In time for Christmas, the Jewish Foundation For the Righteous (JFR), headquartered in West Orange, NJ, sent more than $300,000 to Polish gentiles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust. The financial assistance included $2,500 for each of the 110 righteous Poles who had been identified by Yad Vashem. The awards will go towards the purchase of food and other needed items, like medications and home heating fuel. This is the largest award that JFR has made in its 30-year history of charitable giving.

Also sent this year was a $10,000 grant to the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, Switzerland. A separate grant of $5,000 was made to the kosher food pantry in Warsaw for the distribution of food parcels to righteous gentiles living there.

The increased gifts demonstrate the JFR’s commitment to helping righteous gentiles, particularly during the COVID pandemic that has created shortages of food and medications and funds to purchase these items, said Stanlee Stahl, the organization’s executive vice president. “This financial assistance is just one of the ways we can offer our boundless gratitude for all that they did to save Jews during the Holocaust.”

Jerusalem’s International Convention Center (Binyenei Hauma) at the entrance to the city will be redeveloped and renamed in memory of Israeli statesman Shimon Peres, who died in 2016 at the age of 93. His last political position was as the 9th president of the Jewish state, serving from 2007 to 2014. Peres also served as a Knesset member and prime minister.

The center, which was inaugurated in 1956 near the government building complex in Givat Ram, is expected to become the largest and most advanced conference center in the Middle East, covering an area of 55,000 square meters.

The redeveloped site will include a business center with nine skyscrapers and another 15 10-story buildings. Construction of the entire project is expected to take place over the next decade at an estimated cost of $530 million.

A small pottery jar containing four pure gold coins dating back to the early Islamic period, more than 1,000 years ago, was unearthed during archaeological excavations in Jerusalem, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said. The work was performed as part of the Jewish quarter development corporation’s plan to build an elevator to make the Western Wall Plaza more accessible to visitors.

The juglet was found by IAA inspector Yevgenia Kapil during preliminary digging at the site last month. Some weeks later, as excavation director David Gellman was examining the finds, he emptied the contents of the juglet. “To my great surprise, along with the soil, four shiny gold coins fell into my hand,” Gellman said.

According to IAA coin expert Dr. Robert Kool, the coins were beautifully preserved and immediately identifiable. The coins date from the late 940s to the 990s C.E., and include two gold dinars minted during the rule of Caliph Al-Muti (946-974 C.E.), and two minted in Cairo by the Fatimid rulers Al-Mu’izz (953-975 C.E.) and his successor, Al-‘Aziz (975-996 C.E.)

A shooting spree on Nov. 2 in Vienna near the Austrian capital’s main synagogue, Stadttempel, killed four people and injured 15. Authorities said the gunman was an Islamic sympathizer.

The first shots were fired at about 8 p.m. in Seitenstettengasse, where Vienna’s main synagogue is located. Witnesses said they heard between 100 and 200 shots. Rabbi Schlomo Hofmeister, Vienna’s chief rabbi, who was in the area, said in an interview with the state broadcaster, that he first assumed the gunfire was fireworks, but then saw an armed man shooting at people in pubs and bars near the synagogue.

The attack began near the synagogue, but eventually shots were fired at six locations throughout the First District. Two women, two men and the gunman were killed in the spree.

About 8,000 Jews live in Vienna. Austrian police confirmed that the assailant was armed with an automatic weapon. He was killed in an exchange of fire with the police.

In This Election Year, The Shofar Recalls The Names Of Jewish Women Who Participated in the Women’s Suffrage Movement

On August 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibited any citizen to be denied the right to vote based on sex. Today, a century later, The Shofar looks back at a sampling of the Jewish women who dedicated their lives to women’s suffrage in America and around the world.

• Gertrude Weil helped found the Goldsboro Equal Suffrage Association in 1914, and served as its first president. By 1917, she was an officer in the North Carolina Equal Suffrage League, becoming president in 1919.
• The Jewish League for Woman Suffrage (JLWS), founded Nov. 3, 1912 by Laura and Leonard Franklin, was the only Jewish women’s organization in the world devoted exclusively to obtaining Jewish suffrage for women.
• Henrietta Franklin served as president of the British National Union of Women Suffrage Societies in 1916 and 1917. She was one of a small but powerful group of Jewish women who participated in the British suffrage movement.
• Mary Belle Grossman’s involvement in Cleveland’s suffrage movement launched her public career as a political activist. She later served as a judge, leading the Cleveland Press in 1947 to describe her as a “militant feminist who has been bad news to wife beaters, gamblers, and persons charged with morals offenses.”
• Rosika Schwimmer was a leader in the international pacifist and feminist movements. She was recruited by leaders of the American suffrage movement and the president of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance to organize the campaign for women’s suffrage in America.
• Belle Winestine was selected by members of the State Headquarters for Woman Suffrage in Wisconsin as the student representative to address a joint session of the state legislature. In 1914, she helped launch the women’s suffrage movement in Montana.
• Maud Nathan, born into a distinguished old New York Sephardic family, worked for women’s suffrage, an issue that caused a rift in her relations with her family.
• Anita Pollitzer was arrested as a Silent Sentinel after picketing the Woodrow Wilson White House. In August 1920, it is believed that Pollitzer used considerable charm to convince legislator Harry T. Burn of Tennessee to cast the deciding vote for the 19th amendment.
• Rosa Manus was a leading feminist before WWII, active in the Dutch branch of the International Women’s Suffrage Alliance. In 1935, she was the driving force behind the establishment of the International Archives for the Women’s Movement, which aimed to promote the women’s movement and collect and preserve the cultural heritage of women.
• Rosalie Whitney joined the Brooklyn Woman’s Suffrage Party in 1917. She was the New York congressional chair in the Woman’s Federal Equality Association and a speaker on behalf of the National American Woman Suffrage Association at the House of Representatives suffrage amendment hearing in 1918.
• Bertha Solomon was one of the first women’s rights activists in South Africa. After years of active campaigning for voting rights for women, the South African Suffrage Movement achieved a partial victory with passage of the Women’s Suffrage Act of 1930. However, the act enfranchised white women only.

A piece of American Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will always remain in Israel. She personally donated one of her iconic lace jabot collars and her autobiography to the Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv to be put on permanent display.

The personal items of the long-time liberal justice, who was proud of her Jewish heritage, will be featured in a new core exhibit set to open in December. They will join modern and ancient art pieces, dioramas, Judaica, and other objects that represent Jewish identity and “the journey of the Jews as a people among peoples,” as noted by the museum’s website.

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, a New York-based organization, announced on Oct. 14 that after negotiations with the German government on behalf of Holocaust Survivors, Germany has agreed to give $662 million in aid to an estimated 240,000 survivors. These funds are additional to the global allocation of over $653 million for social welfare services, said  Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat, claims conference special negotiator.

The funds will go to survivors, who mostly live in Israel, North America, the former Soviet Union, and Western Europe. However, as a result of the negotiations, Germany has also agreed to expand the categories of survivors eligible for payments by including the results of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum regarding “open ghettos” in Bulgaria, plus ghettos in Romania as a result of a report by Yad Vashem.