Billionaire cosmetics magnate Ronald S. Lauder has reached an agreement with the descendants of Irene Beran regarding Gustav Klimt’s famous 1910 canvas “The Black Feather Hat.” Lauder has agreed to restitute the painting, which has resided in his collection for half a century, to the Beran family and then to repurchase it from them, Artforum International said. Terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Beran, the owner of the painting, fled Europe in 1943, [...]

An expressionist masterpiece by Edvard Munch, which a Jewish art expert was forced to sell shortly after Hitler came to power in the 1930s, will be auctioned in London. It is expected to sell for $15-to-$25 million. The auction of “Dance on the Beach” is the result of an agreement between the heirs of Prof. Curt Glaser, the art dealer, and those of Norwegian shipowner Thomas Olsen, who acquired the painting at a sale in [...]

Archaeologists with the Israel Antiquities Authority found a gold bead crafted in Mesopotamian style while excavating a Roman structure in Jerusalem. The tiny bead was found in pristine condition in dirt removed from the Roman building, from about 1,600 years ago. Made of pure gold, the bead was crafted by affixing tiny golden spheres together to shape a tiny ring. It might have been worn as a singular piece, like a pendant, but more likely [...]

A Hebrew Bible more than 1,000 years old and described as “one of the most important and singular texts in human history” by Richard Austin, global head of books and manuscripts at Sotheby’s auction house, will be on exhibition tour in Israel and the U.S. before it will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in May. The Hebrew Bible is the foundation of the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Scholars have long been aware of [...]

A mikvah dating to the 17th or 18th century was discovered in the Polish city of Oświęcim, ironically the site of Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp. According to Heritage Daily, Jews first settled in the city in the 1500’s, and numbered about 8,000 at the start of WW. Today, no Jews live there. Excavation began for the construction of an underground parking garage. Grzegorz Madrzycki, an archaeologist on the project, said that the crew [...]

Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Bark Brzezinski, and second gentleman Doug Emhoff visited Auschwitz and Birkenau on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Jan. 27, to lay bowls of fire at a memorial in Birkenau. Photo: The Forward/Laura E. Adkin

Theatergoers waiting to see the sold-out first preview of a classic Broadway musical were interrupted by neo-Nazis chanting, holding banners and passing out false information about the show’s subject. The group was identified by the musical’s producers as the National Socialist Movement, the largest membership-based neo-Nazi group in the United States, known for “violent antisemitic rhetoric and racist views,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The musical, “Parade,” first appeared on Broadway in 1998 [...]