New York Court Rules Met Can Keep $100M Picasso
The U.S. District Court in Manhattan has ruled that the Metropolitan Museum of Art can hold onto a famed Picasso painting titled “The Actor” that was sold by its Jewish owners as they fled Nazi Germany. Time was the deciding factor. According to the judge, too much time had elapsed before the great-grandniece of original owner and German-Jewish businessman Paul Leffman insisted that it be returned. A mitigating factor in the decision was that the painting was not unlawfully appropriated during the Nazi era.
Leffman and his family fled Nazi Germany for Italy in 1937, but found that Nazi and Fascist policies were rapidly encroaching. Desperate to escape to Switzerland, Paul Leffman sold the Picasso painting in 1938 for $12,000 to the art dealer Kate Perls, who was acting on behalf of Hugo Perls and Paul Rosenberg. The American collector Thelma Chrysler Foy bought the painting in 1941 for $22,500, and donated it to the museum in 1952. The painting is valued today at $100 million.
“We are appreciative that the court ruling enables the continued public display of this work,” a Met spokesman said in a statement.
Anne Frank Collected Works Published In U.S.
Anne Frank: The Collected Works, which consists of three versions of her famous diary and several letters she wrote to her paternal grandmother before the 15-year-old perished in the Holocaust, was published on June 25, about two weeks after what would have been her 90th birthday.
The collection includes the original diary as well as a version she edited, and an amalgamation of the two, which is commonly taught in American schools. That classroom version was published in 1991.
Anne Frank died at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in 1945, less than a year after she and her family were discovered by the Nazis in their hiding place in Amsterdam.
First Wedding At This Site In 1,500 Years
For the first time in more than 1,500 years, the ruins of a synagogue dating back to the 4th century CE in the Calabria area of southern Italy played host to a Jewish wedding on June 4.
Roque Pugliese and Ivana Pezzoli, both of whom are descendants of Iberian Jews forcibly converted during the 14th and 15th centuries, were married in an emotional and historic ceremony at the site of the second-oldest synagogue ever found in Europe, reported JNS (Jewish News Service).
Pugliese’s parents hid their Jewish roots while he grew up in Calabria and Argentina. Discovering his heritage, Pugliese decided to formally return to Judaism with assistance from the Shavei Israel organization.
While Pezzoli was raised with certain Jewish traditions in her family, she was never told why. Researching her family history, she found that she had Jewish roots, and she embarked on an extensive study of Judaism for more than eight years before undergoing formal conversion.
Pugliese and Pezzoli are medics; they met while working at a local hospital, and are now living religiously observant Jewish lives.
The wedding took place in the archaeological park adjacent to the southern Italian seaside village of Bova Marina, where the remains of a synagogue were unearthed in 1983 during the construction of a road.
Memorial Dedicated At Jewish Museum In Moscow
Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the unveiling ceremony for a new memorial dedicated to the heroes of the resistance movement in concentration camps and ghettos during WWII. The memorial is housed in the Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center in Moscow.
Museum officials, Russia’s chief rabbi, and the president of the Federation of Jewish Communities took part in the June 4 event. Also present was Aron Bielski, the youngest of the four Bielski brothers — Jewish partisans who helped rescue Jews from extermination by the Nazis.
Both Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated in laying the monument’s foundation stone on International Holocaust Day a year ago. [Pictured, from left, Museum trustee board chair Viktor Vekselberg, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russia’s chief rabbi Berel Lazar. Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center photo.]
German Archive Uploads Millions Of Holocaust Documents
Germany’s Holocaust archive has uploaded more than 13 million documents from Nazi concentration camps, including prisoner cards and death notices, to help Holocaust researchers and others investigate the fate of victims, the Associated Press reported. The documents consist of information on more than 2.2 million affected, courtesy of assistance from Yad Vashem in Israel. The searchability function is being improved as well.
The International Tracing Service also announced that its name will be changed to Arolsen Archives-International Center on Nazi Persecution. “It is so important that the original documents can speak to coming generations,” archive director Floriane Azoulay told the AP.
Postcard Signed By Ben-Gurion Declares ‘State of Israel Born’
A postcard written and signed by Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, just one day after officially declaring the State of Israel’s independence, was recently discovered. Dated the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Iyar in the Jewish year 5748 (May 15, 1948), the postcard was sent to the founding father of the kibbutz movement, Shlomo Lavi.
The message on the postcard reads, “The people of Israel have attained the pinnacle of their existence — the State of Israel has been born.”
According to the Jewish News Service (JNS), the postcard will be put up for public auction at the Kedem Auction House in Jerusalem. The revelation of the postcard overlapped with the discovery of a collection of 26 photographs that captured scenes depicting Arab belligerent forces during Israel’s War of Independence. The photos, to be auctioned with the postcard, are prized for their historic value.
Violent Anti-Semitism Up By 13 Percent Worldwide In 2018
Violent anti-Semitic attacks rose by 13 percent worldwide in 2018, with the highest number of incidents reported in Western democracies, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, an annual report revealed.
According to the report published by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center and the European Jewish Congress, 387 incidents were recorded in 2018, compared with 342 in 2017.
The report found the most serious anti-Semitic incidents were recorded in the United States, which has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel. In 2018, 100 incidents were recorded in the U.S., followed by the United Kingdom with 68, France and Germany at 35 incidents each, Belgium with 19, and the Netherlands at 15. Other countries with major incidents include Canada with 20 and Argentina with 11. The remaining incidents were scattered throughout the countries of the world.
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