Swedish Shul Hit

STOCKHOLM — A firecracker exploded on the steps of the synagogue in Malmo, Sweden, a day after a bomb threat was taped to the building. The firecracker exploded at 3 a.m. on July 23. The bomb threat that had been taped to the shul the night before was the second such threat in two weeks, and security was increased in response.

Jewish Leader Flees?

CAIRO — The head of Egypt’s tiny Jewish community allegedly fled the country after being convicted last month of fraud and ordered to jail. An Egyptian court convicted Carmen Weinstein, 82, and sentenced her to three years in jail, as well as $8,000 in fines and restitution for selling a Jewish community building that didn’t belong to her and refusing to return the money. She said documents saying she sold the building were forged. Weinstein reportedly went to visit the United States days before the ruling. She heads a community of a few dozen, mostly women, and rents out a few buildings to raise funds.

Nazi Dies Unpunished

BERLIN — An ex-Nazi SS officer died in Germany last week two months after an investigation into his connection to massacres of Jews was reopened. Erich Steidtmann, 95, who allegedly led Nazi police units that mass murdered Jews in eastern Europe, died in Hanover, where he lived. The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed frustration he was never prosecuted. The case was reopened in April based on a letter he wrote in October 1943 that placed him in the area of the massacres when they occurred rather than at home on leave as he told prosecutors in the 1960s.

Heirs Sue Hungary

NEW YORK — The heirs of a Hungarian Jewish banker filed suit in the United States against the Hungarian government and museums it oversees seeking the return of $100 million in artwork that allegedly was confiscated by the Nazis. The heirs of Baron Mor Lipot Herzog are seeking the return of more than 40 works by masters such as van Dyck and Monet, the New York Times reported, calling it the world’s largest unresolved Shoah art claim. The heirs have petitioned Hungary for the past two decade, but have been rebuffed.

Death Sentence Upheld For Yemeni Killer

SANAA — Yemen’s Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of a Yemeni man who killed a Jewish fellow citizen after demanding that he convert.
The court on July 24 affirmed the sentence of death by firing squad levied by an appeals court on Abdel Aziz Yahia al-Abdi, 39, for the December 2008 slaying of Masha Yaish Nahari, a father of nine from Raydah. Abdi killed Nahari after saying that Yemeni Jews should convert or be killed.
In 2009, an appeals court overturned a lower court ruling that ordered Abdi to pay blood money to the family. The Abdi family appealed to the Supreme Court.
Abdi, who is alleged to have murdered his wife two years before he killed Nahari, is said to be mentally unstable, according to the Yemen Post.
Nahari’s children moved to Israel after the murder. His parents, wife and siblings remain in Yemen. Fewer than 200 Jews still live in Yemen, down from 60,000 in 1948.