Monday, January 30, 2023
Borough President: NY Must Stop Honoring Nazi Collaborators
Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval—who led the Vichy government during the Nazi occupation of France, and under whom 75,000 French Jews were deported to concentration camps—were convicted of treason after the war and sentenced to death. Some 80 years later, New York still has not gotten that memo.
Granite inscriptions bear both men's names on Broadway in Manhattan, in the so-called Canyon of Heroes, the site of ticker-tape parades in which confetti rained down upon honorees. Parades hosted both Laval and Pétain in 1931, prior to their alignment with the Nazis, and they are honored on the pavement along with Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela and others.
At a press conference on Friday, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine called for being better late than never.
"We must act swiftly to remove commemorations of people who allied with the Third Reich and perpetuated genocide against Jews and other marginalized groups in Europe," he said, alongside members of the city council's Jewish Caucus, descendants of Holocaust survivors and Jewish advocates.
"In a city home to more than 1 million Jews–many of whose ancestors fled countries ruled by Nazi collaborators–it is painful and shameful for these plaques to exist," Levine said. His announcement came on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Levine and the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York penned a joint letter to the city's public design commission in which they called for the immediate removal of the offensive sidewalk plaques.
Naming the two French Nazi collaborators on Manhattan sidewalks honors those who committed unspeakable horrors, said Eric Dinowitz, chair of the council's Jewish Caucus. "The Holocaust remains one of the darkest periods in history. We must not honor those who enabled and participated in that atrocity.
"New Yorkers must lead by example, and that means reserving honorifics for true heroes," Dinowitz added. "Survivors and their families and every decent person deserve dignity and the safety in knowing New York will no longer honor Nazi sympathizers by keeping them emblazoned on the streets of our city."
Menachem Rosensaft, general counsel and associate executive vice president of the World Jewish Congress, has led efforts to remove the plaques. He attended the event.
"We cannot allow the memory of the atrocities committed against the Jewish people during World War II to be tarnished by the glorification of those who were responsible for such heinous acts," Rosensaft said. "The plaques honoring them have no place in our city, and we will do everything in our power to have them removed from the Canyon of Heroes."
The least New York can do to honor and remember victims of the Holocaust is to ensure that the city does not glorify any perpetrator of evil, Rosensaft added.
Alison Conte, a granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, was also present at the press conference. She is "extremely dismayed by the very idea that these convicted war criminals continue to be honored in New York City," she said.
Gideon Taylor, executive vice president and CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council-NY (JCRC-NY), said the removal of the plaques would have a twofold impact. It would both honor Holocaust survivors, and it "would be a teaching moment for our youth, as part of our common struggle to combat hate in New York City," he said.
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Friday, January 27, 2023
Man helps save woman aboard JetBlue flight after she suffers mid-air medical emergency
A passenger aboard a flight from New York City to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is being credited with saving a fellow passenger's life after she experienced a medical emergency.
The routine JetBlue flight from LaGuardia Airport to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport took a terrifying turn when a woman suddenly fainted in the aisle as the crew was handing out drinks.
A passenger on the plane said the woman collapsed about an hour into the flight and the pilot was preparing to make an emergency landing when a man stepped up to help the ailing woman.
Photos obtained by Simon Gifter and shared with Fox News Digital show a man wearing blue gloves assisting a woman lying on the floor of the plane. The woman can be seen with an oxygen mask on her face.
The man can be seen rendering aid as other concerned passengers gather around.
The passenger who took the photos said the man was a trained Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and was able to get the woman stabilized, so the flight could continue to its destination.
The woman was said to be conscious and talking when the plane landed. An ambulance reportedly met the plane after it landed, and emergency personnel boarded the flight to take the woman off first.
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Tuesday, January 24, 2023
First Full-Length Album of Hasidic Melodies Sung by Women to Be Released in February
The first full-length album of wordless Jewish Hassidic melodies, known as niggunim, to be sung professionally by women will be released next month.
Kapelya, which in Yiddish means musical ensemble, features 22 female vocalists and instrumentalists singing old Hassidic melodies that are typically sung publicly only by men, since Orthodox men are prohibited from hearing women singing, for reasons of modesty. The 13 tracks on the album combine Hasidic prayer, Yiddish Klezmer, traditional medicine music and Jewish music from the 1970s-90s.
The album is an outcome of "RAZA_circles" — a group which organizes musical singing gatherings mainly for women in New York City and Israel since 2018. They are led by Brooklyn native Chana Raskin, 35, who uses the name RAZA when performing.
The 22 women vocalists included in the recording of Kapelya "helped to create the atmosphere of those gatherings in the studio," Raskin told The Algemeiner.
"Given the context of where this music comes from, [which is] a traditional Hassidic community…this album is doing something that hasn't been done before," added Raskin, who leads vocals on the album. "It is bowing its head to the tradition of old while making space for the new, doing both with a profound deep listening and joyful curiosity."
Kapelya will be released by Rising Song Records on Feb. 22.
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Friday, January 20, 2023
Jackson looks to swap land with religious school developer
Four private religious schools, once planned for Leesville Road, will instead be built on the eastern side of town, near the Lakewood border, if the township council approves a unique land swap agreement with the developer next month.
The Jackson Township Council on Tuesday unanimously introduced an ordinance permitting the town to exchange a series of small parcels, about 46 acres total, along White Road for the 35-acre Leesville Road site where developer Mordechai Eichorn, through his company Bellevue Estates LLC, had proposed a four-school complex that would serve up to 2,850 students from the town's booming Orthodox Jewish population.
If the land swap is approved by the council on Feb. 14, Eichorn will get a total of 43 acres across dozens of small lots on White Road, between Bellevue Avenue and Maplehurst Avenue, backing up to the Lakewood border.
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Thursday, January 19, 2023
Jewish community reacts to antisemitic display at FAU as the university denounces group's presence
At an event to help students find ways to get involved on Florida Atlantic University's campus, an antisemitic group set up a table with a banner that read, "#YeIsRight."
The hashtag referencing rapper Kanye West's recent antisemitic Twitter rant.
Although the tweets got the rapper kicked off the platform, his messaging about Jewish people sparked a movement among some of his followers.
"Yesterday on campus was the first time that I have ever been that personally close and had an in-person, face-to-face experience with antisemitism," FAU senior Amanda Baritz said.
Baritz, a self-described proud Jewish woman, said the presence of the group on her campus made her and others in the Jewish community nervous.
"All I want to do is make sure that I am safe, my Hillel family is safe, the students around me are safe and that everybody feels comfortable being a part of the Jewish community," she said.
Hillel is a campus Jewish organization. It assists with campus life for Jewish students at FAU, Palm Beach State College and Lynn University.
"I have seen antisemitism and this feels different these days," Adam Kolett, the executive director for Hillel in Broward and Palm Beach Counties said. "Antisemitism is much stronger."
FAU condemned the presence of the antisemitic group and it's banner. The University released a statement reading in part, "Florida Atlantic University strongly and unequivocally condemns hate and antisemitism. Florida Atlantic University believes in the freedoms provided by the First Amendment; however, we also denounce antisemitism in all its forms."
While some praised the University, others say it infringed on the free speech of demonstrators.
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Wednesday, January 18, 2023
Two Lubavitcher boys attacked in Crown Heights
Two Jewish boys, aged 10 and 12, were assaulted on Albany Avenue in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn on Sunday evening.
According to Belaaz.com, the boys were attacked at around 6 p.m.
According to CrownHeights.info, the group responsible for the beating consisted of four black males who did not say anything to the boys as the assault was taking place. The two boys, members of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, "were viciously assaulted and punched in the face."
According to a report by Americans Against Antisemitism, through its Hate Crimes Accountability Project, from April 2018 through August last year, 64% of assaults against Jews where the perpetrators' group identities were known were committed by black persons. Seventeen percent were perpetrated by Muslims or Arabs, 11% by Hispanics and 3% by whites.
Out of the 194 documented assaults during the period examined, the Hate Crimes Accountability Project found just two cases where a perpetrator was sentenced to prison. Most of the attackers faced no consequences at all. The latest instance of such leniency occurred last week when the Manhattan District Attorney's Office offered a plea deal to Waseem Awawdeh to reduce his sentence from upwards of 10 years in prison to six months.
Awawdeh was charged with a hate crime for attacking a yarmulke-wearing Jewish man who was heading to a pro-Israel rally in May 2021.
The boys attacked on Sunday are reported to be shaken from the attack but not badly injured. The New York Police Department and the Crown Heights Shomrim neighborhood watch group are investigating the incident.
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Friday, January 13, 2023
On screen, the beauty of Hasidic life transcends a cloistered world’s restrictions
Audiences seem hungry for content about Orthodox Jews. Unorthodox was a runaway success. My Unorthodox Life milks Julia Haart's story of leaving Haredi life in Monsey. A new horror movie mines Hasidic spirituality for demonic terrors.
People are, of course, curious about the men who dress like they live in a different century strolling down New York City streets. But these stories give a limited picture, feeding the audience's prurient — and profitable — fascination by focusing on the underbelly of Hasidic life. Lurid marketing amps up the drama, like Netflix's description of the documentary One of Us, about three men who "face ostracism, anxiety and danger as they attempt to leave their ultra-Orthodox community."
On its surface, Where Life Begins, a French film from director Stéphane Freiss screening at the New York Jewish Film Festival, seems like another entry in the canon of dramatic Hasidic escape stories.
Set at an Italian etrog farm, where they grow the ridged, yellow citrus essential to Sukkot, the film focuses on the intimate, but unspoken, relationship between Elio, the (non-Jewish) owner of the farm, and Esther, the daughter of a French rabbi whose family comes to the farm each year to inspect and package the holy fruit.
Esther, played by a solemn Lou de Laâge, grates against Hasidic rules, sneaking away on forbidden walks and car rides with Elio and hiding in his house to use the internet. Her parents are trying to arrange a marriage, which she doesn't want, and, at one point, the women in the family study Judaism's strict menstrual laws, one of the more off-putting Orthodox practices for a modern audience. In a melodramatic letter to her rabbi father, Esther tells him she wants to leave: "Your world is in black and white. Today mine is in color."
But the details of the movie soften the expected story. There are scenes of joy: the family working together in the etrog orchard, celebratory meals, mothers praying with their children, men dancing and singing. There's a palpable holiness to the pastoral shots of the Italian countryside. Even Esther, as she rages against Judaism, does so from inside it. "Give me the strength to leave you and I will forget you without resentment," she begs a God she clearly still believes in.
And Elio, ostensibly the symbol of the outside world for Esther, seems to have a deep respect for Judaism. He enables and even encourages Esther's rule-breaking, but is also genuinely fond of her father and family. At one point, he folds a makeshift kippah from paper for a child who lost his. And though his farm is struggling, Elio refuses to graft his trees for a bigger, more profitable harvest; to do so would make them non-kosher.
Elio, too, is embedded in tradition: Etrogs, after all, are inedible, useless except for Judaism. They're a fitting crop for Elio, who inherited the farm from his father, leaving a cosmopolitan life — and his ex-wife and children — in Rome to take up the family business, which he both loves and resents. Where Life Begins executes a delicate dance, acknowledging the limits of tradition while also allowing for its beauty.
This delicacy makes Where Life Begins feel like a standout among contemporary portrayals of Hasidism. But it's in line with a much older film. Remastered for its 25th anniversary, and also screening at the festival, A Life Apart opens with an almost glowing portrayal of Hasidism in America. Filmmakers Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky got incredible access into the usually cloistered world, allowing for intimate shots of Hasidic life, all teeming with warmth and festivity: huge gatherings of men singing with their rebbe, the celebration of a Hasidic boy's first haircut, Shabbat blessings over candles, a child learning the Hebrew alphabet.
Going over the history of Hasidism, narrators Leonard Nimoy and Sarah Jessica Parker explain that it was a "spiritual revival movement which emphasized prayer, joy and charity." In numerous interviews, people talk about how lucky they feel to be Hasidic, and how sorry they feel for secular people, who miss out on so much value and meaning.
"It's emotional, it's holy, it's beyond words," one man says of his religious practice.
A Life Apart doesn't shy away from the very real limits of Hasidism entirely. Here, too, there's a woman who left Hasidic life, as well as academics discussing sexism within the Hasidic world and a Hasidic school's principal openly talking about censoring books.
It's hard to gild these elements of the Hasidic life, and A Life Apart makes no attempt to. But unlike so much of what came later, its vibrant and affectionate shots of daily life movingly convey what it's difficult to express in words: That, hard as it is to understand, Hasidism's rigid rules and harsh limits can also forge love and contentment and transcendence.
So, too, in Where Life Begins, you can't help but feel the sanctity of Hasidic life when it's set against lingering shots of the stunning Italian countryside. Even moments that might otherwise feel dark — Esther balling up her firsts in fury or running desperately through a field — are softened by the sounds of chirping birds and rustling leaves and cows mooing softly.
Just like Hasidism, the film operates beyond logic; you have to simply feel the beauty — of the land, of the tradition, of the religion. It's impossible to miss.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2023
Hasidic man injured in Crown Heights hit-and-run, which was caught on dramatic video
Police are investigating a hit-and-run in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, that left a Hasidic man injured on Friday.
In dramatic video of the incident, a white BMW makes a left turn, colliding with the 55-year-old man, who rolls off the hood. The man is heard screaming as the car immediately accelerates away. A woman is then seen running down the sidewalk calling out "Hatzalah," a volunteer emergency health service that operates in the area.
Police said the victim was taken to Cobble Hill Health Center for treatment. According to Meyer Labin, who lives near the site of the crash, the man suffered a serious leg injury.
No arrests have been made.
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Monday, January 09, 2023
Neturei Karta members meet Islamic Jihad terrorists in Jenin
A delegation from the radical hasidic Neturei Karta sect were filmed meeting with members of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization in Jenin. The members allegedly waved PLO flags.
Neturei Karta is extremely anti-Zionist, and unlike other anti-Zionist haredi or hasidic sects has actively supported the enemies of the State of Israel such as terrorist organizations and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In 2020, a Neturei Karta delegation attended the funeral of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Quds Force, after he was assassinated in a US air strike. In 2006, the Satmar hasidic sect, the largest hasidic sect in the world, condemned Neturei Karta members who visited Iran to attend a Holocaust denial conference and called on the public to disassociate themselves from the members of that delegation.
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Friday, January 06, 2023
Biden compares asylum-seeking migrants to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany
President Biden compared asylum-seeking immigrants to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, in off-the-cuff remarks after he delivered a speech on the status of the southern border.
When a reporter asked if he believes migration is a human right, the president Thursday was quick to compare the situation at the border to the Holocaust.
"Well, I think it is a human right if your family is being persecuted," Biden responded. "I thought it was a human right for, you know, Jews in Germany to be able to go — to get to escape and get help where they could."
Biden is set to visit the border Sunday for the first time during his presidency, which has seen the highest levels of southern border encounters in history. The president Thursday announced an expansion to a pandemic-era program that allows agents to turn away migrants from different countries who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexican border.
"My message is this," Biden said. "If you're trying to leave Cuba, Nicaragua or Haiti, you have a — and we — or have agreed to begin a journey to America, do not — do not just show up at the border. Stay where you are and apply legally from there."
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Thursday, January 05, 2023
Orthodox Jews hire huge billboards blasting the New York Times over 12 articles lashing 'failing' Yeshiva schools in three months, as they beg woke paper to 'stop attacking our community'
An Orthodox Jewish group has launched a campaign against The New York Times blasting the newspaper for its investigative coverage into the city's private yeshiva schools over the past few months.
At least three billboards were put up in Manhattan by the Agudath Israel of America group that accuse the newspaper's investigation of threatening their way of life and call the articles 'misleading and one-sided portrayals' of their community.
A billboard near Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan asks The New York Times to 'stop attacking' Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews.
The billboard claims that The New York Times has featured 12 articles against Orthodox Jews in three months. Another section of the billboard reads, '2x New York City Antisemitic Attacks Doubled.'
In recent months, The New York Times has published a series of investigative articles focused on the schools, known as yeshivas, and the community. The articles claim the school system deprives children of secular education, exploits public funding, contributes to poverty and mistreats students.
Times bosses have defended their reporting, with one school featured since fined $8 million for corruption.
The new campaign includes three billboards in Midtown Manhattan, an informational video, social media outreach, and a website called KnowUs.org.
'They disparage our way of life writ large — everything from the way we educate our children, handle marriage, divorce and custody disputes and even the way we support our families while holding fast to our faith and traditions,' the group stated.
The campaign aims to highlight the growing violence against Jews in New York, stating that: 'A major newspaper launching a campaign against a minority group is always wrong. In this climate, it is deeply concerning.'
The New York Times investigation found that local yeshivas deprive students of secular education, and that all 1,000 students failed the standardized tests in reading and math.
The stories published also reported that some students at the yeshivas had been subjected to physical abuse by unqualified teachers while the yeshivas have taken more than $1 billion in federal, state and local taxes over the past four years.
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Wednesday, January 04, 2023
‘We’ve Never Seen Anything Like This’: Orthodox Jews Disproportionate Victims of New York Hate Crimes, According to Report
Hasidic and Orthodox Jews in New York City are the minority group most victimized by hate crimes in the city, according to a Dec. 28 report by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA), a US based group founded in 2019 to raise awareness of rising antisemitism.
The report, titled "The Hate Crime Accountability Project" and based on data provided by the New York City Police Department (NYPD), said that Orthodox Jews were victims in 94 percent of the 194 antisemitic assaults that occurred between 2018 and 2022. 97 percent were committed by members of other minority groups, it added, and nearly a quarter by teenagers.
Over two-thirds, 69 percent, of the assailants were African American, the report continued, with most attacks, 77 percent, taking place in predominantly Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Of all assaults that prompted criminal proceedings just two resulted in convictions.
"We've never seen anything like this," Americans Against Antisemitism founder and former New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) told The Algemeiner. "Shouldn't there be a plan for how we're going to deal with it? What's the answer? Education? We've been educating everybody forever for God's sake, and things are just getting worse."
Hikind added that the Jewish victims of antisemitic hate crimes are "real" and in need of support from law enforcement and lawmakers. He also argued that were this level of violence committed against other minorities it would elicit more concern.
"The people who live in a lot of these neighborhoods are worried and concerned," he continued. "Things are really getting out of control, and there is definitely a sense that there is little public outcry when it comes to antisemitism. And they keep talking about white supremacists, but you literally do not find white supremacists attacking Jews in New York. Yes, there is a danger from them in other parts of the country, but not New York."
Antisemitic hate crimes in New York City during the month of November increased by 125 percent when compared to last year, the New York City Police Department (NYPD) reported in December. The NYPD recorded 45 antisemitic hate crimes in November 2022. In November 2021, it recorded 20. According to the data, Jewish New Yorkers were the most targeted group, accounting for 60 percent of all hate crimes that occurred.
There were several incidents of note in November, including a series of antisemitic and racist notes sent to several restaurants in the City Island neighborhood of the Bronx, the shooting of Hasidic Jews with a gel gun, and the uncovering of a plot to attack synagogues in Manhattan.
"The scariest part of reviewing these numbers is the lack of a concrete plan or solutions on how to combat the hate crimes against the most discriminated ethnic minority in New York City," New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov told The Algemeiner in December.
Orthodox Jews are frequently targeted in another well known metropolitan city. In London, antisemitic hate crimes were an ongoing problem all of last year, eroding quality of life for one of Europe's largest Jewish communities. Recently, Jewish man and his infant son were assaulted —the father was slashed — while taking a walk. In another separate incident, a Orthodox Jewish woman in the Stamford Hill neighborhood of London was stalked and assaulted by an unknown perpetrator.
Earlier in December, a man in the Stamford Hill section of the city stalked and assaulted an Orthodox Jewish woman. He followed her, shouting "Dirty Jew," and then snatched her shopping bag, "spilling her shopping onto the pavement whilst laughing," according to Shomrim Stamford Hill, which provides security and support to London's Orthodox Jewish community.
In August, a woman wielding a wooden stick approached a Jewish woman near the Seven Sisters area and declared "I am doing it because you are Jew," while striking her over the head and pouring liquid on her.The next day, the same woman — described by an eyewitness as a "serial racist" — chased a mother and her baby with a wooden stick after spraying a liquid on the baby, and that same week, three people accosted a Jewish teenager and knocked his hat off his head while yelling "f****** Jew."
The Metropolitan Police Service recorded 534 antisemitic hate crimes between Jan. and Nov. 2022, with there were 45 in the month of November, according to the department's latest data. Data for the month of Dec. is forthcoming.
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Tuesday, January 03, 2023
Most victims of anti-Semitism in New York are ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic
Most anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City target Orthodox or Hasidic Jews and were perpetrated by people from other minority groups, a new report has revealed.
The report was published by Americans Against Antisemitism and documents in New York City between April 2018 and August 2022.
Total, 194 cases were registered in those four years of which 154 were physical and the other 40 were verbal. 22% of crimes were committed by juveniles and 23% by groups of two or more people.
It is estimated that 97% of the 194 documented hate crimes were committed by people belonging to other minority groups. Furthermore, according to the report, 94% of the victims of anti-Semitic incidents in those four years were Orthodox or Hasidic Jews.
Of those who attacked 52% identified as Hasidic Jews and another 42% as Orthodox Jews., 4% identified themselves as secular and another 2% as modern conservative. Another 0.5% identified themselves as Reform and finally, 0.5% were Israelis who did not indicate any confession.
Where did these incidents happen?
151% of attacks occurred in four boroughs of Brooklynn: Flatbush-Midwood, Crown Heights, Borough Park-Kensington and Williamsburg. All of these neighborhoods are home to large and recognizable Jewish communities.
The identities of the perpetrators of 99 different attacks were documented. According to the report, 65% of the authors were black, 16% Asian, 10% Hispanic, and 3% white.
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