Rachel Tepper
Holocaust archives go online
WASHINGTON – Efforts to track down U.S.-held records that may assist Holocaust restitution claims are now a click — and possibly a fee — away.
The U.S. National Archives and Footnote.com, a fee-based history research Website, recently launched the largest online interactive collection of Holocaust records.
The collection organizes more than 1 million Holocaust-era records, including concentration camp registers and documents from Dachau, Mauthausen, Auschwitz, and Flossenburg; captured German records including deportation and death lists from concentration camps; Nuremberg war crimes trial proceedings; and about 26,000 photos from the National Archives.
JNF aims to turn Israeli diamonds from rough to ready
JERUSALEM – People historically have associated the Jewish National Fund with planting trees in Israel. Now the century-old charity is also working to make sure that Israelis will have decent places to put good wood on the ball.
The organization’s latest venture, Project Baseball, aims to develop baseball facilities in Israel for the country’s nearly 2,300 amateur players.
Baseball has seen a rise in popularity in the State of Israel, but inadequate and unmaintained facilities have hampered its progress.
Jewish groups join national debate on health-care reform
Among Jewish groups, only GOPers slamming Dems’ health-care plans
WASHINGTON – Even as polls and heated rhetoric suggest opposition to Democratic health-care reforms is mounting, Jewish organizational support appears to be holding steady.
Only one group — the Republican Jewish Coalition — is voicing opposition. The RJC has been urging its members to oppose Democrat-backed health-care legislation, sending out an action alert last week warning that the measures, which the group dubs “Obamacare,” will result in massive spending and debt and widespread loss of jobs and healthcare coverage. In its alert, the RJC warned that Obama’s plan will result in a “government takeover of health care.”
However vigorous RJC’s opposition, it appears to represent the lone voice among Jewish organizations speaking out against Obama’s plan. Liberal groups, including the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the National Jewish Democratic Council, have been staunch supporters of health care reform. Both have taken to the Internet in recent days, creating Websites advocating comprehensive health care reform.
