Thursday, June 30, 2022
U.S. prisons to recognize Torah study when considering early release
A Torah-study program developed by the Aleph Institute has been officially recognized by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons as an approved evidence-based recidivism-reduction option for inmates, and will count toward consideration for early release as part of the Justice Department's First Step Act.
Federal inmates taking the Sparks of Light correspondence classes will be able to earn credit of up to 15 days toward early release for every 30 days of study. Participants can choose from a slate of more than 30 classes designed for students with a wide range of Jewish knowledge—from "The Bible for the Clueless, but Curious," for incarcerated individuals who are just curious about Judaism, to "Aseres HaDibros," an in-depth exploration of the 10 Commandments for those with a stronger background in Judaic study.
The Chabad-Lubavitch affiliated Aleph Institute, the leading Jewish organization caring for the incarcerated and their families, praised the Bureau of Prisons for ensuring that faith-based programs are available for those who want them.
It was joined in its advocacy efforts by Rabbi Moshe Margaretten of the Tzedek Association. Both organizations have been on the front lines of changing how the criminal justice system deals with people in prison.
"There's no greater rehabilitation and self-improvement than learning Torah," wrote Margaretten. "And so it's a no-brainer that Torah courses should be considered 'productive activity' under the First Step Act. It was indeed an honor to work on this together with Aleph Institute."
Rabbi Berel Paltiel, director of advocacy for the Aleph Institute, told Chabad.org that "There's no question that when someone connects with their faith, and connects with their soul and learns about themselves and their purpose in the world, it can lead to dramatic, significant changes."
By studying and learning Torah, he said, "inmates are also learning about themselves and what they are doing in this world. It's critically important."
The First Step Act of 2018 provides federal inmates convicted of nonviolent offenses with the opportunity to earn time credit toward their prison sentence by participating in "evidence-based recidivism reduction programs and productive activities."
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Wednesday, June 29, 2022
Ben & Jerry’s owner reverses West Bank ice cream ‘sales ban’
The owner of Ben & Jerry's has dramatically reversed a bid to end sales of its ice cream in West Bank settlements after it sold its own business interests in Israel.
Unilever announced on Wednesday that "full ownership" had been sold to American Quality Products Ltd, the company that currently licences the Ben & Jerry's brand in Israel.
The arrangement means the ice cream will continue to be sold under its Hebrew and Arabic names throughout Israel and the West Bank as it does today, Unilever said.
Ben & Jerry's was allowed to retain an independent board when it was acquired by Unilever in 2000.
Last year, the company's co-founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield announced a withdrawal of its ice cream products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank because it was "inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry's ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)."
But Unilever's move to sell its Israeli business interests effectively sidesteps this decision.
The global foodmaker said: "Under the terms of Unilever's acquisition agreement of Ben & Jerry's in 2000, Ben & Jerry's and its independent board were granted rights to take decisions about its social mission, but Unilever reserved primary responsibility for financial and operational decisions and therefore has the right to enter this arrangement."
Cohen and Greenfield were accused of being antisemitic and capitulated to the Israel boycott movement BDS when they announced their decision in June 2021.
Among them was Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid, who called it a "disgraceful capitulation to antisemitism, to BDS, to all that is evil in the anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish discourse."
But analysts had warned a withdrawal from West Bank supermarkets would never have been straightforward because Israeli firms usually do not distinguish over whether the shops they supply are based in a settlement.
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Tuesday, June 28, 2022
101-year-old ex-Nazi Guard Jailed for Aiding Murder of 'Thousands of Jews'
A 101-year-old man was convicted in Germany of 3,518 counts of accessory to murder on Tuesday for serving at the Nazis' Sachsenhausen concentration camp during World War II.
The Neuruppin Regional Court sentenced him to five years in prison.
The man, who was not identified, had denied working as an SS guard at the camp and aiding and abetting the murder of thousands of prisoners.
In the trial, which opened in October, the man said that he had worked as a farm laborer near Pasewalk in northeastern Germany during the period in question.
However, the court considered it proven that he worked at the camp on the outskirts of Berlin between 1942 and 1945 as an enlisted member of the Nazi Party's paramilitary wing, the German news agency dpa reported.
"The court has come to the conclusion that, contrary to what you claim, you worked in the concentration camp as a guard for about three years," presiding Judge Udo Lechtermann said, according to dpa, adding that in doing so, the defendant had assisted in the terror and murder machinery of the Nazis.
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Monday, June 27, 2022
Hasidic faction picks replacement for Litzman to serve in Knesset
Agudat Yisrael, a Hasidic faction within the United Torah Judaism party, on Friday announced a replacement for Yaakov Litzman, who recently departed from the Knesset after 23 years as part of a plea bargain.
In a front-page article, the faction's daily newspaper Hamodia confirmed Yitzchak Goldknopf would take over as leader of the faction.
The statement came nearly a month after other ultra-Orthodox media outlets reported on the possibility of Goldknopf replacing Litzman after the latter formally resigned.
Goldknopf, 72, is a familiar figure in the ultra-Orthodox community, running a network of special needs education centers and kindergartens, according to Al-Monitor.
The Behadrei Haredim news site reported that there have been calls, especially among teachers, not to vote for UTJ following allegations made against the employment terms at kindergartens run by Goldknopf.
Goldknopf was also deeply involved in protests against companies that ultra-Orthodox Jews believe harm the Haredi lifestyle, chairing the so-called Committee for the Sanctity of the Sabbath.
Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Goldknopf.
"We will soon meet to continue the important cooperation between our movements for the wellbeing of all Israeli citizens," the former prime minister tweeted.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2022
NY governor endorsed by Satmar Hasidic movement, securing tens of thousands of votes
Governor Kathy Hochul secured endorsements for her reelection campaign from both sides of the Satmar community of New York this week, building support with a voting bloc with tens of thousands of voters.
Two pamphlets in Yiddish circulated endorsing Hochul and her current Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado. One pamphlet went out in the Satmar community led by Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum in Kiryas Joel, and the other went out in Rabbi Zalman Teitelbaum's community in Williamsburg. The Hasidic movement has been split in recent years over a succession controversy.
Sam Stern, who represents the Zalman Teitelbaum Satmar community of Williamsburg, said this "alliance with Hochul represents 80 percent of the Hasidic Williamsburg vote."
"On a high-turnout election, we can expect 10,000 votes," Stern told the New York Jewish Week.
Stern said his community endorsed Hochul because she expanded child care and she is "understanding of religious rights."
"Our communities have very large families," Stern said. "Our families depend on child care. [Hochul] is the most helpful to our causes."
Hochul has regularly toured Orthodox day schools and synagogues, fought to add more funding for Holocaust survivors and vetoed a bill that would have stopped housing development in upstate New York's Hasidic community.
When asked why his community chose to endorse a liberal candidate over a conservative, Stern said that Hochul is an old-school Democrat who is still a fighter for religious freedoms and liberty.
"These days, a lot of Democrats dropped religious freedom from what they are fighting for," Stern said. "Hochul is still from the generation that shares our values."
Stern also said that his community had a meeting with Delgado and were "really impressed" by him.
"We also endorsed Delgado who made a really strong impression with his commitment to religious values and family," Stern said.
Rabbi Moishe Indig, a Williamsburg activist who is part of the Satmar community affiliated with Aaron Teitelbaum, told the New York Jewish Week that his community endorsed Hochul because she is the incumbent.
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Friday, June 17, 2022
In the US, some fading Reform and Conservative synagogues go Orthodox to stay afloat
Though at first reluctant, Mitchell Friedman realized the best chance of saving the synagogue he'd always considered to be "liberal Conservative" was turning it into a Chabad House.
For 88 years, the Howard Beach Judea Center occupied a sand-colored brick building on a quiet residential street in Queens just four miles (6.5 kilometers) from John F. Kennedy International Airport. Over time, membership dwindled and board members like Friedman began wondering how long the synagogue could remain open.
Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Rabbi Avrohom Richter and his wife Zeldi were in search of space. They'd opened a Chabad House in their home back in 2003, and while they once struggled to make a minyan, or 10-person prayer quorum, they now struggled to fit everyone inside for services.
Richter doesn't remember who made the initial contact, but after several meetings with the board it was decided: the once Conservative synagogue would become Orthodox.
The story isn't unique to Howard Beach. As Reform and Conservative synagogue memberships decline nationwide, some synagogue boards are reaching out to Orthodox congregations, primarily those affiliated with the Chabad movement.
In the past 20 years, more than one-third of Conservative synagogues and one out of five Reform synagogues closed, according to a 2020 Pew Research Center study. Also, while nearly 25 percent of American Jews consider Jewishness important, only one in five Jews attend synagogue monthly. Among the many reasons for this are membership dues — which can range from $1,500 to $5,000 annually — to the variety of ways people are now choosing to express their Jewish identity.
According to the same study, 38% of American Jews have engaged with Chabad programs in some fashion.
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Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Hasidic Woman Sues CUNY For Discrimination on Imputed Political Opinion, Motion to Compel
Faigy Rachel Weiss sued CUNY for being rejected for the Silberman School of Social Work for, she says, being a white Hasidic Jewish female and because of her "imputed political opinion."
On June 13, 2022 U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrate Judge Valerie Figueredo held a proceeding. Inner City Press covered it.
Weiss marveled at what she called the arrogance of the publicly paid defendant's lawyers.
She said she is "shocked at the corruption." The defense countered that mediation would be pointless.
Judge Figueredo however signed a referral to mediation by June 23, and ordered the plaintiff to comply with a motion to compel.
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Monday, June 13, 2022
A Road Map for Anti-Jewish Violence: Boston BDS’ Latest Outrage
The weekend I moved to Boston was the same weekend that The Mapping Project and BDS Boston released their map of Boston — which aims to analyze policing, white supremacy, and somehow, Judaism.
The locations of synagogues, schools, and other Jewish institutions are logged in their interactive database, which puts Jews and Jewish institutions in danger. And it appeals to centuries-old tropes about Jews and power, legitimizes them in the public eye, and then distances itself from anti-Jewish violence.
The Anti-Defamation League recorded 2,717 reported antisemitic incidents in 2021, the highest number ever logged since they began tracking the data in 1979. Antisemitic incidents in Massachusetts also reached a record high last year. Massachusetts is facing a growing Neo-Nazi movement, as evidenced by the man who attempted to blow up a Jewish assisted-living residence in Longmeadow in 2020; or the author of antisemitic and racist manifestos, who murdered two Black people in Winthrop last summer; or by antisemitic graffiti found in bathrooms at Marblehead elementary school this year.
When groups like BDS Boston implicate Jews in white supremacy, they amplify a false narrative. Antisemitism animates white supremacy — not the Jews. By creating lists, a similar mechanism to how Jews were scapegoated and surveilled throughout history, The Mapping Project and BDS Boston contribute to the cycle of anti-Jewish violence.
Additionally, this type of work is labeled as "activism," which detracts from the power of true and successful activism. There are social-justice driven organizations and non-profits that make maps that serve a purpose. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, maintains a hate map that tracks hate groups across the United States. The Movement Advancement Project offers Democracy Maps, which show a roadmap of state election laws and policies, along with how they differ across the country. Such maps are grounded in reality rather than conspiracy, and mobilize people to positive action, rather than to hate.
Greater Boston holds the fourth-largest Jewish community in the country. It is home to dozens of shuls and synagogues, Jewish schools, and institutions. As I navigate Boston, I am wary of this map and the potential it has to incite violence against my community.
I think about the hospitals and medical schools that were listed as newfound "cancellations" on the map; the Jewish non-profit that serves those with disabilities and their families down the street from where I live that has been called off-limits; museums blacklisted and the call to boycott art. Antisemitism both signals the crumbling of democracy, and the erosion of difference and otherness.
I am reminded of what a good friend once told me: where there are Jews, antisemitism follows. I am reminded of how hate brews, how it starts as ignorance and ferments into ugliness and hostility — and how maps like these codify conspiracies and give voice to a seething minority.
And that is what they are: a minority. BDS advocates and other antisemitic activists remain on the fringe of progressivism. They may tug at the fabric, but they do not represent community activism and justice. They claim to speak for Boston, but we won't let them.
It's time to denounce these hateful "activist" tactics. There needs to be a proper investigation into the organizers who published this map. It's time to speak out against antisemitism with conviction; it's time to value Jewish safety.
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Thursday, June 09, 2022
Boston BDS map of Jewish groups has ‘potential to incite violence,’ Auchincloss says
Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) said on Wednesday that a report released last week by a Boston-area Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement group plays on millennia-old antisemitic tropes and could inflame violence against the Jewish community.
The group, calling itself the "Mapping Project," alleges sinister connections between Jewish and pro-Israel groups across Massachusetts and government, politicians, the police and the media, and blames these groups for a range of nefarious activities. The group plotted the locations of the organizations on an interactive state map — drawing lines between the Jewish groups and institutions the project claims they influence — and released the addresses and names of some of the groups' staffers.
The project's organizers accuse the groups — which include the local Jewish Community Relations Council and Synagogue Council, the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Community, a Jewish high school, local philanthropies, an arts group and J Street — of ties to "harms that we see as linked, such as policing, US imperialism, and displacement/ethnic cleansing."
"Our goal in pursuing this collective mapping was to reveal the local entities and networks that enact devastation, so we can dismantle them," the organizers wrote in an op-ed published on Mondoweiss. "Every entity has an address, every network can be disrupted." Local Jewish leaders have said this amounts to a call to "dismantle" the entire Massachusetts Jewish community.
"This is just chilling to me. It is tapping into millennia-old antisemitic tropes about nefarious Jewish wealth, control, conspiracy, media connections and political string-pulling," Auchincloss, who represents an area in the Boston suburbs with a large Jewish population, and is himself Jewish, told Jewish Insider. "To name names and keep lists, which has a very sinister history in Judaism, in terms of how we are targeted, is very irresponsible. [The group] needs to take this down and apologize."
Auchincloss tied the release of this project to current debates in the House over gun violence, explaining that he believes history shows that previous efforts to "keep lists" of Jews "can incite violence" and "inflame the deranged among us to take the next step from contemplating to acting upon violence."
The Mapping Project's organizers did not respond to a request for comment.
"[The organizers] need to recognize actions that have the potential to incite violence, especially in a moment of heightened antisemitism and gun violence," Auchincloss continued.
He said that the project carries echoes of "a very sinister vein of Western history" — efforts to identify and keep rosters of Jews, including, but not limited to, the Holocaust.
Auchincloss said he plans to raise the issue with colleagues and with groups in the area that have promoted the Mapping Project, and will urge his colleagues to do the same.
"I will give direct and stark feedback about how inappropriate and unacceptable this is," he said.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), tweeted on Wednesday that "Targeting the Jewish community like this is wrong and it is dangerous. It is irresponsible. This project is an anti-Semitic enemies list with a map attached."
The other members of Massachusetts' congressional delegation — including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ed Markey (D-MA), who are named in the Mapping Project — did not respond to requests for comment.
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Wednesday, June 08, 2022
Belgian Teacher Who Rescued Hundreds of Jewish Children Dead at 100
Andrée Geulen-Herscovici, a Belgian teacher and member of the resistance during the German occupation of Belgium during World War II who rescued close to 400 Jewish children from the Gestapo, died on May 31 in Ixelles, outside Brussels.
According to yad Vashem, Andrée Geulen was a 20-year-old teacher in a Brussels school when one day some of her students came to school with yellow stars on their clothes. She responded by ordering all her students to wear aprons to school, so the Jewish kids could cover the humiliating tags.
Geulen volunteered to accompany Jewish children to hiding places in cooperation with the Gaty de Gamont boarding school that harbored twelve Jewish children on its premises. In May 1943, the school was raided by the Germans in the middle of the night. The date coincided with the Pentecost when all the non-Jewish students had left for home, and the Germans were able to pick out the Jewish children who were arrested, and their teachers, including Geulen, were interrogated. That night, Geulen went to tell all the Jewish students she knew of the raid and warned them not to come back to school.
She rented an apartment under her false name and kept contact with the rescue underground using a post office box in an antique shop. For more than two years, Andrée collected children and moved them to Christian families and monasteries, making sure the families were able to take in the children and visiting them to look after their needs.
After liberation by the allies, Geulen labored to retrieve the children from their Christian hosts and return them to their relatives. She kept in touch with "her" children for many years, sharing with them the details of their childhood in hiding.
Geulen was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1989. She was granted honorary Israeli citizenship at Yad Vashem in 2007, as part of the "Children Hidden in Belgium during the Shoah" International Conference. She said, "What I did was merely my duty. Disobeying the laws of the time was just the normal thing to do."
She also received honorary citizenship from her home town of Ixelles. Her 100th birthday on September 6, 2021, was celebrated by the Belgian media.
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Tuesday, June 07, 2022
Israel’s Gur Hassidic leader picks next Knesset representative
Rabbi Yaakov Aryeh Alter, the eighth leader of the Gur Hasidic sect, recently invited his follower Yitzhak Goldknopf to his humble apartment to inform him that he was to represent the group in the next Knesset.
Alter, known as the Gur Rabbi, also directs the group's political arm, the Agudat Yisrael party, one of two partners making up the United Torah Judaism (UTJ) party. The Gur Rabbi decreed in 1999 that the party would join the government led by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, only to order the party to quit the government 18 months hence and bring about its collapse.
The Gur sect is deeply divided these days, but its political power as the largest and most influential Hasidic sect in Israel remains undiminished. It was rocked by the recent resignation of its leading Knesset representative, Rabbi Yaakov Litzman, who agreed to step down under a plea agreement to get criminal charges dropped.
Litzman is being replaced in the top UTJ role by a representative of the Vizhnitz Hasidic sect, Rabbi Yaakov Tessler, under a rotation arrangement between Agudat Yisrael and its on-again, off-again UTJ rival, Degel HaTorah. The Gur leadership is deeply unhappy about having to relinquish its long-held top slot in the UTJ and will presumably try to bring about the government's collapse in order to have new elections, send its new man into the Knesset and thus regain its primacy in UTJ.
Goldknopf's appointment doubly shocking because it meant that Litzman, his right hand in the Knesset for 20 years, was stepping down. It also dashed the hopes of those who aspired to step into his shoes — especially top candidate Rabbi Yitzhak Yehuda Shapira. Shapira is related to Alter by marriage and the son of former Agudat Yisrael leader Rabbi Avraham Shapira.
Shapira is an Israeli citizen but resides in London, where he was awarded a royal title in 2014 for strengthening ties between the United Kingdom and its ultra-Orthodox community. In preparation for the coveted Knesset position, Shapira has been making political moves in Israel, including his successful bid for reconciliation between the Gur sect community in Arad and the town's mayor, Nissan Ben-Hamo. He also undertook negotiations with the current government on a deal that would stop Communications Minister Yoaz Hendel's campaign to reform the so-called kosher cell phone monopoly of the ultra-Orthodox leadership in return for UTJ support of government appointments.
But when a photo emerged of him sitting down for negotiations on the highly sensitive issue with Foreign Minister Minister Yair Lapid, a figure reviled by many in the ultra-Orthodox community for his anti-clerical positions, his opponents had what they needed to bury Shapira's appointment before it saw the light of day.
In stepped Goldknopf, a familiar figure in the ultra-Orthodox community due to a high-profile position he created for himself as chair of the Committee for the Sanctity of the Sabbath. The one-man committee has fought hard for restrictions in the Israeli public space, for example forcing the national air carrier El Al to halt all its Saturday flights. At the wedding of one of the rabbi's grandsons, Goldknopf presented Alter with a cake in the shape of an airplane, getting a wide smile in return.
Goldknopf also took on the ultra-Orthodox supermarket chain Shefa Shuk over its highly popular Sabbath-violating AM-PM convenience store chain. His efforts were unsuccessful, but they did land him a top spot in the inner sanctum of the Gur Rabbi, where all substantive decisions are made.
Goldknopf, 73, heads an educational business empire, having taken the small kindergarten and daycare chain in Jerusalem that he inherited from his father and turned it into a prosperous nationwide chain of hundreds of early educational centers, as well as medical clinics and schools for special needs children.
He is notorious for his draconian management style, including alleged violations of the rights of thousands of ultra-Orthodox women employed as kindergarten teachers and aides.
To be fair, Goldknopf did not create the system, but he make it more sophisticated, taking advantage of the Education Ministry's disinterest in supervising ultra-Orthodox schools. The government has handed over this hot potato to various nongovernmental organizations, through which it funnels funding. Most of them are headed by influential figures in the ultra-Orthodox community, such as Knesset members and members of local town councils, for whom these positions provide a bounty of budgets and jobs. As a result of this indirect process, teachers employed by ultra-Orthodox associations are often paid half what state workers make.
In recent years, these teachers have taken their protest to the Knesset, with little success. Even efforts to unionize under the Histadrut labor federation were unsuccessful. When some of the teachers appealed to Goldknopf himself, he refused to entertain their demands, asking one of the them, "What, you want your pay to be higher than that of the director general?"
Goldknopf is undoubtedly pragmatic and skilled at networking. Unlike Litzman, who has publicly taken on leading figures in his community and beyond, Goldknopf makes his moves behind the scenes and gets results.
Goldknopf is considered an effective negotiator and peacemaker between warring sects. He recently intervened in a highly publicized spat between the Gur leadership and Knesset member Rabbi Meir Porush, who accused it of undermining his bid for the Jerusalem mayorship. Many within the Gur community therefore welcome his appointment as a sure path to restoring it as the uncontested leader of Hasidic Judaism.
While his enemies are likely hoping for a misstep, it is important to remember that just as the Gur Rabbi removed Litzman from politics despite his objections, the political fate and career of his successor also depends solely on Alter. Goldknof's enemies know that their efforts against him will take place not within the party or other ultra-Orthodox institutions, but within the inner circle of the Gur Rabbi.
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Friday, June 03, 2022
Orthodox Hasidic Jewish Man Assaulted By Staten Island Teen While Walking To Synagogue
An Orthodox Jewish man was assaulted on his way to prayer service at a local synagogue by a teen from Staten Island according to Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez.
D.A. Gonzalez today announced that a teenager has been arraigned on an indictment in which he is charged with assault as a hate crime and other related offenses in connection with an unprovoked attack against a Jewish man in Williamsburg.
The victim was walking to a synagogue and wearing traditional Hasidic attire when the attack occurred.
District Attorney Gonzalez said, "Without warning or provocation, this defendant allegedly assaulted an innocent man simply because of his Jewish faith. Crimes that target individuals because of their religion, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation are a threat to everything we stand for here in Brooklyn. We will now seek to hold the defendant accountable."
The District Attorney identified the defendant as Logan Jones, 18, of Staten Island. He was arraigned yesterday before Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun on an indictment in which he is charged with third-degree assault as a hate crime, third degree assault, third-degree menacing as a hate crime, third-degree menacing, third-degree attempted assault as a hate crime, third-degree attempted assault, and second-degree harassment. Bail was set at $30,000 and the defendant was ordered to return to court on June 24, 2022.
The District Attorney said that, according to the investigation, on April 1, 2022, at approximately 7:55 p.m., at 58 Gerry Street, the defendant and a group of five individuals allegedly approached the victim, 21, and his wife, as they walked to Shabbat services at their local synagogue. The defendant allegedly suddenly began punching the victim in the face. The defendant and two of the other individuals are alleged to have then repeatedly kicked the victim as he fell to the ground and tried to escape by sliding underneath a truck parked in the street.
According to the investigation, the defendant and the five other individuals allegedly fled the scene after the victim's wife asked a bystander to call 911. The victim suffered severe head and body pain, an abrasion to the cheek, as well as bruising to the face and mouth.
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Thursday, June 02, 2022
Appeals court reverses ruling in favor of Hasidic families in Washingtonville busing case
An appeals court panel has reversed a ruling that would have forced Washingtonville School District to begin busing Hasidic children to their religious schools on days when the public schools are closed.
In a decision on Thursday, four Appellate Division judges in Albany supported the district's policy of driving students to nonpublic schools only when its own schools are open, and the state guidance on which that policy was based. The lower-court ruling in November that extended that obligation skewed the intent of state law and "would lead to unreasonable results," the judges found.
"The Legislature could not have intended to require school districts to transport nonpublic school students in the summer, on weekends, on state or federal holidays, or on days when public schools are closed for weather-related or other emergency reasons, none of which would be foreclosed by Supreme Court's interpretation," the court ruled
The reversal was a setback for Blooming Grove's growing Hasidic population and a victory for the school district, which had argued it had no legal duty to bus students to private and religious schools during its recesses and on holidays. There were 20 days this school year on which Washingtonville schools were closed and Hasidic schools in and around Kiryas Joel were open.
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Wednesday, June 01, 2022
Prominent Hasidic rebbe bans glitzy head coverings for women
The grand rabbi of the Vizhnitz Hasidic dynasty has banned certain flashy kerchiefs used by some religious women as head coverings, a ruling that was said to have taken many by surprise.
The decree was passed on, through Rabbi Yisrael Brecher, a prominent figure in the sect, to thousands of Hasidic women from across Israel who gathered at a conference held Sunday on the issue of modesty in the Hasidic community. The grand rabbi, Yisroel Hagar, was in attendance, sitting in front by the Holy Ark; he and the various speakers were separated from the female audience by a partition.
Held at the Belz Great Synagogue in Jerusalem and drawing some 5,000 women, the conference was hailed as a "historic" event by Hasidic news outlets.
"Women who tend to wear homemade headscarves when leaving the house should make sure that the headscarf is appropriate according to the gentle Hasidic spirit," Brecher told attendees, speaking in Yiddish.
He added that "some headscarves are not suitable at all and don't reflect any religious piety, that God forbid let some hair show, something which is completely unacceptable."
The rabbi singled out so-called Chanel coverings as strictly forbidden for Hasidic women. "Chanel" is a popular name for headscarves using fancy fabrics, due to their similarity to materials used by the international brand.
The specific prohibition caught some women off guard, according to the Haredi Kikar Hashabat website, and has since become the topic of the day within the Hasidic community.
The rabbi did not offer an explanation for the prohibition, but on Monday issued a clarification that the ban only applies to public areas and not the home.
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