Comments (0)Two Jailed for Torah Theft in Texas
November 7, 2009Washington
JTA Wire Service
Two men were arrested for allegedly stealing a Torah scroll from a Texas synagogue.
Derrick Randall Nelms, 19, and James William Wilsford, 23, were taken into custody Oct. 30 by authorities in Sherman, according to KXII, a local CBS-affiliated television station.
The Torah scroll, valued at $40,000, remains missing from Temple Beth Emeth, a Reform synagogue in Sherman. The theft is not being considered a hate crime.
Swastikas, Grafitti Painted on Dallas Kosher Restaurant
Swastikas and other graffiti were painted on the front of a kosher restaurant in Dallas.
The vandalism occurred at Natalie’s Kitchen and International Market in Far North Dallas on Saturday night.
Dallas police have ruled out a Halloween prank as a motive, the Dallas News reported, and have labeled the incident as “criminal mischief (hate crime).”
Restaurant owners Natalie and Yohai Pinhas are both veterans of the Israel Defense Forces.
A Reform synagogue was vandalized last week in Sherman, Texas, about 60 miles north of Dallas. The synagogue was seriously damaged and valuable items were stolen, the newspaper reported.
Chicago Prof Alleges Discrimination, Retaliation
A Jewish professor at a Chicago college says a bias complaint she filed at the school has led to retaliation.
Zafra Lerman, a tenured professor at Columbia College, says her conflict with the school is threatening a conference she is organizing that will bring together Middle East scholars, the Chicago Sun Times reported Monday.
The university is withholding funds raised for the Malta Conference, scheduled to be held next month in Jordan, Lerman’s attorney told the newspaper.
Lerman, an Israel native with Israeli and U.S. citizenship, alleged that the college treated her differently “as a result of her religion and ethnicity,” attorney Laurel Bellows told the Sun Times.
Lerman reportedly has since been locked out of her office.
The accusations come less than a month after a Palestinian Muslim instructor fired from the college sued for discrimination in federal court after she was fired in January when a student accused her of making anti-Semitic remarks in class.
Columbia, an arts and media college on the South Loop, has 12,500 students.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.