JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Updated 11/08/09 @ 08:02AM EDT

• Composer Richard Wagner's great-grandson criticized the music chosen to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall because it includes a composition by his "anti-Semitic" great-grandfather.
• The United States and Israel need to improve their communication, Jerusalem's mayor said.
• Norwegian prosecutors have dropped a case alleging war crimes by 10 Israeli leaders during last winter’s Gaza military campaign.
• Palestinian activists attempted to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall by knocking down a portion of the West Bank security wall.
• An evangelical Christian who promotes Messianic Judaism will be the keynote speaker at a Birthright Israel alumni event in New York this month.

• President Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu will meet, an Israeli newspaper reported a day after Obama canceled a scheduled appearance before the Jewish federations' General Assembly.
• The Union for Reform Judaism passed a resolution urging equal services for Israeli Arabs.
• The International Atomic Energy Agency has evidence that Iran may have tested an advanced nuclear warhead design, according to a British newspaper.
• The United States vetoed an Israeli plan to attack a ship bearing weapons allegedly from Iran to Hezbollah, according to a report in an Arabic-language newspaper.
• The Obama administration expects to keep working with Mahmoud Abbas despite his planned resignation as Palestinian Authority president.

• U.S. Jewish groups blasted the U.N. General Assembly for its endorsement of the Goldstone report into last winter's Gaza war.
• Israel delivered 20,000 swine flu vaccines to the Palestinian Authority ahead of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
• There is "nothing to be worried about" at a newly discovered uranium enrichment site in Iran, the head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog said.
• A Jewish community center in Montreal opened on Shabbat for the first time, but a compromise limited Sabbath desecration.
• Leaders of the Union of Reform Judaism stressed the group's consolidation of services at the start of its biennial conference.

• A bipartisan group of governors urged the U.S. Senate to pass an Iran sanctions bill.
• Two Jerusalem residents, one a former Hadassah hospital employee, were arrested for allegedly facilitating organ donation deals.
• Israeli students visiting Poland have been asked to stop wrapping themselves in the Israeli flag.
• Brazilian Jewish officials met Cuba's religious affairs minister to talk about religious cooperation.
• Hezbollah has denied any connection to a large cache of arms found on a ship intercepted by Israel.

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