Wednesday, August 31, 2022
NYPD to increase patrols in Williamsburg due to rise in antisemitic hate crimes
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said in a press conference on Monday evening that the police will increase patrols near synagogues in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, due to an increase in antisemitic attacks happening throughout the neighborhood.
"In the wake of these senseless attacks, we deployed round-the-clock house of worship cars to routinely visit synagogues," Sewell said at the press conference on Lynch Street in Brooklyn — the same location where a suspect allegedly slapped a 27-year-old man dressed in traditional Orthodox clothing on Aug. 22.
"We increased patrols to visit sensitive locations," she said.
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Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Jewish community 'terrified' after rash of anti-Semitic attacks in Brooklyn
NYPD's commissioner made a special trip to Brooklyn Monday night to reassure members of the Jewish community that they're safe amid a rash of anti-Semitic attacks in the area.
Williamsburg is a family neighborhood and next week the children, many of them from the Hasidic community, will be headed back to school. That left some parents terrified.
Residents say they are afraid just to even walk out on the street, fearing they will be a target because they are Jewish.
Twice last Sunday, Jewish men were targeted on the streets with a fire extinguisher, one of them was assaulted after being sprayed.
A Jewish man was also assaulted in a separate incident on Monday.
The NYPD isn't always so quick to identify an attack as a hate crime, but they had no problem in this case.
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Monday, August 29, 2022
Ukrainian Hasidim Train in Israel to Become EMTs in Uman
Last Thursday, a very special EMT training course celebrated its graduation ceremony. The course was designed for members of the Breslav community in Uman who had fled Ukraine at the onset of the Russian invasion. The course was held in Jerusalem and completed six months after the beginning of the war.
Taught by United Hatzalah's dedicated instructors Yechiel Mayberg and Uriel Amrani, the special course aimed to strengthen emergency medical response in and around the community of Uman and lower the response time to medical emergencies. All the new EMTs hope to return to Uman soon and assist in the region.
United Hatzalah's Vice President of Volunteer Operations Eliezer Hyman thanked the graduates for their dedication and said: "You came to Israel and invested your time and efforts to learn how to give the most professional response to medical emergencies in Uman and throughout Ukraine. Your actions are worthy of the highest praise. You are the latest reinforcement for United Hatzalah's extensive activities in Ukraine since the start of the war."
Deputy head of the Uman chapter of United Hatzalah Aharon Ben Harush said: "Our activities in Uman and throughout Ukraine start when receiving the alert about an emergency and only end when the patient is discharged from hospital. Our dedicated team of volunteers accompanies the patient at the hospital to assist them with any language difficulties and help translate instructions from the medical staff and help the patient throughout the medical treatment. We are delighted to see new EMTs join the chapter in these challenging times."
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Friday, August 26, 2022
After extended campaign, Jewish community buys back Montana’s first synagogue from Catholic Diocese
The Jewish community in Montana closed a deal Thursday to reacquire the state's first synagogue, built in 1891, returning it to Jewish ownership for the first time in 87 years.
The Montana Jewish Project, a nonprofit organization, purchased the two-story Helena synagogue for an undisclosed amount from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Helena after a nine-month fundraising effort to turn the space into a Jewish community center.
The group is not planning to hire a rabbi or build a congregation, but it will offer High Holiday services and other community-wide events for the roughly 100 Jews it estimates lives in the state's capital city.
Rebecca Stanfel, the group's president, said now that the funding has been secured, the community will "foster a sense of larger community for all of Montana's Jews" by hiring a traveling director of programming to oversee education, speakers and cultural events.
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Thursday, August 25, 2022
Calling for the Death of Jews on Campus
In their zeal to create "safe" campus environments, universities have instead created educational environments where students from approved victim groups are coddled, nurtured and shielded from criticism and intellectual or emotional challenges.
Hate speech has long been understood as any speech that expresses prejudice or is abusive toward someone based on their race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. But the definition of hate speech has now been broadened to include any expression that contradicts the prevailing progressive orthodoxy on campuses, and such speech is seen as harmful, even violent, by proponents of these ideas. In other words, even questioning whether it is reasonable to view all white or light-skinned people as racists or oppressors, for example, is akin to an act of violence.
Fighting racism is a worthy endeavor. But on many college campuses students and faculty are often forced to offer explicit admissions of their own racism simply because they are light-skinned. Sessions and courses that discuss implicit bias, invisible racism, "white privilege," and microaggressions, together with a consequential battery of programs and initiatives to protect minority students from this alleged bigotry are in abundance. Mandatory sensitivity training for all faculty and students, school-wide solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, and campus-wide initiatives to increase the recruitment of minority students and faculty are the norm. Anyone who questions or challenges these sweeping, unproved allegations of systemic racism can be accused of white supremacy and the promotion of injurious hate speech, which further marginalizes and harms a victim group.
There is, however, one victim group that is rarely protected from vilification and ideological assault, namely, Jewish students who are supporters of Israel. Progressive students have decided, from within their own moral self-righteousness that the Palestinian campaign for self-determination is such a sacred cause that anyone who defends Israel is a moral retrograde. To support Israel is to risk being deemed a racist, an imperialist, a tacit supporter of apartheid or even a white supremacist now that Jews are considered to enjoy "white privilege."
Groups such as Students for Justice in Palestinian (SJP) have waged an unrelenting cognitive war against Israel and its campus supporters and Jewish students are confronted with activism, rhetoric, and condemnation that, were it aimed at any other minority group, would be immediately and forcefully denounced, not only by fellow students but by university officials as well—just as they do when a racist, homophobic, or other incident against a victim group takes place. At the University of Chicago, for example, the school's SJP chapter even used a repulsive Instagram post to urge their fellow students not to enroll in any "sh*tty Zionist classes."
In 2020-2021, 17 BDS resolutions are were pushed through student governments in which Israel is maligned as a racist, apartheid regime, existing on stolen Arab land, and chronically oppressing the human and civil rights of Palestinians. Yearly Israeli Apartheid Weeks reinforce this false narrative with mock apartheid walls constructed in university quads and guest speakers who parrot calumnies against the Jewish state while accusing its supporters of racism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.
Often heard at these campus anti-Israel hate-fests is the grotesque chant, "Intifada, intifada, long live intifada," referring to an uprising in which Israeli civilians, not soldiers, are murdered randomly by psychopathic Arabs. Anti-Israel activists regularly support "resistance" on behalf of the ever-aggrieved Palestinians, resistance being a comfortable euphemism for terrorism against Jews.
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Wednesday, August 24, 2022
Despite war, thousands of Israeli Hasidim make pilgrimage to Ukraine
Some 30,000 ultra-Orthodox and traditional Israelis make a pilgrimage to the Ukrainian town of Uman annually, around the Jewish New Year holiday. Many of them are Breslov Hasidim, who are taught from a young age about the importance of gathering around the "marker," the burial place of their sect's founder, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772-1810).
Reports this year say that thousands of Breslov Hasidim have already made their way to Ukraine, with thousands more expected to join them, despite the fighting still going on in Ukraine.
The last few years were especially difficult for the Breslov Hasidim. They contended with coronavirus restrictions, followed almost immediately by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Just two years ago, Yehezkel Cohen of Jerusalem found himself stuck in Belarus. He was planning to continue on to Uman, but the Ukrainian authorities blocked the entry of tourists into the region because of the pandemic. As a result, Cohen was forced to spend the holiday with his sons, ages 12 and 15, in a remote village in Belarus instead, with little in the way of food or shelter.
Cohen's failed attempt back then did not prevent him from trying again. On the contrary, it made him even more determined. Instead of giving up on the pilgrimage just before the new year, Cohen decided to travel to Ukraine in early August.
"This year, I didn't take any chances," he said in a phone call to Al-Monitor. "I imagined that we would have problems this year too, so I arrived here two weeks ago. My wife and kids – my whole family – is here. We are prepared to be here right up until Rosh Hashanah [New Year]. Then we will immediately go back to Israel."
Before the Holocaust, the Breslov Hasidim gathered in Uman every year. Even in the communist era, hundreds of Hasidim tried to reach the site in all sorts of ways. But with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the trickle of pilgrims turned into a flood.
Pilgrims to Uman benefited from a highly organized hospitality network, which provided them with food and accommodations. (Over the last few years, a wealthy American named Louis Scheiner funded vast kitchens, which prepare thousands of meals each day). On the other hand, it was no secret that the Ukrainian authorities were not entirely thrilled by the pilgrimage itself or by the festival atmosphere that resulted from it.
The 2020 coronavirus pandemic caught the Breslov Hasidim unprepared. At the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that anyone who arrived in Ukraine before July would likely be granted entry. As a result, tens of thousands of Hasidim made their way to the border with Belarus. Then, Ukraine shut down its border two days earlier, leaving thousands of Breslov Hasidim stranded in Belarus.
The weather was terrible, and the Hasidim lacked food and shelter, but they expected Ukraine to open its borders to them. But fear of the virus was even more daunting than thousands of stranded Hasidim. Masses of pilgrims were denied entry. Then, after Rosh Hashanah, they returned home, severely disappointed.
The following year, the Breslov Hasidim were asked to fill in forms and meet certain criteria to avoid more COVID cases. The Hasidim offered a plan of their own, which was unacceptable to the Ukrainian government. In the end, the number of Hasidim granted access to Uman was reduced once again.
As a result of the ongoing fighting in Ukraine, Israel is trying this year to prevent Breslov Hasidim from making the pilgrimage to Uman. The National Security Council told the leaders of the sect that they would take no responsibility to anyone who goes this year, and that anyone who reaches Uman would be putting their lives at risk. They also made a point of saying that Israel has placed a formal travel warning on Ukraine.
But no one in Breslov was willing to listen. And some people in Ukraine are calling on the government to open the gates to the Breslov Hasidim, to send the message that life in Ukraine goes on as normal. However, many others, including members of the Ukrainian parliament, insist that the country cannot accept responsibility for thousands of Hasidim showing up in Uman.
"Many of the Hasidim are still suffering from the trauma of the past two years, when they tried to get to Uman but were blocked," says Aharon Klieger, a Hasidic writer. "This year they decided that come what may, they will get there. That is why there are hundreds of families in Uman already. They're not willing to take a risk. They've been there in the two months leading up to Rosh Hashanah. They went there with their families, with their wives and children. And every day that passes, hundreds more Hasidim reach the town."
How do they get there? Klieger says that the safest and most convenient border crossing is in Moldova. Hasidim from around the world arrive in that country every year and make the 9-hour car trip to Uman. "This route is relatively secure," he says. "There are many cars for the people arriving there, including luxury vehicles."
Also, he said, the fighting "can hardly be felt near Uman. No missiles have fallen there to date."
But even if the fighting is not taking place in Uman, its impact is certainly felt. The Cherkasy Oblast (in which Uman is located) has established a nighttime blackout, and there is a general curfew at 11 p.m., after which no one is allowed out of their homes. But reports from Uman say that where the thousands of pilgrims have gathered, it all but impossible to impose the curfew.
As a result, Breslov Hasidim still in Israel worry that Ukraine will deny them entry and are looking for alternative routes. Some are even requesting Ukrainian citizenship. "For Breslov Hasidim, the pilgrimage to Uman has always been worthwhile," Klieger explains, "even if it means risking your life for it, so they will do so again this year."
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Tuesday, August 23, 2022
Hasidic man slapped by stranger in unprovoked Brooklyn attack
A Hasidic man was slapped by a stranger while walking in Brooklyn, the third suspected hate crime in Williamsburg in less than two days, police said Tuesday.
The 27-year-old victim, dressed in his religion's traditional garb, was confronted by the stranger on Lynch St. near Marcy Ave. about 4:30 p.m. Monday, cops said. Without saying a word, the attacker slapped the victim in the face then kept walking.
The stunned victim did not need medical attention.
The NYPD on Tuesday released surveillance footage of the suspect walking near the scene and asked the public's help identifying him and tracking him down.
On Sunday, two Jewish men were sprayed with a fire extinguisher and one was also punched in separate attacks moments apart.
The first attack happened shortly after 6 a.m. at Lee Ave. and Taylor St. just south of the Williamsburg Bridge ramp. One man can be seen on surveillance video creeping across the street toward his 74-year-old victim with a fire extinguisher in his hand.
The attacker, who was wearing a white T-shirt and black pants, sprayed the man, spreading a cloud of white powder onto the sidewalk and street, the video shows.
The second attack came around the same time at Roebling and Third Sts. on the north side of the Williamsburg Bridge ramp. This time a 66-year-old Orthodox man was sprayed with the powder extinguisher and then punched in the face.
The attackers did not say anything to their victims but police believe there could be anti-Semitic motives for the attacks because both men were wearing traditional Orthodox garb.
Sunday's assailants have not been caught or identified.
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Monday, August 22, 2022
An Ex-Hasidic Woman Shares Her Story: “All Societies Have Faults”
Many think they know about Orthodox Judaism thanks to TV shows like "Unorthodox" and "My Unorthodox Life," a.k.a. media that shows off the community in a negative light without any sort of context that these are dysfunctional families. But where are the stories of inspiration? Where are honest, nuanced alternative narratives to balance that out? Enter Frieda Vizel.
Frieda grew up in a Satmar community in Kiryas Joel and initially left at the age of 25 as a single mother to her son, Seth. After spending a number of years trying to acclimate to a new non-Hasidic frum community, she left that community as well due to the lack of being welcomed by her new environment and the stigma of being ex-Hasidic. After reading her story, and feeling distraught from it, Jew in the City founder and executive director, Allison Josephs, wrote a post explaining that she feared that Jews were leaving observance completely after they left the ultra-Orthodox world because no one in other communities was welcoming them in. From this post, Makom, the JITC branch that helps disenfranchised charedi Jews find a positive place in Orthodoxy was born.
While Frieda didn't wind up back in an orthodox lifestyle, she didn't disown it either. Frieda may no longer be observant, but she has remained close to her community. She offers walking tours of Hasidic Williamsburg and Boro Park as a means of educating people on Hasidus. She also has a YouTube channel where she has videos on Hasidic food, holidays, kosher technology, and more.
"I thought I would live my whole life in the community, frankly," she says. "I'm still surprised by my journey." Seeking closure after her departure, she began studying parts of the Hasidic culture that fascinated her or otherwise felt like loose ends in her understanding. This included the history of women shaving their heads, which had bothered her significantly and was a custom that she herself had practiced for five years. By doing so, she was able to distance herself a bit from the emotional side of the practice. In addition to personal research, while in grad school, Frieda was asked to give a tour in Williamsburg: from there, she ended up becoming a regular in the neighborhood and continues to give tours professionally since 2013.
That and more have been part of her personal journey and have allowed her to be connected to her roots despite not being a part of the community directly. She documents various elements of the Hasidic community's lifestyle (such as music, toys, street signs and art) on her blog. She feels like the positives and joys of these communities have been ignored by academia, sociology, and journalism — she strives to make sure that the nuances are seen and heard.
At the same time, she speaks candidly about her own journey away from the Hasidic — and ultimately, Orthodox Jewish — lifestyle, which was painful and difficult. "While in the community, I felt very voiceless," she confesses. The only people who I felt were really speaking for [the community] were either people who left and were very angry, or people who were the designated authorities — almost exclusively male — who got to tell what felt like a very PR spin. It was very important to me to share this very unique world from an everyday woman's perspective."
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Friday, August 19, 2022
Moscow Court Postpones Hearing On Shutting Down Jewish Agency
A district court in Moscow has postponed for one month its hearing of a Justice Ministry request to close down the Russian offices of a prominent Jewish nongovernmental organization.
The Basmanny District Court on August 19 granted a request by the Jewish Agency for Israel for a one-month delay in the proceedings, during which the organization said it would respond to the government's complaints.
Moscow has accused the organization of unspecified violations of Russian law. According to media reports, however, the government believes the Jewish Agency for Israel illegally collects the personal data of Russian citizens.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has denied Israeli media reports that Moscow wants to shutter the organization to combat a brain drain that has accelerated since Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February.
The Jewish Agency for Israel, which was founded in 1929 and began working in the Soviet Union in 1989, works to promote Jewish cultural identity and facilitate the immigration of Jews to Israel. It has helped hundreds of thousands of Jews from Russia and other former Soviet countries to immigrate to Israel.
Russia and Israel have discussed the case at the highest diplomatic levels.
Israel has warned that shuttering the organization could harm bilateral relations.
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Thursday, August 18, 2022
SUNY hit with civil rights complaint by Jewish students alleging discrimination for pro-Israel views
Two Jewish students who say they were expelled from a sexual-assault survivors' group over their pro-Israel views have filed a complaint with the Education Department calling for an investigation into the university.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which represents the students and the group Jewish on Campus, said Thursday that the State University of New York at New Paltz allowed a "hostile environment to proliferate on campus for Jewish survivors of sexual assault."
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Wednesday, August 17, 2022
In NY10, Dan Goldman receives both NYTimes and Hasidic backing
In what might be described as a delayed reversal of fortune, Dan Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as the Democrats' lead counsel in the first Trump impeachment trial, is now riding a wave of momentum as a frontrunner in the highly competitive race for an open House seat in Lower Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, his bête noire, former President Donald Trump — who, despite Goldman's best efforts, was ultimately acquitted of two impeachment charges in February 2020 — is facing a mounting list of criminal inquiries, culminating last week in a high-profile FBI raid at his Palm Beach residence.
But even as Trump's legal and political future remains in question, Goldman, 46, suggested that the former president, who continues to stoke false allegations of election fraud as he weighs a possible comeback campaign, is merely the symptom of a growing extremism that Goldman hopes to counter if he makes it to Congress.
"Republicans are descending into an unforeseen and unpredicted place of complete anti-democratic demagoguery," Goldman said in an interview with Jewish Insider at an outdoor café in Tribeca, the Manhattan neighborhood where he lives with his wife and five children. "Where we are today is far worse than where we were two years ago, and that genuinely scares me for our country and for our democratic institutions and the rule of law."
Those concerns, among others, have fueled Goldman's first campaign for federal office, which he announced in June following the delayed finalization of New York's reconfigured congressional map.
With less than a week remaining until next Tuesday's primary, Goldman has recently emerged as the frontrunner in the race, where he is among a dozen Democrats jockeying to represent the newly drawn 10th Congressional District. On Saturday, he snagged a coveted endorsement from The New York Times — a major coup for the neophyte candidate, who had been polling neck-and-neck with two local elected officials running to his left. The newspaper's imprimatur may resonate with conventionally liberal Times readers in Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights and Cobble Hill, among other neighborhoods in the district.
Still, the qualities that appealed to the Times — which praised Goldman's "uncommon experience" while citing his "knowledge of congressional oversight and the rule of law" — had also been expected to weaken his standing in deep-red Borough Park, an Orthodox Jewish enclave in Brooklyn where Trump pulled in more than 80% of the vote in the 2020 election.
Political observers had speculated at the beginning of the race that Goldman's high-profile role as a Trump prosecutor — coupled with his gig as a legal commentator for MSNBC — might be a liability in Borough Park rather than a selling point. But Goldman, who is himself Jewish, persisted in courting the Orthodox community, retaining local operatives and meeting for discussions with Jewish community leaders earlier than most candidates in the race, according to Ezra Friedlander, a Democratic consultant who lives in the neighborhood.
Goldman's efforts paid off on Tuesday, when he notched a big endorsement from a coalition of 25 Hasidic leaders in the district, effectively consolidating support within the sizable Orthodox community, which could prove decisive. Turnout is predicted to be lower than usual in the late-summer primary, for which early voting began on Saturday.
"There is only one candidate who has the qualifications and understanding to represent the Boro Park residents in Washington," the Jewish leaders wrote, according to a translation from the original Yiddish by Hamodia, a newspaper covering the Orthodox community in New York City. "It is critically important for our community to have a representative in Washington who will stand on our side and represent our interests with devotion and understanding."
The announcement followed a separate endorsement on Monday from Simcha Eichenstein, an influential state assemblymember in Borough Park. Eichenstein, who did not respond to a request for comment from JI, told Hamodia that he had "gotten to know" Goldman "quite well" in recent months, describing him as "a rising star" who "keenly understands the needs of our community."
Mordy Getz, a Hasidic businessman in Borough Park whose Judaica store, Eichler's, is a well-trodden campaign stop for political candidates on the stump, met Goldman in July, and found he was attuned to "the needs of mom-and-pop stores and small businesses that comprise the majority of Boro Park businesses," he wrote in a recent WhatsApp exchange.
"He seems like a real mensch and a candidate who understands the needs of the community," Getz said. "Although it may seem challenging to overcome his role in Trump's impeachment in a community with a majority of Trump supporters, I think the recent news about Trump helps leadership realize that working with Trump opponents is inevitable."
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Tuesday, August 16, 2022
Ukraine cannot guarantee the safety of Hasidic pilgrims
The state of Ukraine, against which Russia continues its armed aggression, cannot guarantee the protection and safety of Jews who traditionally come to pray at the grave of Rabbi Nachman in Uman on Rosh Hashanah. Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk said this in a comment to The Jerusalem Post.
«Rosh Hashanah is coming, and no matter what we say, Orthodox Jews will try to get to Uman again. We understand your willingness to go to Uman and favor your support for Ukraine, but this is not the right time. We cannot guarantee your security», - he said.
The head of the diplomatic mission noted that a large gathering of pilgrims may attract the attention of the Russian army, which may attack the place of pilgrimage.
«Imagine if Russia fired at them, what would happen?», - said the ambassador.
Yevhen Korniychuk also said that he tried to talk to influential rabbis in Israel so that pilgrims would not fly to Ukraine, because Kyiv is ready to close its borders to religious tourists.
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Monday, August 15, 2022
Brooklyn Orthodox family among those shot in attack near Western Wall
An Orthodox family of four from the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn were among those shot on a bus near the Western Wall during a terrorist attack in Jerusalem's Old City on Sunday morning.
Eight people, including five Americans, were wounded during the attack, two seriously according to Israeli police. There were no fatalities.
The suspect in the attack is a 26-year-old Palestinian man from East Jerusalem, who turned himself in after fleeing the scene.
Rabbi David Niederman, executive director of United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg, confirmed to the New York Jewish Week that Shia Hersh Glick — a member of the Satmar Hasidic movement — and his wife, son and daughter were among those shot.
Glick's wife and son are in stable condition according to Niederman, but Glick is on a respirator after shielding his family from the attacker.
"The bullet that went through [Glick's] head was taken out and now they are working on his throat," Niederman said, audibly shaken on the phone, his voice fragile and tired. "Unfortunately, he's fighting for his life."
Niederman, who was in touch with the Glick family, said that Shia Glick is a cancer survivor who "now has to fight for his life again."
"The pain cannot be explained," Niederman said. "We feel it as a community. It didn't only happen in Israel. It hit home for us. We can only hope and pray."
Niederman said the family is asking that people pray for them to "go through this and still be whole."
The family is in Israel because the son, who was shot in the arm, is getting married.
"His son wants his father to be at his chuppah," Glick said, referring to the Jewish wedding canopy. "Imagine the bride. Everybody in the community is praying that he will recover, that the family will resurrect from this tragedy to be even stronger, with a new couple and children to come."
According to CNN, there was also a pregnant woman on the bus who was shot and underwent an emergency cesarean operation.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Glick was "beloved by all in the community and called the incident a "deeply disturbing and despicable act" during his Sunday press conference.
"We are in touch with the State Department, Israel leaders and Jewish community leaders in Brooklyn to offer any assistance I can," Schumer said.
Schumer added that Glick is in "critical condition, but God willing, expected to survive."
New York City Mayor Eric Adams also said in a tweet that he is in contact with "authorities and the Israeli government to ensure their needs are met."
"New Yorkers stand with Israel today," Adams said. "We know that some of our own were victims in last night's terror attack in Jerusalem."
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Friday, August 12, 2022
New York police search for attacker who tried to choke Jewish woman at subway
The New York Police Department's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating an anti-Semitic attack on a Jewish woman that took place at a subway station on Manhattan's Upper East Side, reported the New York Post.
The 44-year-old victim, whose identity was not revealed, was choked by an unidentified male suspect, who made anti-Semitic remarks to her while she waited on the subway platform of the No. 6 train at around 11:20 a.m. on Tuesday, according to police.
The attacker approached the Jewish woman and made anti-Jewish remarks while attempting to choke her by putting his hands around her neck and squeezing. The victim was taken to a hospital to be treated for injuries she suffered from the incident, police sources told the New York Post.
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Thursday, August 11, 2022
Orthodox Jewish Man Murdered in Washington DC
A young Orthodox Jewish husband and father was shot and killed Wednesday on the 5100 block of Call Place, Southeast at approximately 3.41 pm in Washington DC while at work, DC police said.
Aryeh Wolf was reportedly working at a construction property when he was shot, but further details are not yet known.
Wolf was a resident of Baltimore together with his wife and six-month-old child.
The victim's mother is a principal at a local Bais Yaakov; his grandparents also live in Baltimore.
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Wednesday, August 10, 2022
Hasidim warned about the threat of Russian missile strikes on Uman
Constant Russian missile attacks on Ukraine threaten the lives of Hasidim who may come to Uman to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniychuk said.
"Fragments of a Russian missile fell a few kilometers from Uman, causing significant damage to civilian infrastructure. We fear for the safety of the Uman pilgrims. If such a Russian attack occurs during Tishrei, it could harm the numerous migrants coming to Uman from all over the world," Korniychuk said. pilgrims, because the actions of the enemy are unpredictable.
Earlier, Korniychuk said that Ukraine in 2022 would not be able to receive Jewish pilgrims, who traditionally arrive in September to celebrate Rosh Hashanah – the Jewish New Year.
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Tuesday, August 09, 2022
In Ukraine, Jewish charity buys 40 electric cars to manage rising costs of delivering aid
Negotiating the bomb-scarred roads of eastern Ukraine is the easy part of Ilya Pulin's day as he delivers food and medicine across eastern Ukraine as a volunteer.
The difficult part, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, is finding and paying for fuel in the war-torn country.
Since Russia invaded in February, "fuel prices have doubled. There are hour-long lines at petrol stations. And until a few days ago there was a five-gallon ration per person," said Pulin, a 38-year-old Jewish father of two in Dnipro who works as science professor specializing in thermodynamics.
"You can easily wait for six, seven hours at select fuel stations and, until recently, you only got five gallons. It's very difficult," Pulin said.
To solve this problem, which is affecting aid providers all over the country, the Chabad-affiliated Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine has spent over $2 million buying a fleet of 40 electric cars — including some made by Volvo — that it is distributing this month to communities like Pulin's.
"It's going to save lives," said Shlomo Salomon, the rabbi of the eastern city of Kremenchuk, where one member of the Jewish community is on life support after the war disrupted his access to a crucial medicine he required.
The cost of cars, including electric cars, has shot up globally amid parts shortages and other pandemic-induced changes. But even at an average price tag of $50,000 each, the cars are seen as a smart buy as Ukrainian-Jewish aid groups and volunteers use their extensive ties and funding sources in the West to adapt quickly to situations as they unfold during the five-month long Russian invasion.
Amid the war's surge both in the needs of aid recipients and the price of extending aid — in addition to fuel, medicine and food prices have also skyrocketed — the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, or JDC, is seeing unexpected returns on investments it made several years ago, according to Amos Lev-Ran, the director of JDC's division for external relations in the former Soviet Union.
One of them is JDC's switch from delivering food and medicines to needy Jews to a system where the recipients can get those items themselves at a supermarket near them, using a card preloaded with payments. Another is the JOINTECH system that allows caregivers and others to connect to elderly and other aid recipients online to combat loneliness without the need for travel.
"All of the adaptations that we made over the past few years are really benefiting us now, and saving a lot of costs," Amos Lev-Ran said.
In Mykolaiv, a southern city that is the birthplace of Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the last leader of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic dynasty, the fuel shortage is having a cooling effect on the willingness of volunteers to show up for errands, according to Sholom Gotlieb, a Chabad rabbi who's been living in the city for the past 25 years.
"There's a solidarity and willingness to sacrifice but after 160 days of war, there's only so much you can ask," he said.
Sending volunteers to wait for hours for a fuel ration at a flammable gas station amid unrelenting Russian bombing is "not something that's reasonable to expect from a volunteer," said the rabbi, whose wife and 10 children left for his homeland of Israel after the war broke out.
At least a third of his community of about 2,000 people have also left the city, including the wife and children of Pulin, the science professor. Helen Pulina, an English teacher, is staying in Israel. Her husband had to stay behind because of emergency rules that prevent most men under 60 from leaving Ukraine. She is planning on settling in Israel and awaits the moment her husband is allowed to join her.
"I'm studying Hebrew, settling in. Starting something new. Very unexpected but there you have it," she said.
In the first half of 2022, more than 12,000 people left Ukraine for Israel under its law of return for Jews and their relatives – roughly four times the tally of the whole of 2021. The dimensions of this Jewish exodus from Ukraine, which had at least 47,000 Jews in 2020, are probably far larger as many thousands of additional Jews have left for Europe, the United States and beyond.
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Monday, August 08, 2022
Anti-Hasidic Hate Crime Suspect Sought For Queens Plaza Attack
A man, 37, was the victim of a hate crime on a southbound E-train at Queens Plaza last Tuesday, said the NYPD.
While onboard the E-train, an individual, unprovoked, punched the 37-year-old and made anti-Hasidic remarks, authorities reported.
The victim had a cut on his lip and was taken to Cornell Hospital in stable condition, said police.
Police are unaware of where the suspect fled, but are on the lookout for a man in his 30s with a dark complexion, who is approximately 5 feet 7 inches, of medium build and has black hair in braids, according to the NYPD.
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Friday, August 05, 2022
Virginia school apologises for new logo ‘resembling a swastika’
A school district in Virginia has apologised for designing and distributing a logo that resembles a swastika, in the second case this month of a district releasing a logo that bears a resemblance to a Nazi emblem.
Hanover County Public Schools, just north of Richmond, this week unveiled T-shirts and conference materials with a logo of what the superintendent said was "four hands and arms grasping together."
But local Jewish groups and others, including a Jewish candidate for Virginia's House of Delegates, instead saw something that looked too much like the swastika.
"We are deeply sorry for this mistake and for the emotions that the logo has evoked by its semblance to a swastika and, by extension, to the atrocities that were committed under its banner," Michael Gill, the district's superintendent, said in a statement Wednesday.
He blamed the logo's creation on "one of our teachers" who said it had been done "without any ill-intent."
"Unquestionably, we condemn anything associated with the Nazi regime in the strongest manner possible," Gill wrote.
Gill's apology came after objections to the logo were raised by the Jewish Community Federation of Richmond, the Anti-Defamation League, the Virginia Holocaust Museum and other civil rights groups.
"We appreciate the swift and definitive response of Superintendent Michael Gill," the federation's CEO, Daniel Staffenberg, said in a statement.
Staffenberg added that the groups planned to meet with Gill to "ensure that the voice of Jewish students and those of other minority faiths are heard and respected."
The incident came less than a month after a school district near Atlanta apologised for designing a new elementary school logo that resembled the Nazi Eagle.
That school, East Side Elementary in Marietta, Georgia, is located across the street from a synagogue.
Rachel Levy, a former Jewish preschool teacher running for the Virginia House of Delegates in a district that includes part of Hanover County, harshly criticised the school district on Twitter for the logo, and said Gill's apology was "unacceptable."
"This is what happens when you refuse to acknowledge that cultural competence & sensitivity are a thing. And that your leadership lacks it," wrote Levy, a Democrat.
"Sadly, stuff like this happens way too frequently with HCPS."
Levy pointed to another recent incident in the district in which a school board member attempted to prosthelytise a Jewish teacher, saying that "your eternal destiny depends on" converting to Christianity, and disparaged the head of the local NAACP as "an angry African-American lady."
The swastika was originally a symbol of peace used by Hindu, Buddhist and Jain communities, but after being adopted by the Nazi regime, it is popularly understood to have morphed into a symbol of hate.
A Hindu movement in California is seeking to expand understanding of non-hateful uses of the symbol.
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Wednesday, August 03, 2022
In Ukraine’s Uman, locals predict war won’t keep all Jewish pilgrims away
Residents of the central Ukrainian city of Uman have grown accustomed to hosting tens of thousands of Jewish worshippers during the annual Rosh Hashana pilgrimage. Many work in Jewish-owned businesses come September, some have learned more Hebrew than one might expect, and most speak with some measure of pride about their hometown's fame and status as a sacred site.
Now, with a five-month-long war between Russia and Ukraine still raging, the pilgrimage is very much in doubt. Israel and Ukraine have issued warnings to deter the worshippers, but it is unclear how much of an effect they have had.
Locals in Uman told The Times of Israel this week that they expect thousands of Hasidim and others to make the journey anyway.
Even before the war, the annual pilgrimage, a major economic driver for the city, had been badly disrupted by the pandemic. In 2020, with COVID-19 travel restrictions still largely in place globally, thousands of ultra-Orthodox pilgrims tried to enter the country.
Only 3,000 worshippers made it through before Kyiv closed its borders to avoid an outbreak, while others spent the holiday camped on the side of the road near the border begging to be let in.
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Tuesday, August 02, 2022
Hungry for Jewish tourism, Barcelona gets world’s 1st kosher Michelin-starred eatery
The typical menu at Xerta, a Barcelona restaurant that earned a coveted star from the Michelin Guide, reads like a haute-cuisine treif banquet: non-kosher dishes such as lobster, squid and oysters.
Yet the restaurant has become a hotspot for Barcelona's small number of kosher-keeping Jews. That's because with a little advance notice, Xerta will prepare food according to Jewish dietary laws in a separate kitchen, under the supervision of a local Chabad-Lubavitch rabbi.
The restaurant pursued kosher certification, which makes Xerta the only Michelin-starred kosher restaurant in the world, largely to attract Barcelona's rising numbers of Jewish visitors. But until recently, no tourists had come.
"At the moment, we cannot account for a [kosher] supply-demand relationship, but we believe it is because of the difficulties brought by the pandemic," Irene Montagut, Xerta's press officer, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in May. "We'll have to wait and evaluate what happens from now once tourism resumes and the country's travel freedom improves."
Now, a busy summer travel season is underway, with pent-up wanderlust leading to packed planes and airport chaos. For Spain's Jewish tourism industry, the travel mayhem could not have come sooner, as Xerta is far from alone in counting on Jewish visitors, and it is not the only institution making changes to woo them.
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Monday, August 01, 2022
The Phenomenon of the Rebbe and his Followers
The current rebbe leader of the huge stream of Gur Hasidim is Yaakov Aryeh Alter.
The ultra orthodox Hasidim (literally "adherents") form a fascinating facet of the Jewish and Israeli experience. It consists of various groups of the faithful, each group following its own "tzadik/righteous" rabbi leader.
The rabbi who leads a Hasidic group or "court," is considered by his followers to be endowed with knowledge and powers, and is even considered by them to be a mediating figure between them and God(!). By virtue of his status and personality, the "Tzadik Rebbe" guides and directs his followers in all areas of life.
The Hasidic "courtyards" are led by family lineages of rabbis leading their adherents. Over the years such groups have sprung up around charismatic rabbis who over time become honoured as rebbes.
The group of "Gur" Hasidism is the largest Hassidic group in the State of Israel and wields great power and influence in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world.
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