There was a time when a constellation of Jewish Egyptian stars shone on the country's arts and music scene, and when streets in Cairo and Alexandria brimmed with Jewish shops.

But by the turn of the 21st century, Egypt's Jews had become a faded memory, their synagogues empty and their old neighborhoods offering scant testimony to a once-thriving community.

Poland's chief rabbi on Sunday unveiled a special prayer case at a new Polish Jews museum, days before its opening on the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.

"With the Mezuzah here, it really means we're at home," Rabbi Michael Schudrich said of the case, containing a scroll inscribed with a Hebrew prayer to protect the hearth.

Here's a list "Fifty Shades of Grey" was destined to make: The books most likely to be removed from school and library shelves in the U.S.

On Monday, E L James' multimillion selling erotic trilogy placed No. 4 on the American Library Association's annual study of "challenged books," works subject to complaints from parents, educators and other members of the public. The objections: Offensive language, and, of course, graphic sexual content.

The future of Nigeria's rich theater legacy, built over decades by artists including Africa's first Nobel literature laureate Wole Soyinka, may be found off stage.

Theater has been central to some of the defining campaigns in Nigerian history, including the push for independence in 1960, but it is now a struggling art, with actors warning that their industry is in danger.

Australia paid tribute on Monday to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, who saved thousands of Jews during World War II, by making him the country's first honorary citizen.

"The lives of those he rescued are Mr Wallenberg's greatest memorial and Australia is honored to have survivors he rescued living in Australia today," Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a statement.

A translation of Biblical psalms that was the first book ever printed in what became the United States goes on auction this November, with an expected price tag of $15-30 million, Sotheby's said Friday in New York.

The book is one of the best of the 11 surviving copies of "The Bay Psalm Book," which Puritan settlers from England printed in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1640 -- before the United States even existed.

Some 70 ceremonial masks originating from Arizona's Hopi tribe were sold for more than 900,000 euros ($1.2 million) on Friday after a legal challenge failed to prevent an auction decried by opponents as "sacrilege".

The sale of the brightly coloured "Kachina" visages and headdresses by the Neret-Minet auction house took place only hours after a court rejected a request for an injunction from representatives of the Native American tribe, who say the objects are sacred and should be returned to them.

A priest in the pope's native Argentina who endorsed the gay marriage law approved here in 2010 has been expelled from the church, his local archbishop's office said Friday.

The offensive against the legislation was led by Jorge Bergoglio, then the archbishop of Buenos Aires and now Pope Francis.

North Dakota moved closer Friday to having the strictest abortion laws in the U.S., with its House of Representatives approving a measure that would outlaw the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed premise that at that point a fetus can feel pain.

The conservative rural state is aiming to challenge the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1973 that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. Abortion remains one of the most sensitive issues in the U.S., and conservative lawmakers have been trying for years to restrict access to the procedure by various means in several states.

Habib Jaleel Said, an 11-year-old Lebanese boy, launched his first book, “The Icy Kidnapper,” in a book signing event that took place in April at the Safadi Cultural Center in Tripoli.

Habib said he was inspired by the Harry Potter fantasy novel series and Percy Jackson series that he used to read at the age of nine. He plans to launch similar stories and has therefore created his own imaginary hero Masaio Dingo whom he pictures as a “courageous and honest man.”