Jewish & World News

Sheldon Adelson sued a Wall Street Journal reporter for libel for calling him “foul-mouthed.” The lawsuit filed on Feb. 22 seeks "damages, including aggravated, exemplary and special damages," for a December article co-written by Kate O'Keeffe. Only O’Keefe is named in the suit, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

Billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, have donated $50 million to Jewish private schools in Las Vegas. Founded in 2006, the Adelson Education Campus serves approximately 600 students, from preschool to high school. "We are grateful to the Adelsons for this remarkable gift," Paul Schiffman, head of school, said in a statement. "The Adelsons have been very closely involved in every aspect of our school, and we have benefitted tremendously from their good counsel. Our ability to move forward without debt enables us to fulfill our educational mission with even greater freedom and imagination."

Sheldon Adelson is suing the National Jewish Democratic Council for defamation. Lawyers for Adelson, the casino magnate and major Republican donor, had sent a warning letter to the NJDC and to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee last week after each body publicly stated that Adelson had approved of prostitution at his properties in Macau, China. That allegation appeared in a lawsuit file by a former Adelson employee, Steven Jacobs, who had managed Adelson's Macau business until being fired in 2010.

Sheldon Adelson, a major contributor to Republican Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, has asked Romney to speak out publicly for the release of Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard. Romney, the presumptive GOP nominee, has said he needs to see the relevant intelligence material accessible to a president before deciding whether to grant Pollard clemency, sources told the Daily Beast website.

Hebrew daily "Yediot Ahronot" is about take streamlining measures, including the firing of dozens of journalists, including senior correspondents and editors. As a cost-cutting measure, the recently launched "Briut" health supplement will only be offered to subscribers. Sources inform ''Globes'' that the paper will do the same with its "Maslul" travel supplement. At this stage, dozens of journalists will also probably be fired from the paper's website "ynet" and its economics supplement "Calcalist".

Mega GOP donor Sheldon Adelson joked in a brief interview that he came to Israel "to get a shwarma sandwich." Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate emerging as this election's biggest donor, was greeted warmly by fellow GOP donors who were being given front-row seats ahead of a Romney speech tonight.

How seriously are Dems taking the possibility that Obama could lose Jewish votes, now that billionaire Sheldon Adelson is planning a multi-million-dollar campaign to hammer Obama over Israel? A group of wealthy and influential Democrats is quietly putting together their own effort to raise several million dollars to counter Adelson’s efforts in key swing states, by aggressively pushing back on criticism of Obama’s record on Israel and reminding Jewish voters that he agrees with them on domestic issues they care about, I’m told.

A Republican group backed by casino magnate Sheldon Adelson has unleashed a new campaign in battleground states to "convert" Jewish voters who have been life-long Democrats and who it is thought can be convinced to turn their backs on US President Barack Obama in favor of US Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to a New York Times report published on Wednesday. Adelson has vowed to invest as much as $100 million to help Romney win the election. In the near future, the Republican Jewish Coalition plans to begin a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign dubbed “My Buyer’s Remorse,” which will focus on voters in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, aides told the Times.

Jewish-American billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam donated 13 million dollars to Birthright-Taglit, it was announced on Tuesday. The couple's gift to the organization, which brings young Jewish adults on free trips to Israel, came in addition to the 20 million dollars they already gave it earlier this year.

Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson has given another "substantial" contribution to an independent group supporting Republican Newt Gingrich, helping the group launch new TV ads in seven states where the former House speaker hopes to resurrect his struggling presidential campaign. The super PAC Winning Our Future received a donation from the Las Vegas billionaire similar to two separate $5 million contributions Adelson and his family donated previously, according to a person familiar with the contribution. The person was not authorized to discuss the donations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The second-richest Jew in the world is once again in the spotlight. Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miri have together donated $10 million to Winning Our Future, the political action committee supporting Newt Gingrich's campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, and the pundits are asking how one man and his wife can be allowed to sway an election with the weight of their money. Whether this princely sum and the television ads it has bought will be sufficient to sway enough GOP voters away from Mitt Romney and secure Gingrich the nomination is still highly debatable. But the media's reaction to the Adelson gift has not focused only on the role of big money in presidential politics. Just about every report and column written on the subject ascribes Gingrich's positions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as Adelson's central motive for backing him.

Major Republican donor and casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife did not push for a special Saturday evening Nevada Republican caucus for orthodox Jews, a spokesman for Adelson said in a note to reporters Monday evening. “In short, they had no involvement,” spokesman Ron Reese said in his memo. Last week, the Clark County Republican Party approved an evening caucus for Jews and Seventh-day Adventists. Speculation soon swirled that Adelson, a high-profile Jew and strong supporter of Newt Gingrich, was involved in pushing for the special caucus.

A special non-Sabbath voting session for observant Jews and Seventh Day Adventists in the GOP primaries will be held Saturday evening at an educational center built by Sheldon Adelson, who backs Newt Gingrich, and challengers are upset. The voting is scheduled for the Sabbath, but Adelson, a casino magnate who made billions in Las Vegas and elsewhere, voiced his concern that Jews observing the Sabbath – and who presumably back Gingrich – would not be able to vote. Seventh Day Adventists also observe the Sabbath on Saturday.

U.S. Jewish billionaire Sheldon Adelson lost an approximated $10 billion in October, after shares in his Las Vegas Sands (LVS) corporation fell by 80% since the beginning of the month, according to an assessment made by "Forbes" magazine.