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Sundown: Israel Admits Docs Harvested Organs

Brittany Murphy’s widower is Jewish, Israel wants further reparations, and more

by
Marc Tracy
December 21, 2009

• Israel admitted that in the 1990s some forensic pathologists harvested organs from corpses, including Palestinians, without family permission. Reports in a Swedish newspaper that some Palestinians were killed for their organs remain unproven and vigorously denied. [Vos Iz Neias?]
• Actress Brittany Murphy, who died yesterday at age 32, had been married to a British Jewish screenwriter named Simon Monjack in a Jewish ceremony. [People]
• Brooklyn’s Naftali Tzi Weisz, the leader of the Hasidic Spinka sect, was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty to helping Spinka evade federal income taxes. [San Jose Mercury News]
• Israel will request an additional 450 million to 1 billion euros ($642 million to $1.4 billion) from Germany in Holocaust reparations. [Haaretz]
•The left-wing Israeli arrested last week for leaking FBI documents to a blogger had served as defense counsel to Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti. [Vos Iz Neias?]

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.