Ashkenazi Jews

Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos (left) arrived in Israel on Wednesday for an official two-day visit at the invitation of his Israeli counterpart Naftali Bennett. [ANA-MPA/Defense Ministry's press office]

Nine-year-old Laurent Simons of Belgium has an IQ of 145 and will become the world's youngest undergraduate student, Daily Mail reports. The boy is due to graduate next month at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. with a major in Electrical Engineering, having completed the entire training course in just nine months.

The Arab bloc in Israel's parliament abandoned its usual hands-off stance on Sept. 22 and endorsed former military chief Benny Gantz for prime minister, potentially giving him the edge over hard-line incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu.

A Jerusalem magistrate court on June 16 sentenced Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to pay a fine of more than $15,000 for misusing state funds. The sentencing comes after she agreed to a plea bargain that ended the years-long saga of just one of the high-profile corruption cases involving the prime minister's family.

Israel's president on Tuesday hailed his country's flourishing ties with Cyprus, saying that cooperation between the two neighbors on intelligence, security and terror prevention has made the Eastern Mediterranean "much, much safer."

Hollywood actress Natalie Portman has refused to attend a ceremony in Israel to accept a million-dollar prize because of "recent events" in the country, the organizers said, announcing the prize giving had been cancelled.

''Israel as a leading state in hi-tech would have an interest in investing in Bulgaria's potential in these areas'', President Rumen Radev said today at a meeting with his Israeli counterpart, Reuven Rivlin, at Jerusalem's Presidential Palace.

The recent visit to Athens by Michael D. Higgins, president of Ireland, was a reminder of the great similarities and also the great differences between Greece and Ireland.

The Holocaust Museum that will be erected in Thessaloniki is a "weapon in the battle of memory against forgetfulness," Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said at a ceremony in the northern port city, where he laid the foundation stone for the new institution together with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who is in Greece on an official visit.

In comments made during a televised exchange on Monday with Israel's President Reuven Rivlin, Greece's Prokopis Pavlopoulos declared that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will be unable to join NATO as long as there are signs of irredentism.