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). ●
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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H EADLINES
ISRAELBRIEFS Council Projects One in Three Israelis to be
Haredi Orthodox by 2050
ABOUT ONE-THIRD of Israel’s Jewish population
will be haredi Orthodox by 2050, according to projec-
tions from Israel’s National Economic Council, JTA
reported. Israel’s population of 9.2 million is expected to
reach 16 million by 2050. Of that total, about 25% are
projected by Israel’s National Economic Council to be
haredi Orthodox.

Th ose population estimates point to a future in
which Israel’s Jewish population continues to make
up about 80% of its population but in which that
Jewish population skews far more heavily Orthodox.

Israel’s Orthodox community now makes up
12.6% of the population.

Most of that growth will come from the Orthodox
community’s birth rate of 6.7 children per woman —
more than double the rate of 3.01 among the overall
population. Most of the nation’s Orthodox Jews are expected
to remain concentrated in and around Jerusalem and
also in the city of Beit Shemesh.

from the City of David park in Jerusalem, JTA
reported. Liel Krutokop was visiting the site with her family
when she found the coin, the Israel Antiquities
Authority said.

Aft er cleaning and examining the coin, archae-
ologists believe the coin may have been minted by
Temple priests sympathetic to Jewish rebels in their
war against the Romans who controlled Jerusalem at
the time.

One side of the coin is marked with a cup and the
letters “shin” and “bet,” which indicate that it was
minted during the second year of the war, sometimes
also called the Great Revolt. Th e other side includes
an inscription associated with the headquarters of
the High Priest in the temple and the words “Holy
Jerusalem.” 86-year-old Crowned Miss Holocaust Survivor
Salina Steinfeld, who was born in Romania and
survived Nazi attacks before moving to Israel in 1948,
was crowned Miss Holocaust Survivor in an annual
beauty pageant, Th e Jerusalem Post reported.

Steinfeld, 86, competed with nine other contes-
tants ranging in age from 79 to 90 at a museum
Girl Finds Rare 2,000-year-old Coin
An 11-year-old girl found a rare silver coin dating in Haifa. A team of volunteer make-up artists and
from approximately 67-68 CE in dirt excavated stylists prepared the contestants.

Contest organizers say the pageant “bestows
glamour and respect on a dwindling number of
Jewish women whose youth was stolen during World
War II but who went on to build new lives in Israel,”
the Post reported.

But some commentators and survivors say the
event cheapens the memory of the 6 million Jews
killed by the Nazis.

Archaeologists: Hellenistic Fortress Ruins
Show ‘Tangible Evidence’ of Chanukah Story
Archaeologists excavating a 2,100-year-old fortress
say it provides “tangible evidence” of Chanukah story
events, JTA reported.

Th e site west of Hebron in the Lachish Forest
includes remnants of a fortress made of stone and
wood that archaeologists working with the Israel
Antiquities Authority believe was burned by the
Hasmoneans — Judean descendants of the Maccabees
— during a battle with the Macedonian Greek
Seleucids. Th e excavation has turned up burnt wooden beams
as well as pottery, weapons and coins. Th e coins point
to the destruction of the fortress by the Hasmonean
leader John Hyrcanus around 112 BCE, the archaeol-
ogists say. ●
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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