This week in power: Portugal, Poland, NFL player, Tisha B’Av message

A roundup of the most talked about political and global stories in the Jewish world this week:

Portugal law
A bill passed in Portugal this week that allows Jewish descendants of expelled Jews to come back, making it the only country besides for Israel with a Jewish law of return. “The law is a commendable initiative,” said Nuno Wahnon Martins, the director of European affairs for B’nai B’rith International, ” target=”_blank”>asked Edwin Frankel at the Examiner.Jew

Jewish slaughter
A defeat in Polish parliament of a bill meant to reverse January’s ban on ritual slaughter has many people up in arms. They cited animal cruelty in the ruling. “To complicate matters, kosher slaughter has not stopped altogether since the ban entered into force at the beginning of the year. Poland’s Jewish community is using a 1997 agreement between itself and the state, which allows religious slaughter. The practice’s legal status remains unclear,” ” target=”_blank”>wrote Ben Cohen at Commentary.

Aliya back on
After a two-week impasse, aliya has returned, ” target=”_blank”>wrote Yousef Munayyer at The Daily Beast. “I think we should ask Yahoo! why they would publish a piece that accuses an NFL player of anti-Semitism without one solitary quote or piece of actual evidence. This is worse than your typical 'keep your politics out of my sports' hit piece. It’s slander,” ” target=”_blank”>wrote Josh Gerstein at The Jewish Press. “On Tisha B’Av, of all days, we are not meant to point to flaws outside ourselves, however apparent they may be, but rather to examine those within. After all, we can never truly know the minds and motivations of others. The only baseless hatred we can diagnose is our own,”