World News in Brief

JTA

“The initiative will focus on assessing the root causes of anti-Semitism, extremism, and bigotry in society, and develop programmes to counter it through advocacy and education,” ADL said on Tuesday.

A Volkswagen spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the venture would open an ADL office in Berlin, the first ADL presence in Europe in more than a decade. The funding, over the three years, would be in the low seven figures, the official said, with an option to expand and continue the initiative thereafter.

Herbert Diess, the chief executive of Volkswagen Group, said he was concerned about the recent spike in anti-Semitism in Europe, and that Volkswagen had a special obligation to combat racism because of its origins in Nazi Germany.

“We have more obligation than others,” he said. “The whole company was built up by the Nazi regime.”

The initiative will have four components: education in schools, education in workplaces, lobbying in European capitals, and research through surveys.

Call for easier conversion

A slight majority of Jewish Israelis want it to be easier for people to convert to Judaism, according to a new survey.

Respondents were asked about whether they want conversions to be performed as leniently as possible according to Jewish law.

Fifty-two percent of Jewish Israelis want that to happen, while 35% want conversions to be more stringent, and 13% don’t know. Among secular Jews, 68% want conversions to be easier; that number is only 2% among the haredi Orthodox.

The survey, performed by the Guttman Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research of the Israel Democracy Institute, comes amid a debate about conversions in Israel.

The chief rabbinate, which controls Jewish marriage, divorce, conversion, and burial in the Jewish state, is largely run by haredi Orthodox leaders. The rabbinate does not recognise any conversions performed abroad by non-Orthodox rabbis, and has also rejected some performed by Orthodox rabbis. People whose conversions are not recognised cannot marry in Israel or be buried in a Jewish cemetery there.

Threat for playing in Israel

Ireland’s contestant in the Eurovision song contest said she received terrifying threats and abusive messages after performing in Israel.

Sarah McTernan, 25, told the Irish Sun over the weekend, “I got hundreds of threats… It did freak me out.”

In addition to threatening mail, much of which got delivered to her grandmother’s house, the young singer also received “hundreds and hundreds” of threatening and abusive messages on social media. She reportedly went offline for the days leading up to her appearance in the second semi-final of the competition held last month in Tel Aviv. She didn’t advance to the final.

She said she knew representing Ireland in Israel would be controversial. “I was aware, but I didn’t know how much of a backlash there would be,” she said. “I was happy to represent my country.”

Left-wing Irish officials and performers called for their country to boycott Eurovision hours after Israel won the 2018 contest and the right to host this year’s Eurovision.

Nehamas Rivlin dies at 73

Nechama Rivlin, the wife of President Reuven Rivlin, died on Tuesday at the age of 73, a day before her 74th birthday. She underwent a lung transplant three months ago.

Rivlin, who had in recent years rarely been seen in public without being attached to a portable oxygen tank, suffered from pulmonary fibrosis. The condition causes scar tissue to fill the lungs and makes it difficult to breathe. The transplant surgery was described as “complicated” by doctors, and she required a second surgery several days later.

“Medical efforts to stabilise her over time during the complicated rehabilitation period after the transplant did not succeed,” the hospital said in a statement.

The Rivlin family thanked “citizens of Israel… who have continued to ask after Nechama’s health, to send letters and wonderful children’s drawings to the hospital and to Beit HaNasi (the president’s residence), and to pray for her every day, every hour.

The Rivlins also thanked the Halabli family who donated their late son Yair’s lung for the transplant.