nation / world
Jewish Groups Fail to Stop Arizona from Gas Chamber Executions
An unusual scenario played out in Arizona recently: The son of a Jewish woman
who fled the Nazis was asked if he wanted to be executed by the same gas the
Nazis once used, JTA reported.

Frank Atwood, who was convicted of murdering an 8-year-old girl in 1984,
has been on death row for decades. For his method of execution he was given the
choice between lethal injection, Arizona’s default method, or a gas chamber —
which the state refurbished last year in preparation for possibly killing Atwood
and one other death row inmate.

Arizona’s intent to restart gas executions, and the state’s purchase of materials
to make hydrogen cyanide — a version of which, Zyklon B, was used by the Nazis
to murder Jews in Auschwitz — is strongly opposed by its Jewish community.

In February, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix and
two members of the Jewish community partnered with the local American Civil
Liberties Union chapter to sue the state over its planned use of the gas, calling the
punishment “cruel and inhumane.”
A superior court judge threw out the suit in April, saying that the Jewish com-
munity had failed to sufficiently challenge the law’s constitutionality, and that the
state’s constitution permits execution by gas in some cases.

Chad Restores Full Diplomatic Relations with Israel
Israel has an ambassador to Chad for the first time in 50 years, adding to Israel’s
growing ties to African countries, JTA reported.

Ben Bourgel, who serves as a nonresident ambassador to several African
countries, added Chad to his list on May 17 when he presented his credentials to
Chad’s president, Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno.

Several African nations whose leaders had friendly relations with Israel severed
those ties in the 1970s, following pressure by Arab nations. Former Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prioritized restoring diplomatic ties with many of
them, and he met with Chad’s former president, Idriss Déby Itno, in 2018.

The Israeli ambassador and his team “will work to strengthen the cooperation
between the two countries in areas of common interest such as climate change,
agriculture, water management and health,” the Israeli embassy in Dakar,
Senegal, wrote on Twitter about Bourgel’s accreditation.

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Boris Johnson Vows to Solve Northern Ireland’s Kosher Food Shortages
During a visit to a synagogue in Belfast, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson
promised to fix bureaucratic complications connected to Brexit that have caused
kosher food shortages in Northern Ireland, JTA reported.

There is no need for “laborious checks on products uniquely important to
the Jewish community being moved from Great Britain into Northern Ireland,”
Johnson said. “We will see this situation resolved.”
Northern Ireland has remained in the European Union’s single market even
though the United Kingdom, of which Northern Ireland is a part, pulled out of
the bloc in 2020. This fact has complicated shipments of food and other products
from the United Kingdom to Northern Ireland, resulting in kosher food short-
ages, among other issues.

The Jewish community of Manchester in England is the main kosher food
supplier for the Belfast Jewish Community Synagogue, which services that com-
munity of a few hundred people.

90-year-old Jewish Man Allegedly Pushed to His Death
in Lyon, France
A dispute between neighbors in France ended with the death of a 90-year-old Jewish
man, according to police, who do not suspect an antisemitic motive, JTA reported.

Police arrested a 51-year-old neighbor of the deceased, René Hadjaj, sometime
after Hadjaj’s death on May 17 outside his home in Lyon in eastern France, the
Tribune Juive Jewish newspaper reported. The suspect pushed Hadjaj to his death
from an elevated story of their residential building, prosecutors told Le Progrès.

That paper reported that police first investigated a possible antisemitic motive
but have now excluded it. French media have not reported the suspect’s identity. JE
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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