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LONDON (JTA) — Britain has promised to publish a list of 25,000 companies and individuals whose assets were seized during World War II and have yet to be returned.

Trade and Industry Minister Lord Simon Haskel told Parliament that a report on the assets, which were taken from individuals living in Nazi-occupied Europe, had been drafted and would be published "as soon as possible."

A statement by the Trade and Industry Department said the study came "in response to concern expressed by the international Jewish community" about the way in which the British government treated assets it seized during World War II belonging to residents in Nazi-occupied Europe.

Ukraine town building synagogue for 10,000

MOSCOW (JTA) — Construction of a synagogue expected to hold 10,000 worshippers has begun in a Ukrainian town with fewer than a dozen Jews.

The synagogue, billed by its founders as the world's largest, is an undertaking of the international Bratslaver Chassidic movement.

It is being built in the town of Uman to serve the needs of Chassidic pilgrims that come once a year at Rosh Hashanah to visit the grave of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, continuing a tradition that dates back to the first quarter of the 19th century.

A great-grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chassidism, Nachman — who was born in 1772 — became famous for his teachings and mystical interpretations of Jewish texts.

When he died in 1810 in Uman, he promised on his deathbed to lift his followers who visited him out of hell by their payes, or earlocks.

Sholem Aleichem monument unveiled

MOSCOW (JTA) — A monument to one of the most famous Yiddish writers has been unveiled in Kiev.

The 10-foot monument to Sholem Aleichem was erected in the downtown section of the city — next to the house in which the writer lived during the turn of the century. Renovations have begun on the house, which is slated to become a Sholem Aleichem museum.

A dedication ceremony for the monument was attended by Jewish and Ukrainian dignitaries, including the city's mayor.

Sholem Aleichem spent much of his life in the Ukrainian capital, which he called by the fictitious name of "Yehupetz" in his writings.