Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Young Jewish Man Dies in Plane Accident
A young Jewish man from Brookfield, Wisconsin, tragically died following a plane crash on Thursday, May 26.
Daniel Andrew Perelman was 18, and a student at Northwestern University. He got his pilot license last fall.
Perelman took off in a Cessna 152 Thursday afternoon, did a pass at Timmerman Airport and then a touch-and-go-landing where he experienced engine problems, local news reported.
He was the only one aboard the two-seater when it crashed in the backyard of a home just south of Timmerman. Perelman went to the hospital with multiple injuries and died on Shabbos, reports said.
Daniel was a member of the Chabad Jewish Center of Waukesha County, directed by Shluchim Rabbi Levi and Fraidy Brook. A beloved young man, Daniel leaves behind his parents, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles, classmates, friends and all those who knew him and loved him.
Daniel was full of energy and curiosity, a gentle soul, and beloved by all who knew him, Rabbi Levi Brook told COLlive.com.
Rabbi Brook notes that in the Jewish tradition, remembering a loved one or friend is not a passive endeavor.
To truly remember is to incorporate a behavior, a positive trait or action into our lives, thereby memorializing the life and contributions of the one we loved, he said.
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Friday, May 27, 2022
Miami robbers dressed as Hasidic Jews rob home while family at synagogue
An Orthodox Jewish family in Miami, Florida had their house broken into and robbed on Saturday afternoon as they were in the synagogue for Shabbat, WLPG Miami reported.
"I walked upstairs in my mom's room, and it looked like a tornado hit it," said the family's 12-year-old son, who immediately called 911 upon arriving at the house and seeing the damage. "Everything was taken out on the floor and in the bed."
The thieves were clad in traditional Orthodox Jewish clothing, which would ostensibly help them blend in as they burglarized the house. Footage of the men was captured by home security footage.
Approximately 15,000 Jews live in Miami Beach, Florida, while nearly 500,000 Jews live in South Florida — 120,000 in Miami-Dade, 144,000 in Broward, and 218,000 in Palm Beach County.
"A lot has been taken: watches, jewelry," said the victim, who asked not to be identified. Police said the thieves made out with $300,000 worth of watches, jewelry and roughly 25-30 handbags, even loading the stolen goods into suitcases belonging to the victims before brazenly walking out of the house.
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Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Dispute tearing apart Israel’s Gur Hasidic sect turns violent
The scenes in several ultra-Orthodox towns and neighborhoods around Israel on the Jewish Sabbath, May 21, seemed taken out of a horror movie. In Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Beit Shemesh and Ashdod, frightened worshipers barricaded themselves inside synagogues while angry mobs tried to break down the doors. Those who dared go out were beaten and their prayer shawls grabbed and desecrated, forcing them to flee back inside, wounded and bloodied.
The violence was not limited to synagogues. Some members of the Gur sect, one of Judaism's largest dynastic courts, were attacked and beaten while walking on the street. They were extricated from the mob by passersby and taken to hospitals.
In other related incidents on Saturday, cars were vandalized, as were ultra-Orthodox synagogues in the cities of Jerusalem and Ashdod.
The warring sides were members of the same group, wearing the same traditional clothing, indistinguishable to an outsider. But the difference between them is deep, bitter and bloody, a power struggle pitting the 160-year-old religious group against those who split off to form a new community in 2019.
The rift dates back to 1996 and the death of the Gur sect's previous leader. His position was handed down to his son, Rabbi Yaakov Alter, who allegedly felt threatened by his cousin, Rabbi Shaul Alter, head of the main Gur yeshiva. He distanced his cousin from positions of influence and eventually shut down the rabbinical seminar.
Things came to a head with an argument over real estate owned by the sect in New York's Catskill Mountains. The disputed land had been a summer retreat and camp for its members, but became run down and piled up tax arrears. The camp's director, David Berliner, agreed to pay off the debts but also registered the land under his name. Senior members of the sect, who discovered his move after the fact, decided to ban Berliner from all Gur synagogues until he returned the deed of ownership.
However, Rabbi Shaul Alter, who had avoided clashing publicly with his cousin until that time, took Berliner's side in the dispute. His letter of support was construed as a declaration of war against the established leadership, and he was kicked out of the sect. Some 500 families followed him in Israel, and an additional 500 in England and the US subsequently.
The numbers were small given that the sect's membership in Israel alone numbers more than 12,000 families. But the Gur leaders feared others might follow Alter, a charismatic figure considered an outstanding biblical scholar. The sect's leadership issued a statement considered highly controversial even in other rabbinical courts that are not strangers to such power plays. Its members were instructed to cut off all ties with the rebels, including between parents and children.
The boycotts did the job, perhaps too well. The rebellion died out. The son of the sect's leader, Rabbi Shlomo Zvi Alter, even established an organization for the boys who turned their backs on their parents who joined the new community. The organization, named "Asfeni" (Hebrew for "gather me up"), created tensions but did not generate a blowup – until it took in three girls.
Two of the girls, aged 16 and 18, were the daughters of the Sandik family originally from the town of Ashdod. When the parents decided to join the breakaway rabbi and move to the ultra-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak, the two asked to stay behind and continue their studies in the Gur sect's institutions.
The parents refused, claiming the teachers at the girls' seminary had incited their daughters against them. When the family moved to Bnei Brak, the girls ran away to the community in Ashdod. There, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the girls were connected by phone to the Gur sect, listening to incitement against the opposing camp, portrayed as infidels. The younger girl violated a civil court ruling instructing her to return home.
The parents claim the girl, who has since been living in a boarding school, was kidnapped by the Gur sect. The community, on the other hand, claims the Sandik girl ran away of her own volition.
The Sandik father then waited for the Gur Rabbi at a cemetery memorial service, took up a megaphone and called upon the rabbi to return his daughters to him.
The small group of followers that accompanied the Gur Rabbi claimed the father had approached their leader in a threatening manner. The next day, one of the group's rabbis issued a call to its members to "protest the criminal act and the disrespect of the Rabbi." The call was heeded by hundreds of incensed young followers, who attacked members of the breakaway group.
The Gur leadership refuses to apologize. Following a visit by senior police officers, the sect's chief rabbi issued a call to his followers to display restraint, but the group believes its actions were justified. "All the red lines were crossed," said the group's spokesman, Avraham Zilberstein. "The Hasidim will not forgive any disrespect of the Rabbi and will be willing to pay the price."
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Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Developers seizing on Hasidic suburb’s explosive growth
Developers are responding to the explosive growth in Hudson Valley suburb Kiryas Joel, setting the local Hasidic community up for a slew of new housing projects.
The Orange County municipality is the home of Veyoel Moshe Gardens, a multifamily housing complex. The Times Herald-Record reported the 1,600-unit development recently opened and could ultimately house as many as 9,000 people across its 70 acres.
About 500 homes have been built at the complex so far and at least 300 have been sold. Many of the buyers have come from either Kiryas Joel or Brooklyn; several buyers have purchased more than one unit, likely indicating investors looking to rent.
The development has become its own metropolis, with the developer switching out three residential buildings in favor of a commercial portion. The building will likely include a supermarket and other stores, cutting residents' need to cross a busy road to go shopping.
The complex is separated from the rest of the village by County Route 105, dividing the Satmar Hasidic sect from the rest of the community. The sect is known for having large families, which may only increase the need for housing as the community grows.
The uptick in development activity comes after Kiryas Joel grew by 63 percent in the last decade to 33,000 people, marking Orange County's most populous area.
Akiva Klein, the developer behind Veyoel Moshe Gardens, is also developing Acres Enclave, expected to house about 3,000 people across 543 condos. There are also projects underway that will include 482, 457, 250 and 191 units, respectively.
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Monday, May 23, 2022
Police detain at least 2 as rival factions of Hasidic sect clash in Jerusalem
Clashes broke out on Saturday night between rival factions of the ultra-Orthodox Gur sect in Jerusalem, leading police to intervene and detain at least two people.
The fighting came a day after the factions, which have been at odds for years, scuffled in Jerusalem and the cities of Bnei Brak and Ashdod.
The turmoil began after Gur's leader, Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter, was heckled by members of the breakaway faction while visiting the grave of his mother-in-law on Thursday, according to the Kan public broadcaster.
In footage from Saturday night's clashes, a police officer is seen tackling an ultra-Orthodox man from behind, putting him in a chokehold and dragging him from the area. Jerusalem in the past have been accused in the past of using excessive force against ultra-Orthodox protesters.
Other videos showed hundreds of people, including many children, on a city street, moving away from police vehicles.
The ultra-Orthodox Behadrei Haredim news site said that a group of Gur Hasidim smashed the windows of a small yeshiva belonging to the breakaway faction in Jerusalem's Ramot neighborhood.
On Friday, clashes were also reported in Jerusalem between the groups.
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Friday, May 20, 2022
Mount Meron festivities pass peacefully, but pilgrims gripe at new safety measures
The success of this year's Lag B'Omer festivities is in the eye of the beholder: To the government and the organizers, Wednesday night was a resounding triumph, with all of the tens of thousands of pilgrims who ascended to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai safely making their way back down. To most of those pilgrims, however, the event, known as the Hillula, was a pale shadow of its former self, lacking all the joy and vibrancy of the past.
Last year's gathering saw 45 people trampled to death in a mass panic in the worst civil disaster in Israel's history, prompting sweeping — arguably draconian — changes to the format of the event to ensure the safety of the participants. So far that aim has been achieved.
"Thank God, as of now the Hillula has passed peacefully. Tens of thousands of people celebrated the Hillula of Bar Yochai on Meron tonight," Deputy Religious Services Minister Matan Kahana said in a video statement on Thursday morning.
A small number of pilgrims clashed with police on Thursday morning in protest of the new safety precautions, but the incident was relatively minor and ended quickly.
The event began on a somber note on Wednesday evening before sundown with a memorial service for those killed at the site last year; their names were read out and 45 candles were lit in their memory. But after nightfall and the recitation of evening prayers, the Lag B'Omer celebrations began to look much as they did in previous years, albeit with far fewer people and far more barricades and guardrails. This included a set of two rails that led next to Bar Yochai tomb but prevented worshipers from actually approaching the grave as they normally would be able to. These rails, resembling those used to direct livestock, prompted some pilgrims to accuse the organizers and police of treating them "like animals."
Despite these initial grumblings, shortly after 8 p.m., the head of the Boyan Hasidic sect lit the ceremonial bonfire to mark the start of the holiday and a Klezmer band immediately launched into a traditional song about Bar Yochai, prompting the 16,000 people on the mountain to break into a frenzied dance.
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Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Growing Haredi numbers poised to alter global Judaism
The Holocaust devastated European Jewry. The most strictly religious among them — the mystical-oriented Hasidic followers of historic rabbinic lineages and the mitnagdim, Hasidism's more intellectually focused religious critics — suffered some of the worst losses.
Their insularity and suspicion of the larger world served them poorly at a time when maneuverability and adaptability might have helped them flee Nazi Europe for safety. Instead, they turned their noses up at non-Orthodox Jews and avoided dealing with non-Jews as much as possible.
This was true for both Hasidic and mitnagdim Jews, who are often lumped together by outsiders under the rubric "ultra-Orthodox."
It's a label many of them reject; they argue there's nothing "ultra" about them and that they're only adhering closely to what they think of as "normative" rabbinic Judaism.
In Hebrew, they're called Haredi or Haredim, the plural. That's how I'll refer to them in this post.
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Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Bronx man who lost his wallet and $1,400 is grateful to Hasidic family that returned it
In a weekend marred by an act of hate-filled violence, a Jewish family from Brooklyn did their part to heal the world.
On Thursday, the Hasidic couple from Brooklyn were on an outing on Governors Island with their children when they found a wallet full of $1,400 in cash.
They contacted State Assemblyman Simcha Eichenstein, who was able to track down the owner of the wallet, a man named Christopher Collins from the Bronx.
In a video shared with the New York Jewish Week, Eichenstein is seen holding a meeting between Collins and the Hasidic man who found the wallet.
Collins said in the video that he is thankful and "appreciates the gesture so much."
"I'm thankful to find out that there are people out there that care enough to give me back my wallet with all my things in it," Collins said.
Eichenstein told the New York Jewish that after a series of reports of antisemitism, this is "a very nice moment."
"These are two individuals that might have very little in common other than that they are both New Yorkers," Eichenstein said. "We look out for each other."
Eichenstein also noted that Collins is Black, which he brought up in referring to Saturday's mass shooting in Buffalo when an 18-year-old white supremacist shot up a grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood, killing 10 people and injuring three
"We know what happened in Buffalo is a horrible, racially motivated crime," Eichenstein said. "We have to be there for each other. If only one person out there walks away from this moment seeing how these two communities treat each other, then it was worth it."
Eichenstein said he wanted to bring attention to this story because some people view Hasidic Jews as "different because of the way we dress."
"These are two individuals that have never met before and probably will never meet again." Eichenstein said. "When we get past all that, we start to realize that is how we're supposed to treat each other."
Both Collins and the Hasidic family declined to be interviewed for the article.
Eichenstein also attended the Flatbush Council of Jewish Organizations breakfast on Sunday morning, where Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-South Bronx) spoke about the relationship between Black and Jewish Americans.
"Fighting racism should never be the sole responsibility of the Black community, just like fighting antisemitism should never be the sole responsibility of the Jewish community," Torres said.
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Monday, May 16, 2022
Gateshead Jewish primary school given green light for new development
A Jewish Girls Primary School development with rooftop playground could be built in Gateshead if it is granted the expected planning permission.
The development on Alexandra Road, Bensham, will include the construction of a three storey annex to the north of the site with seven classrooms, staff facilities, management offices, and an external rooftop play area.
The application also requests permission to erect eight temporary classrooms to use while work is ongoing.
The school submitted a similar application back in 2017 which was approved by the committee in 2018. However, pandemic related delays meant the original planning application approval expired before work could begin. The school has 366 children in its care.
The council acknowledged two objections. The objectors claimed the proposed building was too high and liable to block out natural light and disrupt visual amenity.
There was also a concern raised of noise pollution from the rooftop playing area.
A report into the proposal did not conclude visual amenity would be greatly affected. With regards to proposed noise, the report said: "There is an access entrance into the annex as shown on the northern elevation and its use could result in noise and disturbance to the residents of Worcester Green."
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Friday, May 13, 2022
Cops seek bigot who punched Jewish man on Brooklyn street
Police are looking for a bigot who assaulted a Jewish man on a Brooklyn street earlier this week.
According to police, at 2:06 p.m. on May 10 an 18-year-old man wearing traditional Jewish attire was walking in front of 1801 Avenue M when he was approached by an unknown man. The man demanded that the victim make a statement about Palestine before punching him in the right eye.
The suspect then fled the scene on foot. The victim suffered pain to his eye and was taken to Maimonides Medical Center in stable condition. The investigation by the NYPD Hate Crime Task Force is ongoing.
The NYPD released photos and a video of the suspect taken from surveillance footage near 1279 East 17th Street about 20 minutes before the incident.
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Thursday, May 12, 2022
U.S. ‘concerned’ by Lufthansa’s expulsion of Hasidic travellers, antisemitism envoy says
Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, the State Department's special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism, said on Wednesday she was "concerned" about the allegations of antisemitism by Lufthansa after the German airline allegedly kicked all identifiably Jewish passengers off a flight from New York City because some of them were not complying with mask regulations.
"Acting as if a group of Jews are collectively responsible for wrongdoing by a few people who happen to be Jewish would be antisemitic," Lipstadt, a world-renowned Holocaust expert who was sworn in on Tuesday to lead the office of antisemitism, said in a statement posted on Twitter.
Some of the travelers, members of the Hasidic community, were on their way to Budapest to visit the grave of Rabbi Yeshayah Steiner, a prominent rabbi known for his unique hospitality, in the town of Kerestir in northeast Hungary to mark the 97th anniversary of his death.
A video posted online by Dan's Deals, a travel site geared towards the Orthodox community, showed a Lufthansa supervisor in Frankfurt, Germany, explaining the expulsion by saying that "everyone has to pay for a couple" individuals who were not complying with the mask requirements. "It's Jews coming from JFK," the supervisor added. "Jewish people who were the mess, who made the problems."
Lufthansa expressed regret for the circumstances that led to the group of an estimated 100 individuals being denied boarding "rather than limiting it to the non-compliant guests" in a statement on Tuesday. It also apologized "for the offense caused and personal impact," but didn't mention the fact that the group was Jewish.
State Department spokesperson told the Forward earlier on Wednesday they were "monitoring this incident and all such allegations closely, in line with our commitment to combat antisemitism around the world."
The spokesperson added that it's the job of U.S. embassies and consulates abroad to assist U.S. citizens traveling or residing abroad, but had "no further comment" on the incident and the allegations of antisemitism "due to privacy considerations."
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Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Brooklyn DA asked Cuomo to commute sentence for Hasidic man convicted of abusing teen
Nechemya Weberman's term should be commuted and he should be given an "opportunity to be released from prison after an amount of time that is commensurate with the goals of protecting society and extending a measure of justice to those who were victimized by him," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez wrote to Cuomo on Aug. 23, 2021.
Without a commutation, Weberman, who is 64 and has only served nine years so far, will likely die in prison, Gonzalez said in the letter obtained by THE CITY.
Cuomo — who granted clemency to 10 incarcerated people in his final two weeks — never responded to the Weberman request.
Gonzalez has a record of seeking leniency even for multiple people convicted of murder, and in 2019 announced he would not oppose most parole applications.
He submitted the letter on behalf of Weberman after Cuomo "sought our position on clemency requests under consideration," according to Brooklyn DA spokesperson Helen Peterson, who said the then-governor's request was made via a phone call.
But advocates for sexual assault victims contend the Weberman letter has nothing to do with criminal justice reform. Weberman has always been supported by many members of the Satmar Hasidic community — a large and influential voting bloc.
During his trial in 2012, members of the Satmar community held a rally urging former Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes to drop the case.
"It's 100 percent politics," said Ben Hirsch, a co-founder of Survivors of Justice, a Brooklyn-based group that advocates for victims of sexual abuse in the Orthodox community.
Not eligible for release until 97
The Weberman plea appears to be the only time Gonzalez has ever gone to bat with the governor for someone convicted of a sex crime, suggest documents from his office made public upon request.
All told, he submitted nine letters to Cuomo since 2019 seeking mercy, with most involving people convicted of murder who'd served at least a decade behind bars.
Still, Hirsch, and other advocates have long struggled with the essentially life sentence for Weberman. Justice John Ingram said that the time that he was sending a message to other victims of sexual abuse that their "cries will be heard and justice will be done."
"I have never felt that justice calls for sex offenders to be locked up for the rest of their lives," Hirsch said.
The Weberman case came at a time when Hynes was sharply criticized for going soft on alleged offenders from orthodox Jewish communities for fear of losing votes from those loyal supporters.
Hynes, who passed away in January 2019, vehemently denied politics played a role in whom he chose to prosecute.
Weberman was the first high-profile child sex-abuse prosecution he brought against a member of the Satmar Hasidic community. The case was closely watched and garnered headlines for days.
The victim had been sent to Weberman for counseling — despite his lack of a professional license — and testified how she was repeatedly sexually assaulted between 2007 and 2010. The first attack happened when she was 12 years old, she told the jury, which convicted him of 59 counts of sexual abuse.
She said she was forced to perform oral sex and reenact scenes from pornographic movies with the married Weberman.
"It takes years and years to heal," she said in court before his sentencing in 2013. "In some ways, it's much worse than murder. The abused experience the past over and over again."
She faced immense pressure from members of the Satmar community to withdraw her complaint, according to family members and advocates involved in the case. People threatened to yank ads from her father's phone directory and to stop eating at her boyfriend's pizzeria, according to reports at the time. The boyfriend, who later married the victim, also said he was offered $500,000 to convince her to recant.
In February 2013, state prison officials cut Weberman's sentence in half, citing state penal law that requires a maximum of 50 years for the type of felonies he was convicted.
State judges are allowed to go over that maximum to make a point or to reduce a possible cut in time by the appellate court on appeal.
In his letter to Cuomo, Gonzalez argued that reduction didn't go far enough.
"This Office believes that the original sentence was excessive, disproportionate and inconsistent with the sentences of similarly situated defendants in cases similar to this one," the district attorney wrote.
Weberman, who currently isn't eligible for release until he turns 97, will likely never have a "chance to prove he has changed and is deserving a second chance," the letter added.
Gonzalez also argued the lengthy sentence "might deter other victims from coming forward and witnesses from participating in a process that could result in such an excessively harsh outcome."
Still fighting
Some rabbis have instructed members of the orthodox Jewish community to bring allegations of sexual abuse directly to them before going the police or other official investigators.
Advocates note that rabbis typically have no training in how to handle or probe abuse cases, and that circumventing the secular courts protects molesters and puts the community at risk.
The Weberman victim also has a pending civil lawsuit against the former counselor and her Satmar school, the United Talmudic Academy.
She claims educators there forwarded her to Weberman after she got in trouble for failing to meet modesty standards like wearing thick stockings.
In legal filings, the school, and Weberman, have maintained that they did nothing wrong and have tried to get the suit tossed.
That case has been slowly snaking its way through the court system since 2014. A possible trial is scheduled for October.
Weberman initially invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and refused to answer any questions during his deposition, according to Evan Torgan, the lawyer representing the victim in her civil suit.
"We had to go back to court to compel him," Torgan added.
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Monday, May 09, 2022
More than 100 Orthodox Jews who were praying before a flight were barred from boarding by German airline Lufthansa in mask dispute, report says
A group of Orthodox Jewish men has accused the German airline Lufthansa of "antisemitic discrimination" after many were barred from boarding a connecting flight following a mask dispute, according to the Hebrew-language newspaper Hamodia.
More than 100 members were forbidden from taking a connecting flight from Frankfurt, Germany, to Budapest, Hungary, on Wednesday night, Hamodia reported.
The group, consisting of approximately 150 Orthodox Jewish men in total, traveled from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Kerestir, Hungary, as part of an annual pilgrimage to commemorate the death of a famous rabbi.
German Law requires passengers to wear medical or FFP2 masks to travel, and, according to the group, all but a handful complied on the first leg of the journey from New York to Frankfurt.
"One or two" did not wear masks, claimed passenger Nachman Kahana. Although Insider could not verify this, several other passengers supported the claim during conversations with Hamodia.
On Wednesday morning, per Hamodia, the group was praying as other passengers began boarding the flight. Lufthansa agents told the members of the Orthodox Jewish group that they would not be able to join those boarding due to "operational reasons," the newspaper said.
According to Kahana, a Lufthansa agent pointed out that he is Jewish. "They explicitly said that nobody who is dressed alike on that plane is going to board the Lufthansa plane to Budapest," he told Hamodia.
"They banned us because we are Jews. That's the only reason," Kahana alleged, per Hamodia.
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Friday, May 06, 2022
Hasidic group selling town of Wallkill campus where it planned to open boys school
A Satmar Hasidic group is preparing to sell the 17-acre former Crystal Run Village campus it bought three years ago with plans to convert it into a boys school.
Sheri Torah, one of three religious school systems for Hasidic students in and around Kiryas Joel, has signed a contract to sell the empty complex on Stony Ford Road for $2.1 million to a Manhattan-based nonprofit that serves children and adults with special needs, according to court papers filed in Orange County this week.
Sheri Torah leaders say in those filings that they decided against trying to open a school at the site after discovering it needed extensive upgrades and town approvals.
The impending buyer is Community Assistance Resources and Extended Services, or CARES, which provides an array of services for people with developmental disabilities and behavioral and mental health issues. No CARES administrator could be reached on Thursday to discuss the organization's plans for the campus.
The buildings and grounds were used for 60 years by Crystal Run Village, a nonprofit that serves about 500 people with developmental disabilities in Orange, Rockland and Sullivan counties. The campus has been vacant since the organization moved its offices to a new building it completed in Wallkill in 2018.
Sheri Torah bought the property for $1.3 million in 2019, expecting to open a school for about 300 boys. But school leaders soon learned the buildings and infrastructure "needed significantly more repair and refurbishment than anticipated," including broken sewer pipes and a $162,000 water-system upgrade, according to court papers.
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Thursday, May 05, 2022
Putin Apologizes for Statement About Hitler Being Jewish, Israel Says
According to Israeli news site Walla, Russian president Vladimir Putin has reportedly issued a rare apology to Israel's Prime Minister Naftali Bennett regarding a statement from Russia's foreign minister, who recently said Adolf Hitler had Jewish ancestry.
At the time of publication, Russia has yet to issue a public apology and the official Kremlin readout about the meeting didn't mention an apology, but Walla reported it got the news directly from the Israeli prime minister's office.
Russia's foreign minister Sergey Lavrov's statement caused a brief crisis in the relatively stable relationship between Russia and Israel. Shortly after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, like other heads of state, Bennett spoke to both Putin and Ukrainian's president Volodomir Zelensky, trying to facilitate peace talks and even offered to host a summit in Jerusalem.
Earlier this week, Lavrov risked that relationship when he wrongly claimed that Hitler had Jewish ancestry. Lavrov gave the comment to Italian media when he was asked how Russia could justify its invasion and so called "de-Nazification" of Ukraine when Zelenskyy himself is Jewish.
"So what if Zelenskyy is Jewish? The fact does not negate the Nazi elements in Ukraine. I believe that Hitler also had Jewish blood," Lavrov told "Zona Bianca" on Sunday. "Some of the worst anti-Semites are Jews," he added. The unfounded theory that Hitler's grandfather may have been Jewish originates from unproven claims by a Nazi-era lawyer and has been debunked by mainstream historians.
Israel's foreign minister, who summoned the Russian ambassador and demanded an apology in response to Lavrov's interview, called the statement "unforgivable and outrageous."
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Tuesday, May 03, 2022
Israel condemns top Russian diplomat for claim that Adolf Hitler had Jewish blood
Top Israeli officials on Monday condemned remarks from Russia's chief diplomat that claimed that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was Jewish and implied that Jewish captives during World War II were responsible for their own deaths in the Holocaust.
Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov made the remarks in an interview with an Italian news channel when asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin's claims that his war in Ukraine is "deNazifying" the country.
"In my opinion, Hitler also had Jewish origins, so it doesn't mean absolutely anything," he said in the interview. "For some time we have heard from the Jewish people that the biggest anti-Semites were Jewish."
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Monday, May 02, 2022
How US toy makers and publishers created an alternative Jewish universe
I grew up on "Encyclopedia Brown," a series of books about a grade-school Sherlock Holmes who solves one-minute mysteries. You know the type: "If you didn't steal the bicycle, how did you know it was blue?"
Encyclopedia's world looked just like mine: white, suburban, middle-class. If he had a religion, it wasn't obvious — which, except when we peeled off on the major holidays or for Sunday school, was also true of me and my friends. I later joked that there should be an all-Jewish version of the books, in which the hero solves highly specific Jewish mysteries. I even proposed a name: "Encyclopedia Judaica Brown."
It turns out, there is such a thing: "Gemarakup" (roughly, "talmudic brain") is a children's book series created for the Haredi, or fervently Orthodox, market. Its hero, according to volume 2, loves "solving mysteries, almost as much as he love[s] studying Torah" (note that "almost").
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