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News Digest

Divorce Laggards
To Be Punished

New York/JTA — The rabbinic organiza-
tion for U.S. centrist Orthodoxy urged its
synagogues to punish people who deny
their spouses a Jewish divorce, or get.
The Rabbinical Council of America's
resolution, which enables communities
to withhold synagogue membership or
deny honors without first waiting for a
ruling from rabbinic courts, is expected
to help agunot, Jewish women unable to
obtain a religious divorce.

German Memorial
Built By 2004

Berlin/JTA — Tests have begun on the
material to build a national Holocaust
memorial in Germany.
Construction on the controversial
memorial, which has been in the works for
more than a decade, is expected to begin
next fall and finish by January 2004.
A fund-raising campaign for the
memorial, which is slated to cost
approximately $22 million, will start
next month.

Israel Festival
Wants Wagner Out

Jerusalem/JTA — Organizers of the Israel
Festival decided to ask conductor Daniel
Barenboim and tenor Placido Domingo
to reconsider performing a work by
Richard Wagner at the festival on July 7.
Organizers said they oppose artistic
censorship, but felt obliged to respond to
a growing public outcry in Israel against
the inclusion in the program of Wagner,
an anti-Semitic composer whose works
were among Hitler's favorites.

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Arafat May
Be Waxed'

New York/JTA — Taking the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict to a new level, New
York politicians are trying to have a ren-
dering of Palestinian Authority leader
Yasser Arafat removed from Madame
Tussaud's Wax Museum in Times Square.
"There, amongst many of the world's
historical and contemporary figures, it is
grievous to find a smiling Yasser Arafat,"
Assemblyman Dov Hikind said. "For
the last seven months, Arafat has orches-
trated a campaign of premeditated vio-
lence against Israeli citizens."
NEWS DIGEST on page 28