Music Salvager Dies

NEWYORK — Joza Karas, a Czech musician who found and salvaged music composed by Jewish inmates at the Terezin concentration camp, died Dec. 5 at his home in Bloomfield, Conn., at 82, the New York Times reported. In 1985 he published the book Music in Terezin, 1941-1945, which chronicled musical life at the camp in what’s now the Czech Republic. The camp had as many as four orchestras, four chamber groups and an opera. Karas salvaged 50 pieces of music from Terezin, which the Nazis used for propaganda.

Circumcision Lawsuit

NEW YORK — A Jewish New Yorker is suing a European organization for saying he wasn’t circumcised. John Singer is suing Centropa, a research group focusing on Jewish life and culture, for libel over an interview it published with Singer’s mother in which she said neither of her sons was circumcised. Singer says the assertion is false and that its publication on the centre’s website has caused “severe embarrassment, mental anguish and extreme emotional distress.” The lawsuit, seeks unspecified damages. The suit may hinge on whether Singer can prove his reputation in the Jewish community has been damaged by the statement he wasn’t circumcised, the New York Times reported.

British Academic Union Drops Boycott Call

LONDON — Britain’s University and College Union dropped its threat of boycotting Israeli academic institutions following legal action by some of its members.
Two Oxford University professors, Michael Yudkin and Denis Noble, threatened to sue their own union over the boycott call. Their lawyers wrote to the union advising that a boycott would contradict its own rules and British law.
During UCU’s annual conference in May, the union voted to “disseminate the testimonies” of a UCU delegation to Palestine and to use the testimonies to “promote a wide discussion of the appropriateness of continued educational links with Israeli academic institutions.” This was widely interpreted as a call to boycott Israeli universities. The motion also demanded that Ariel College in the West Bank “be investigated under the formal Greylisting Procedure” – a prelude to boycotting the college.
Last week, the union’s national executive committee decided not to implement the resolution as planned. The two members who threatened to sue said they’d resume their effort to sue if there were any future attempts at boycott Israeli academic institutions.