H eadlines
NEWSBRIEFS Birthright Israel to Resume Trips in October
BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL ANNOUNCED Sept. 2 that it will
resume trips to Israel after a month of cancellations over Israeli
COVID-19 quarantine rules, JTA reported.

Those who were fully vaccinated in the past six months won’t
have to quarantine on arrival for the trips, which are likely to
resume on Oct. 3. However, they will still be required to take
PCR and serological tests upon arrival and wait for the PCR
results before starting the trip.

That’s in contrast with the current policy for United States
travelers to Israel, who are required to enter quarantine upon arrival.

Birthright previously resumed its trips in May — the first
since the pandemic began in March 2020.

ADL Apologizes for its Post-9/11 Islamic Center Opposition
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt wrote an
op-ed published on CNN Sept. 4 that apologizes for the organi-
zation’s 2010 opposition to an Islamic center planned in Lower
Manhattan near the World Trade Center site.

“We were wrong, plain and simple,” Greenblatt wrote.

Greenblatt said the ADL offered a compromise by supporting the
ideas behind Cordoba House — described by its leaders as a prayer
space that would facilitate healing and cross-cultural understanding
— but recommending that it not be located near Ground Zero.

He said the compromise hurt Muslims, ultimately contrib-
uting to a project that yielded a condo building with little from
the original proposal still in place.

“We can’t change the past,” he wrote. “But we accept respon-
sibility for our unwise stance on Cordoba House, apologize
without caveat and commit to doing our utmost going forward
to use our expertise to fight anti-Muslim bias as allies.”
World Jewish Population Rises to 15.2M
The world population of those self-identifying as Jews is now
about 15.2 million — an increase of 100,000 over last year, JTA
reported, citing estimates by the Jewish Agency for Israel.

“When also including those who are eligible for Israeli
citizenship under the Law of Return, the world total rises to 25.3
million people, of which 7.3 million are in Israel and 18 million
live outside Israel,” the Jewish Agency said in a statement.

Those totals include 6.9 million Jews in Israel and about 6
million in the United States. That’s a sharp difference from a 2020
Pew study, which estimated the number of U.S. Jews at 7.5 million.

France’s Jewish community is the world’s third-largest at
446,000, followed by Canada at 393,000 and the United Kingdom
with 292,000.

Afghanistan’s Last Jew Leaves the Country
Zebulon Simantov, the last remaining Jew in Afghanistan, left
the country because he feared persecution by the Taliban, JTA
reported, citing an Israeli television channel.

Simantov, 62, who is the former keeper of Kabul’s lone
remaining synagogue, left for the United States in recent days
with several other exiles, Israel’s Kan broadcaster reported.

That report was based on information provided by Moti
Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman who said he was
involved in the extraction along with New York Jewish philan-
thropist Moshe Margaretten.

“Moshe Margaretten please take me to New York with God’s
help,” Simantov said in a video. l
— Compiled by Andy Gotlieb
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