The British Government has given the go-ahead for architect David Adjaye to build a national memorial to the victim of the Holocaust. The structure will be sited next to the Houses of Parliament in London.

The plan for the memorial calls for 23 large bronze sculptures, with the spaces in between meant to commemorate the Jewish communities devastated by the Holocaust in 22 countries. The site will also include an underground educational center. “The Memorial and Learning Center will allow everyone to reflect, remember, and honor those who suffered and died, and to educate future generations in antisemitism,” said Robert Jenrick, the U.K.’s communities secretary.

The learning center beneath the site will educate visitors about the Holocaust, as well as subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

Construction is slated to begin later this year, and will be completed by 2025. The U.K. Government is contributing $105 million to build the memorial, and an additional $35 million has been raised through donations. The government will also give supplemental funding to cover the costs of running the site, and to ensure that entry remains free.

“There will be something uniquely powerful about locating a memorial to the Holocaust right next to the center of the U.K.’s democracy,” president  of the Board of British Jews Marie van der Zyl said in a statement.

A historical register of Jewish burials from the modern-day Romanian city of Cluj-Napoca was among the artifacts seized and recovered by authorities in New York, who plan to return the items to their communities of origin, according to an article in The New York Times on July 26.

Jacqualyn Kasulis, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement that the items were “illegally confiscated during the Holocaust” and contain “priceless historical information.” Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn described 17 Jewish funeral scrolls, manuscripts and other records, as having been taken from Jewish communities in Romania, Hungary, Ukraine and Slovakia during World War II.

The items had been offered for sale by Kestenbaum & Company, an auction house in Brooklyn that specializes in Judaica, the authorities said. Daniel E. Kestenbaum, the auction house’s chairman, said that the company supported the actions of the U.S. attorney’s office to resolve the problem.

Israel’s largest and fanciest designer mall, with a piazza built as a replica of the famous Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, has opened outside Ma’aleh Adumim near Jerusalem. The new DCity mall includes 200 storefronts, restaurants, a luxury hotel, and an artificial indoor sky spread over 150,000 square meters. More than a billion shekels have been invested in the mall, which was designed by architect Gadi Halperin. DCity is owned by the Kass Investment Group. A covered amusement park called Magic Kass, with about 40 installations, will open next to the mall soon. A free bus line to and from Jerusalem runs every 20 minutes.

NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) is predicting a 60% chance of an above-normal Atlantic hurricane season in 2021, a 30% chance of a near-normal season, and a 10% chance of a below-normal season.

For 2021, a likely range of 13 to 20 named storms (winds of 39 mph or higher), of which 6 to 10 could become hurricanes (winds of 74 mph or higher), including 3 to 5 major hurricanes (category 3, 4 or 5, with winds of 111 mph or higher) is expected. NOAA provides these ranges with a 70% confidence level. The Atlantic hurricane season extends through Nov. 30.

Tropical storm and hurricane names in the Atlantic basin for 2021 are Ana, Bill, Claudette, Danny, Elsa, Fred, Grace, Henri, Ida, Julian, Kate, Larry, Mindy, Nicholas, Odette, Peter, Rose, Sam, Teresa, Victor, Wanda. (May we never reach Wanda, Baruch Ha Shem, but if we do, let all to come treat us as did Henri.)

The United Arab Emirates opened its embassy in Tel Aviv on July 14. Attending the ceremony were recently sworn-in President Isaac Herzog of Israel and the UAE’s ambassador to Israel, Mohamed Al Khaja.

The embassy is located in the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange building, and its opening followed the inauguration of Israel’s embassy in the UAE last month.

Greeting the crowd in Arabic and Hebrew, the UAE ambassador described the opening of the embassy as “an important milestone” marking “a significant point in the vision of the Abraham Accords” and cooperation between the two nations. The Abraham Accords, signed last year, aimed to normalize relations between Israel, each of the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.

Herzog, who was sworn in as Israel’s 11th president the week before, expressed gratitude for being able to take part in such a historic event at the start of his tenure, and alluded to the possibility of more regional peace agreements.

Ben & Jerry’s announced it will ban the sale of its ice cream in what it calls the “occupied Palestinian Territories” beginning in 2023. In a statement on July 19, Ben & Jerry’s said that continuing to sell products in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the Six-Day War in 1967, is “incompatible with our values.”

The Vermont company, which its founders, both Jewish, sold to the British company Unilever two decades ago, said it would not renew the contract of its Israeli licensee, which expires at the end of 2022. The statement added that the company “will stay in Israel through a different arrangement,” but did not elaborate.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid termed the territories’ boycott a “shameful surrender to antisemitism, to BDS, and to all that is wrong with the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish discourse.”

Some U.S. Jewish groups have called for a stateside boycott of Ben & Jerry’s, and several Jewish-owned stores in the U.S. have said they will no longer carry its products.