland has to pay damages to anyone, then we disagree and will continue to do so. It will not happen as long as the country is ruled by law and justice,” Morawiecki said at an event in Lodz on Friday.

Morawiecki’s remarks were widely understood to mean that he regarded offering restitution for Jewish property morally flawed and a victory for Nazism.

Earlier this month, Morawiecki said that Poland would never pay restitution because Poles were the greatest victims of World War II.

Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Jewish groups have protested against Poland’s failure to pass restitution laws for privately owned property lost by Jews in the Holocaust.

Chicago synagogue targeted by arsonists

An arsonist attempted twice on Saturday night to set fire to a synagogue building in downtown Chicago.

Meanwhile, on the city’s north side in the West Rogers Park neighbourhood, vandals smashed the windows of cars parked outside of a synagogue.

Deputy Police Superintendent Anthony Ricci ordered that synagogues, Jewish schools, and Jewish-owned businesses receive “special attention” while the suspected hate crimes were investigated.

Two attempts were made around midnight to set alight the Anshei Sholom B’nei Israel synagogue in the Lakeview neighbourhood. The remains of several Molotov cocktails were found outside the building. There was no damage.

The synagogue’s surveillance cameras filmed the arson attempts. Police told local media that they had identified two suspects.