ROME (JTA) — A plaque honoring the victims of anti-fascist partisans from World War II was displayed this week on the Roman street where a partisan commando killed 33 German soldiers on March 23, 1944.

But police removed the plaque after an anonymous caller told an Italian news agency that an extreme right-wing group — known as the Political Movement — had put it up Monday night.

The plaque, which called the partisans "vile assassins," was dedicated to "the fallen civilian and military victims of the anti-fascist partisan slaughter."

The March 23 attack led to the Nazi mass execution the next day of 335 men and boys, including 75 Jews, at the Ardeatine Caves south of Rome.

Berlin Jewry chief resigns from seat

BERLIN (JTA) — Jerzy Kanal, leader of this city's nearly 12,000-strong Jewish community, said he will resign over differences with the community's board.

Kanal, a member of the board's conservative faction, is facing opposition and dissent within his own ranks. At issue is how to spend the current $7 million budget.

Kanal, a board member for 30 years, took over as head of Germany's largest Jewish community in 1992, after the death of Heinz Galinski.

A self-described "nonpracticing Orthodox Jew," Kanal has proven to be more liberal than most on some issues. Kanal says he would not oppose a homosexual service in the city, if there were enough congregants.

TV cables to aid Shabbat observance

SYDNEY, Australia (JTA) — The largest concentration of Orthodox Jews in Australia have more than a passing interest in the upcoming installation of overhead cables by a pay television company.

The cables, to be put up by the Optus company in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, will create an eruv that has been approved under Jewish law.

Orthodox Jews are not permitted to carry anything — even a key — outside their private property on Shabbat. The artificial boundary known as an eruv turns otherwise public space into an extension of private space, making the act of carrying possible.

Canadian Jewish author-activist dies

MONTREAL (JTA) — David Rome, an author who was heavily involved with the Canadian Jewish Congress and relations between Jews and French Canadians, died here Tuesday of liver cancer. He was 85.

Rome, who was born in Lithuania, was a lifelong advocate of improving relations between Jews and French Canadians.

Rome, who wrote more than 60 books on subjects ranging from Zionism to local school issues, founded the first French-speaking Jewish cultural group in the country, and in 1972, he became the CJC's archivist.

Vatican honors two Nazi martyrs

ROME (JTA) — The Vatican has declared as martyrs an Austrian and a German, both Roman Catholic priests who died at the hands of the Nazis.

The declaration, announced Friday of last week, could lead to the priests' canonization

Austrian priest Otto Neururer was tortured to death at the Buchenwald concentration camp, the statement said. German priest Karl Leisner was ordained in 1944 while he was a prisoner at Dachau. He died in August 1945 from a lung disease he contracted there.

The two men are among 12 Roman Catholics from various countries and times in history to whom miracles, martyrdom or "heroic virtues" were formally attributed by the Vatican.