World News in Brief

JTA

The handwritten letter from the famed Indian advocate of non-violence to AE Shohet, the head of the Bombay Zionist Association, is dated 1 September 1939. The library placed it online this week.

“Dear Shohet, You have my good wishes for your new year,” the letter reads. “How I wish the new year may mean an era of peace for your afflicted people.”

The greeting was discovered as part of a library initiative to review millions of items in its archival collections.

Shohet was an Indian Jew from the Baghdadi community in Bombay. He also headed Bombay’s Keren Hayesod office, and served as editor of The Jewish Advocate newspaper.

He had interviewed Gandhi in March that year at his ashram in Wardha, according to the National Library. Gandhi had called for resisting Nazism solely through non-confrontational means.

Synagogue Connect helps youngsters find seats

More than 1 100 synagogues across the United States and around the world will welcome Jewish college students and young adults to worship with them for the high holidays for free.

Synagogue Connect will help young Jewish people between the ages of 18 and 26 to find the synagogue with the appropriate affiliation near them to attend Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services. It uses an online system to make the matches.

More than 30 countries have participating synagogues, including Canada, Israel, Europe, Australia, and South Africa.

WeWork chief Adam Neumann steps down

WeWork co-founder Adam Neumann has stepped down as chief executive of the shared office space company, which has suffered a major devaluation amid investors’ fears about the charismatic but unpredictable leader’s control of the firm.

The company was valued at the beginning of the year at $47 billion (R700 billion), but that figure has fallen to about $15 billion (R223 billion). Investors have expressed concern about the company’s business model and culture, the New York Times reported.

Last week, WeWork delayed the initial public offering of stock by several months as it seeks to repair its image.

Neumann will now become non-executive chairman of WeWork’s parent, the We Company.

Anti-Semitic leader speaks at Columbia University

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has called Jews “hook-nosed”, said they “rule the world by proxy”, and questioned the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. He has even said he is “glad to be labelled anti-Semitic”.

The Malaysian leader was billed to speak about “the rule of law and multilateralism” at Columbia University’s annual world leaders forum on Wednesday.

Mohamad, who has served as prime minister since last year, also mocked Jews while speaking at Cambridge University in June.

Three pro-Israel groups on campus – Students Supporting Israel, Aryeh, and J Street U – expressed their concern about his visit to University President Lee Bollinger.

Bollinger called the leader’s remarks “abhorrent”, but said the university was “strongly resolved to insist that our campus remains an open forum”.