By ADELLE M. BANKS c. 2011 Religion News Service ROCKVILLE, Md. (RNS) The V-shaped hand sign that made actor Leonard Nimoy famous as Mr. Spock may have seemed to be from a planet far away. But the “Star Trek” star says he created it from childhood memories of his Jewish family. “I reached back to…

By A. JAMES RUDIN c. 2011 Religion News Service (RNS) When the Vatican beatifies someone and places the person just one step away from sainthood, it usually attracts scant attention among Jews because it is correctly perceived as an internal church process. But the recent beatification — and likely canonization — of the late Pope…

By JOHN CANIGLIA c. 2011 Religion News Service CLEVELAND (RNS) The case that led to John Demjanjuk’s conviction in Germany on Thursday (May 12) was laid out 10 years ago in a Cleveland courtroom, where lawyers sparred over his wartime past. At the time, prosecutors said he was a Nazi guard at an extermination camp.…

By MICHELE CHABIN c. 2011 Religion News Service JERUSALEM (RNS) An ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspaper in Brooklyn has apologized to the White House and State Department after the paper deleted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton from a White House photograph of top officials monitoring the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The Yiddish-language Di Tzeitung…

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