H EADLINES
NEWSBRIEFS Bipartisan Lawmakers Push to Ease Visa
Requirements for Israeli Travelers
MORE THAN 50 House members from both parties
are urging the Biden administration to include Israel
in the visa waiver program, which would enter Israel
into a system allowing travelers easier entry into the
United States, JTA reported.

Th e letter sent Nov. 22 to Secretary of State Antony
Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro
Mayorkas said the issue was on the agenda in recent
meetings between top U.S. and Israeli offi cials; it
noted that Mayorkas has said that Israel’s entry into
the program is in the “pipeline.”
“Israel’s participation in this program would grow
the U.S. economy, strengthen national security at
each of our borders, and increase opportunities
for people-to-people exchange, which bolsters our
already unique bilateral relationship,” the letter reads.

Israel has sought entry to the program for years.

It would allow for 90-day stays and doesn’t require
prearranged visas. Israelis believe it would enhance
business and trade with the U.S.

expresses support for the Palestinian political party
Hamas or its militant wing, JTA reported.

Th e U.K. already considers the group’s military
wing a terrorist group and British Interior Secretary
Priti Patel said on Nov. 19 that parliament will add
the designation to Hamas’ political wing.

Hamas offi cials are already banned from entering
the U.K., but the British government previously
maintained that Hamas’ political and military wings
are separate organizations — even though Hamas
itself has referred to the military wing, the Izz ad-Din
al-Qassam Brigades, as part of the organization.

Romania Makes High School Holocaust
Education Mandatory
Th e Romanian Senate adopted a law on Nov. 15
that makes it mandatory for all high schools and
vocational schools there to teach about the history of
the Holocaust and the Jewish people, JTA reported.

Th e law stipulates that the course will be taught
starting in 2023. Course contents will be determined
by the country’s education ministry in collaboration
with the Elie Wiesel Institute for the Study of the
Great Britain to Criminalize Support for Hamas Holocaust in Romania.

Th e law, which Romania’s lower chamber previ-
A prison sentence of up to 14 years could be the
punishment for anyone in the United Kingdom who ously approved, was supported by 107 senators; 13
D N
BRAN EW
legislators voted against it, and one abstained.

Between 280,000 and 380,000 Romanian and
Ukrainian Jews were murdered in territories under
Romanian administration during World War II,
according to the Elie Wiesel Institute.

Sweden’s National Theater Stages its
First-ever Yiddish Production
Actors in “Waiting for Godot” at the Royal Dramatic
Th eater in Stockholm performed neither in the classic
play’s original English nor in a Swedish translation,
JTA reported.

Instead, they spoke Yiddish, a language spoken by
few Swedes but increasingly cherished by many.

Th e Yiddish version of Samuel Beckett’s classic play
premiered in 2013 through the New Yiddish Rep, a
theater company in New York City and has toured as
far afi eld as Paris and Enniskillen in Northern Ireland.

Th e performances marked its debut in Sweden
and the fi rst time that a play in Yiddish was staged at
Sweden’s national theater company.

In Sweden today, no more than 3,000 people
out of a Jewish population of about 25,000 can
speak Yiddish, according to the country’s Society for
Yiddish (Jiddischsällskapet). l
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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