H eadlines
NEWSBRIEFS Josh Shapiro to Run for Governor
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro
announced that he is running for governor, JTA
reported. Shapiro, a Democrat, made the long-anticipated
announcement on Oct. 11. Incumbent Gov. Tom
Wolf, who cannot run for a third term, said as long
ago as 2019 that he favored Shapiro as his successor.

Shapiro, 48, gained prominence last year by
resisting efforts by former President Donald Trump
and his Republican allies in the state to stop the vote
count or reverse it.

Shapiro is not likely to face any Democratic
challengers, and Republicans have yet to settle on a
front-runner, JTA reported. The only Republican to
announce their candidacy thus far is retired heart
surgeon Dr. Nche Zama.

Republicans have said they will target Shapiro for
Philadelphia’s rising crime rate, among other issues.

UK Labour Party Announces New Review
Process for Antisemitism Complaints
Labour members attending the British party’s annual
conference passed a rule on how to handle antisemi-
tism complaints, JTA reported.

“We’ve turned our back on the dark chapter.

Having closed that door, that door will never be
opened again in our Labour Party to antisemitism,”
Labour leader Keir Starmer said.

The change, passed Sept. 26 in Brighton, England,
calls for complaints about antisemitism to be
reviewed by an independent committee. During his
years leading the party, former Labour leader Jeremy
Corbyn was accused of allowing antisemitism to
fester among some of the party’s left-wing supporters.

Lawyer Seeks Trial for Last Living Alleged
Babyn Yar Perpetrator
German lawyer Hahns Brehm wants to bring to
justice a man he says may be the last Babyn Yar perpe-
trator alive, a 99-year-old German named Herbert
Waller, JTA reported.

In September 1941, Ukrainian collaborators
brought more than 33,000 Jews to Kyiv’s Babyn Yar
ravine, where Adolf Hitler’s army executed defense-
less victims by machine guns.

Brehm and his partners believe indicting Waller is a
symbolic, last-ditch effort to correct decades of what they
see as inaction by German authorities against partici-
pants in the Holocaust’s largest single pogrom of Jews.

Out of about 700 participants, only 10 were convicted.

Brehm traveled to Kyiv recently to speak with
relatives of Babi Yar victims. Under German law,
parties affected by major crimes may initiate criminal
proceedings even if prosecutors don’t indict.

Alleged War Criminal, 96, Caught in Germany
After Skipping Trial
German police arrested a 96-year-old suspected
war criminal after she failed to show up for trial, JTA
reported. Irmgard Furchner was indicted in February for
complicity in the murders of 10,000 people at Stutthof.

She served as a secretary at that concentration camp in
occupied Poland during World War II.

Despite her age, she is being tried by a special youth
court because she was 18 at the time of her alleged
crimes. Furchner has admitted to working at Stutthof
but denied knowledge of any murders there.

The Regional Court of Itzehoe near Hamburg
declared Furchner a “fugitive” on Sept. 30 after she
failed to appear before the court, but police found her
a few hours later. The new court date is Oct. 19.

Before her trial, Furchner argued that her advanced
age and medical complications prevent her from
standing trial, but Efraim Zuroff, a Nazi hunter and
director of Eastern European affairs at the Simon
Wiesenthal Center, questioned that.

“If she’s healthy enough to flee, she is healthy
enough to be imprisoned,” he said. l
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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