JTA: The Global News Service of the Jewish People

Updated 01/27/12 @ 12:59PM EST

• Leaders of the Conference of Presidents met with convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
• President Barack Obama pledged to combat Holocaust denial in a message marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
• Ehud Barak called for intensified sanctions on Iran at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
• Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich put the blame for the impasse in Middle East peace talks squarely on the Palestinians.
• The Auschwitz Jewish Center received the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award for its work to educate youth about the Nazi genocide of European Jewry.

• Two Orthodox groups protested the Obama administration’s decision to require some religiously affiliated institutions to cover contraception as part of their employee health plans.
• A mostly Republican slate of 89 members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to President Obama urging him to fully enforce sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank.
• Israel's Supreme Court reduced the sentence of a Palestinian man convicted of rape by deception for posing as a Jew.
• U.S. Rep. Barney Frank will marry his longtime partner, his spokesman confirmed.
• Egyptian authorities are preventing several Americans working for NGOs from leaving the country.

• Former Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti refused to testify during a rare court appearance in Israel.
• The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, told a Jewish group that there is “no shortcut” to peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will bring a vote on extending a law that allows yeshiva students to delay their military service directly to the Knesset floor, bypassing his Cabinet.
• An international Jewish organization of Russian-speaking Jews was launched to influence governments to join the fight against Iran.
• Israel congratulated Egypt on the inauguration of its new parliament, the first in the post-Mubarak era.

• The Jewish Book Council announced its five finalists for the 2012 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.
• The Knesset inaugurated a caucus to strengthen Israeli lawmakers' knowledge and sensitivity to the American Jewish community.
• Talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators leading to full peace talks have ended with no progress, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said.
• A Conservative minyan was held reportedly for the first time at the Knesset synagogue.
• Israel’s strategic affairs minister expressed confidence that international pressure could force Iran to halt its nuclear program.

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