Thursday, August 31, 2023
New Hasidic song slams yeshivas that reject students who don’t fit in
A new Yiddish hip hop song has appeared on YouTube sharply criticizing Hasidic yeshivas who refuse to accept students whom they consider at risk of going "off the derech," or leaving the community. The video, which was released on August 26, seems to have touched a nerve, since it's garnered over 12,000 views in the first five days.
The song, which is accompanied by English subtitles, is sung from the perspective of a Hasidic father who suspects that the reason his son was not accepted into the yeshiva has less to do with his behavior than with the fact that his family is too poor to give generous donations to the school.
The man who raps "Loy Niskabel" (Not Accepted) goes by the stage name of "Min HaSeore" or "From the Whirlwind."
Forverts contributor Yehoshua Kahane, who was raised in a Hasidic community in Antwerp, praised the song. "Even though it never happened to me, I had heard that this kind of thing happened," he said in an interview.
The painstricken call of the father in the video shows how meaningful yeshiva acceptance is to a Hasidic child. Kahane said that when a student is rejected from a yeshiva, it could lead to an emotional crisis since it calls into question the student's relationship with God, his Hasidic group and himself, not to mention the quality of his family lineage.
0 comments
Tuesday, August 29, 2023
Shellfish dumped on UC Berkeley’s Jewish fraternity house on first Shabbat of semester
Local police are investigating after a Jewish fraternity at the University of California, Berkeley, reported finding hundreds of shellfish dumped across its property.
The shellfish were also thrown through a window at Berkeley's chapter of Alpha Epsilon Pi, in what the fraternity is calling "an act of antisemitism vandalism."
"We go outside, we saw crayfish had been thrown all over our deck, all over the side driveway, through the windows into someone's room and scattered all around the backyard," said Jadon Gershon-Friedberg, a Berkeley senior and the AEPi chapter president, who lives in the fraternity house. A fraternity brother had noticed a half-dozen people with a bucket approach the house just before 1 a.m., he said.
Gershon-Friedberg and other fraternity brothers immediately checked around neighboring fraternity houses to see whether shellfish had been dumped on their property too. They believe theirs was the only target
"We realized this is more than just a prank," Gershon-Friedberg said.
Given that the perpetrators used shellfish, a food forbidden under the laws of keeping kosher, and that they targeted the Jewish fraternity on the first Shabbat of the school year, AEPi considers the incident to be antisemitic, according to a statement released Sunday. "This incident was undoubtedly deliberate, aimed at intimidating our chapter," AEPi's statement said.
The vandalism comes two weeks after AEPi's national office launched a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League. Under the partnership, the fraternity's umbrella organization will hire a staffer to train members across its 150 chapters to respond to antisemitism and advocate for Israel. AEPi was founded more than a century ago after Jews were excluded from a New York University fraternity, and in a statement, AEPi CEO Rob Derdiger said chapter members are "on the front lines of this battle on college campuses."
After the shellfish were discovered, Gershon-Friedberg called 911 and said officers arrived at the house quickly. He said he filed police reports with both the city and campus police departments and hopes they will investigate the vandalism as a hate crime. The Berkeley Police Department confirmed that the incident is under investigation, but didn't specify whether it's being investigated as a hate crime. Campus police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When the sun rose on Saturday, Gershon-Friedberg saw the full extent of the mess, which left a strong, fishy odor in and around the house.
"We found claws by the side of the house and by the door. We found a fish tail and head in someone's room," he said. "It was absolutely disgusting."
AEPi's national office paid for a cleaning crew to clear away the shellfish and pressure-wash the deck that morning.
Gershon-Friedberg and Jon Pierce, a former AEPi International president who now serves as the fraternity's spokesperson, both said the fraternity plans to use the incident to help Berkeley students understand what antisemitism looks like and how to ensure the safety of Jews on campus and more broadly.
"Maybe this is a crime of ignorance as much as a crime of hate," Pierce said.
Gershon-Friedberg also sent a letter to the school's administration detailing what happened.
"We are saddened and dismayed by what appears to be a hateful incident of antisemitism targeting the members of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity," Dan Mogulof, a UC Berkeley spokesperson, said in a statement.
"The campus administration has a long-standing and unwavering commitment to confronting antisemitism, and its expression, as we do with all forms of bias, discrimination, and hatred," Mogulof added. In response to the incident, UC Berkeley's vice chancellors of equity and inclusion and of student affairs are offering their support to fraternity members and other Jews on campus, Mogulof said.
"An investigation is underway," he said, "and we will, as always, ensure there are appropriate consequences if laws, campus policies, and/or the Student Code of Conduct are found to have been violated."
There are 20 students who live at the AEPi house, and 25 students total in the chapter. The fraternity has eight students who keep kosher, according to Gershon-Friedberg.
"Everyone is still a little shaken up," Gershon-Friedberg said. "This is our home."
0 comments
Monday, August 28, 2023
NY congregation can evict tenants of historic Touro Synagogue, Rhode Island judge rules
A Rhode Island judge has ruled in favor of a historic New York City synagogue that is seeking to remove the leadership of the congregation that meets at another historic synagogue building — Newport's famed Touro Synagogue.
The ruling, issued Thursday, would evict the leadership of Congregation Jeshuat Israel, or CJI, which has been meeting at the Touro synagogue, America's oldest, since the early 1900s.
Congregation Shearith Israel in New York City, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, owns the Touro building and has complained in recent years that CJI has failed to be a good steward of the site.
The two congregations have been in and out of court for at least a decade. CJI has been leasing the site for a symbolic $1 a year since the early 1900s. Shearith Israel, the nation's oldest Jewish congregation — it was established in Manhattan in the 17th century and has occupied several different buildings since — refused in 2021 to renew CJI's lease and ordered the congregation to vacate the premises by Feb. 21, 2023.
In June, the dispute reached the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Maureen Keough. In a lengthy decision read from the bench on Thursday, Keough said she could find no reason to rule in favor of the tenants but stayed the eviction until September. At that point, a hearing will take place to decide whether the congregation can remain in place while any appeals are underway, meaning that CJI is likely to remain in place at least through this year's High Holidays, which begin on Sept. 15.
Louis Solomon, the parnas, or president, of Shearith Israel, welcomed the ruling.
"We're committed to not only reviving the community but reviving the place Touro has in the hearts and minds of Jews all over America," he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Michael Crane, an attorney for CJI, declined to comment. Louise M. Teitz, CJI's co-president, did not respond to a request for comment.
The arrangement between the two Orthodox congregations has been tense for over a decade, and boiled over when CJI tried, in 2012, to sell a valuable set of Torah adornments from Touro's inventory. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court effectively confirmed the New York synagogue's ownership of the building and its pricey artifacts by declining to take up a challenge to its claims.
During the latest trial, Teitz noted the lengthy tenancy of CJI, saying its leadership had long maintained the integrity of the building and grounds, and had hired its rabbis.
"This is the only building that we have worshiped in for almost 140 years, and it is our, I guess I would call it our spiritual home, and we have provided services and a full-time rabbi who is there 24-7," Teitz, a law professor at Roger Williams Law School and an adjunct law professor at NYU Law School, said in court on June 29. "I think all of us think of in a way as synonymous with the congregation because we have preserved and nurtured and cared for the building for so long."
In turn, Shearith Israel has said that the congregation has not been forthright about the millions of dollars it would need to repair the building, which was built between 1759 and 1763. The New York synagogue also objected to decisions made by the CJI board, which included erecting a gravestone at Touro's historic cemetery for a still-living donor without the New York synagogue's knowledge.
Services at CJI are currently led by an interim rabbi, Stephen Belsky. According to Solomon, Shearith Israel has been in conversation with another congregation in Newport, Ahavas Israel, that is interested in holding services at Touro. Ahavas Israel was incorporated as a Rhode Island nonprofit corporation on April 4, 2023, and, according to a website called Jewish Newport, is not currently holding services.
The fight between the New York and Newport congregations stands in sharp contrast to the historical concord that the Touro Synagogue represents. After a visit to Newport in 1790, President George Washington wrote a letter to the congregation that is considered a landmark statement of religious freedom and tolerance.
In a previous statement to JTA, Teitz wrote on behalf of her board that she was "devastated that our Congregation has become the target of a shameful power grab by another Jewish congregation that over the years has not provided us or Touro any meaningful support at all. We condemn this destructive attack on our congregation and displacement of our community, and call upon Shearith Israel to let Jeshuat Israel live and pray in peace."
In statements from the bench, Keough regretted that the two congregations had not solved their differences in mediation.
"If there was ever a case that cried out for mediation, based on what I've read it's this one. It's clear to me how passionate everyone is about this," Keough said, according to the Providence Journal. Going to trial, she said, "should be a last resort. I'm sad we've gotten here."
Solomon said Shearith Israel is excited about the future of Touro under a new board of overseers that it would appoint. He said current members of CJI would be welcome to join the congregation.
"We have 15 things that we want to program. We want to have scholars there. We want people to come up for the summers there," he said. "I think it's a time to heal and a time to grow."
0 comments
Friday, August 25, 2023
This baseball-loving Jewish couple celebrated their wedding at Yankees Stadium
A newlywed couple took the concept of extra innings to a whole new level on Sunday when they held their sheva brachot — a festive get-together held in the week after a Jewish wedding — at Yankee Stadium.
Maya Rosen and Erez Bleicher, who were married at a synagogue last Thursday in White Plains, New York, attended the Yankees vs. Red Sox game on Sunday before flying back to their home in Jerusalem on Monday. Some 40 friends and relatives joined them on the "Grandstand Level" (aka "nosebleed seats") to sing blessings that began in the middle of the sixth inning.
"I grew up in a home where, I think, the two pillars were Judaism and the New York Yankees," Rosen, 29, told the New York Jewish Week. "When we thought about where to do sheva brachot, there was just no other place."
As members of a traditional egalitarian community, Rosen and Bleicher embraced the custom of having loved ones and community members say the traditional seven blessings, or brachot, over a newly betrothed couple. These blessings are first recited underneath the chuppah and again at the meal or reception following the wedding. In the week following the wedding, they are recited at various get-togethers with different parts of the couple's community.
0 comments
Thursday, August 24, 2023
Arizona synagogues, Jewish organizations, targeted in ‘swatting’ hoaxes
Arizona is one of 12 states that have been the target of hoax calls to police or suicide hotlines where a man on the line says he aims to kill himself and others with a bomb, prompting a police response in an online form of harassment known as "swatting."
The Arizona chapter of the Anti-Defamation League confirmed to the Arizona Mirror that three Jewish institutions in the Grand Canyon State were targeted starting in mid-July by a network of online perpetrators who have been targeting Jewish, Black and Sikh places of worship across the country.
The New York Times reported earlier this month that 26 such swatting calls have been made in 12 states. The Mirror is the first to report some of those calls targeted Arizona congregations.
The 26 calls tracked by the ADL all aim to commit the act of swatting against the institutions. Swatting is when a hoaxer deceives police to respond, often with heavily armed SWAT teams, by calling in a fake emergency or bomb threat. Oftentimes, swatting calls are used to harass individual people at their residences; in this case, they are targeting places of worship.
According to reporting by the Times, police officers showed up at synagogues in New York with bomb-sniffing dogs, while worshipers at one victimized congregation in North Carolina were evacuated. Callers use highly antisemitic language while making the calls, according to the ADL.
The hoax calls come as incidents of antisemitism have continued to rise nationally, reaching their highest levels since 1979.
In Arizona, there were a total of 53 reported incidents of antisemitism in 2022, down from 56 the year prior but still more than the 23 reported in 2020, the 20 reported in 2019 and 32 reported in 2018. The incidents include an increase in pushes of propaganda by white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups who have been sharing their rhetoric at college campuses across the state.
0 comments
Monday, August 21, 2023
Jewish Man Walking With His Son Subjected to Antisemitic Assault in Berlin
The spate of antisemitic attacks in Berlin continued over the weekend, when a 37-year-old Jewish man walking with his son was violently assaulted at a subway station.
The attack occurred on Saturday afternoon, as the pair were walking along a main thoroughfare in the German capital's Prenzlauer-Berg district. A 61-year-old man who was later detained by police approached the father and spoke to him in what local media outlets described as a "disrespectful manner," but the pair ignored him and continued on their journey.
However, when the father and son returned to the same spot later in the afternoon to catch a train from the Storkower Strasse subway station, the same man approached them again. He punched the father in the neck with his fist and uttered an antisemitic insult before fleeing, according to witness reports. He was apprehended by police officers shortly afterwards. A breathalyzer test showed the man was inebriated. He now faces hate crimes charges.
Berlin has witnessed a series of antisemitic attacks in recent weeks, amid a general rise in antisemitic agitation and violence across Germany. Earlier this month, a 19-year-old Israeli man walking with his girlfriend was beaten up by three Arabic-speaking men who overheard him talking on his cellphone in Hebrew.
Separately, police last week arrested a 63-year-old man for carrying out arson attacks and vandalism targeting memorials to Jewish and LGBT victims of the Nazis and a lesbian community center in Berlin.
RIAS, a state-funded antisemitism watchdog, reported 848 antisemitic incidents in Berlin during 2022, out of nearly 2,500 nationally. A total of 21 incidents involved physical attacks with one case of "extreme violence."
Despite the steady year-on-year rise in antisemitic outrages in Germany, many officials believe the true number of incidents is much higher because many victims are unwilling to submit reports with the authorities.
"Only 20 percent of the antisemitic crimes are reported, so the real number should be five times what we have — 25 incidents per day," Felix Klein — the top federal official in Germany combating antisemitism — told The Algemeiner in a recent interview.
0 comments
Friday, August 18, 2023
Hateful scooter rider knocks yarmulke off Jewish man’s head in NYC: cops
A hateful scooter-riding suspect knocked a yarmulke off a Jewish man's head in Brooklyn this week, police said Friday.
The 49-year-old victim, wearing traditional Jewish attire, was looking at his cellphone on 18th Avenue near 45th Street in Borough Park around 7:20 p.m. Wednesday when two men drove past him on a scooter and stopped, cops said.
The passenger got off the scooter, approached the man and said something indecipherable as he slapped off the head covering the victim was wearing, authorities said.
He then got back on the scooter as his accomplice drove off, heading west on 18th Avenue toward 46th Street, cops said.
The victim did not report any physical injuries.
The NYPD's Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating the incident.
Police released photos of both suspects, described as males believed to be in their late teens to early 20s, with medium complexions and thin builds.
0 comments
Tuesday, August 15, 2023
The only Jew in remote Greenland sometimes feels like ‘the last person on earth’
This picturesque village on the southwestern coast of Greenland where famed Viking Erik the Red first arrived more than 1,000 years ago is about as off-the-beaten-path as one can get.
Sheep outnumber the town's population 20-1 and the only way to reach an airport is via helicopter or ship.
Yet for Paul Cohen, an American Jew who has lived here with his wife Monika for 22 years, Narsaq's remoteness is more than offset by its stunning landscapes, clean air and laidback lifestyle.
"It's the Garden of Eden in many ways," said Cohen, who is 61. "I feel like I'm living in the heart of a national park. There's this little spot of civilization surrounded by pristine wilderness and I have the unique privilege of being able to live and work here."
Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, is the world's largest island. Located between the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans, it's three times the size of Texas. But its population is only 56,000, most of whom are Inuit, making Greenland the least densely populated territory in the world. About 80% of the island's surface is covered by an ice sheet.
The story of how Cohen ended up living in Greenland — as likely the territory's only resident Jew — has nearly as many undulations as the icebergs floating in nearby Tunulliarfik Fjord.
Describing himself as "non-observant but culturally Jewish," Cohen grew up in Wisconsin and graduated with a degree in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1991, he moved to Germany, where he met Monika. The two have been married 32 years and live alone in Narsaq with their Japanese Spitz dog they named Mikisoq ("little one" in Greenlandic).
Fluent in four languages — English, German, French and Danish — Cohen worked for nearly a decade as a translator and producer at DW-TV in Berlin. He and Monika first visited Greenland in 1993 as tourists.
"I was just blown away by the warmth of the sun," he said. "Endless summer days. We were just amazed at what we saw, but we had it in our heads that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We thought we'd never come back."
They did come back three years later and decided then that it was a place that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives, despite the skepticism of their friends and family.
"I think they thought it was some sort of phase," Cohen recalled. "They didn't think it would work out. It's so off-the-charts in terms of a place to live."
They bought a "fixer-upper" house and returned in subsequent years to renovate it before making a permanent move to Narsaq in 2001.
"You could say that Greenland infected us, like a virus, and we simply couldn't get it out of our system," Cohen said. "Why fight it?"
Initially, the plan was for Cohen to work remotely as a translator. However, the internet in Narsaq at the time was "glacial in terms of its speed," so the couple made a living painting houses instead.
As internet speed improved, Cohen started to get more translating projects. He formed a business called Tuluttut Translations (tuluttut is the Greenlandic word for "English"). On a website for translators to promote their services, he jokingly wrote that he "will work for blubber."
"What was unique about me as a translator was that I was the only translator people knew who lived in Greenland," he says. "I just thought it would make a fun tongue-in-cheek tagline."
Cohen has translated hundreds of articles from German to English for the English website of the news publication Der Spiegel as well as numerous academic books, including a 2014 book by German professor Marc Buggeln titled "Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps," published by Oxford University Press. Most of his translation work is German to English, but increasingly Danish to English.
0 comments
Friday, August 11, 2023
Young Jewish families trade NYC for new horizons
In a notable shift over recent years, young Jewish families are bidding farewell to the bustling neighborhoods of New York City and embarking on journeys to neighboring New Jersey and southward to the sun-soaked land of Florida.
A fresh study from the Teach Coalition's Institute for Jewish Education Policy and Research unveils a decline in enrollment within New York's yeshivas and Jewish kindergartens since 2015, juxtaposed with a notable surge in Jewish kindergarten enrollment in other states like Florida—where, for instance, Jewish day school enrollment surged by an impressive 47%. This shift is attributed to the allure of lower living costs and tuition fees, resonating with the rising desire for Aliyah—families seeking a fresh start in Israel. The study paints a portrait of families embracing novel educational landscapes and striving for financial relief while casting their sights toward diverse horizons.
A trend that's been gaining momentum, researchers say that this migration is driven by the Jewish young families' desire to provide their children with more accessible education options and a lifestyle that doesn't impose the economic burdens of their former abode. "We have heard anecdotally that Jewish parents are leaving New York due to the high cost of living and tuition. Using hard data, this report largely confirms these anecdotes," says Gabriel Aaronson, director of the Office of Jewish Education Policy and Research.
The new study unveils the transformation that has been quietly reshaping the demographics of Jewish communities across states. While New York was once considered a bastion of educational opportunities and cultural connectivity for Jewish families, the allure of states such as Florida has grown stronger in recent years.
One of the defining elements that have sparked this shift, according to the researchers, is the increasing demand for school choice. Families are increasingly finding themselves drawn to states that offer more flexible educational options for their children, allowing them to tailor their learning experiences to individual needs. The exodus from New York to Florida, in particular, has seen a striking 47% uptick in Jewish day-school enrollment since 2016, following the implementation of universal scholarship programs.
"Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, and West Virginia are also leading the pack and will reap the benefits", said Maury Litwack, Founder of Teach Coalition. "By contrast, the states without a path toward school choice, without options and opportunity for families and children, risk being left behind—literally".
0 comments
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Oppenheimer's Arabic subtitles criticised for omitting references to Jews
The Arabic subtitling of Oppenheimer is being criticised for its translation of the words "Jew" and "Jewish".
Christopher Nolan's blockbuster, which stars Cillian Murphy, details how physicist J Robert Oppenheimer developed the atomic bomb alongside a group of scientists in the US during the Second World War.
Translated by a Lebanon-based company, the subtitles in the version released in the region omit mentions of Jews, using the term "ghurabaa" instead, which is Arabic for "strangers" or "foreigners". In other instances, the word is avoided altogether. The commonly used word for "Jews" in Arabic is "Yehudi".
Several viewers have pointed out the flaws, including celebrated Egyptian filmmaker Yousry Nasrallah.
"The Arabic translation of the dialogue was strikingly poor," The Gate of Sun director said. "There is nothing to justify or explain the translation of Jew to ghareeb or ghurabaa. It is a shame."
A representative for the studios acknowledged the omission, telling The National that its translators routinely follow guidelines used by some countries in the Arab world.
"We have to follow the guidelines from the censor boards across the Middle East," the representative added. "There are topics we usually don't tackle, and that is one of them. We cannot use the word 'Jew', the direct translation in Arabic, otherwise it may be edited, or they ask us to remove it.
"In order to avoid that, so people can enjoy the movie without having so many cuts, we would just change the translation a little bit," the company added. "This has been an ongoing workflow for the past 15 or 20 years."
The company said it avoids translating words around religiously sensitive topics on screen, such as Israel, Jesus or the Prophet Mohammed. "There are certain topics that we know for sure that if we tackle them as is, they would ask us to either remove or change," the representative added. "We automatically change it, so the movie doesn't have to be re-edited."
The film has received largely positive reviews, with a 93 per cent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It has already crossed the $500 million mark at the global box office and has performed well in the region, grossing more than $3.9 million in Saudi Arabia and $2.8 million in the UAE on its release weekend last month.
It tells the story of how Oppenheimer's atomic bomb effectively ended the war after being dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, coming at the expense of more than 200,000 lives. Oppenheimer explores how the development and use of the bombs took a toll on the scientist's conscience.
The first mistranslation appears early on when Oppenheimer formally meets Lewis Strauss, one of the original members of the US Atomic Energy Commission. As Oppenheimer tells Strauss that his pronunciation of the physicist's last name underscores his Jewish heritage, the subtitles translate the sentence to: "They'll know I was a ghareeb."
Later, Oppenheimer travels to Germany where he meets Isidor Isaac Rabi. Rabi, who is also Jewish, asks Oppenheimer whether he gets the sense that they are not welcome in Germany, alluding to the increasing wave of antisemitism that coincided with the rise of the Nazi Party. Again, the word "Jew" is mistranslated as "ghareeb". In that same conversation, when Rabi mentions he and Oppenheimer are "a couple of New York Jews", the Arabic subtitles read "inhabitants of New York".
Additionally, when referring to the Nazi persecution of Jews, the word is omitted. This time, referring to Jews as the Nazis' "enemies", or "aadauhum" in Arabic. The word "Semite" is accurately translated to "Sami" when antisemitism is mentioned.
Other than the translation of the word Jew, the subtitles are largely accurate.
Nasrallah also wrote how the subtitles remind him of a book where the name of the American playwright Israel Horovitz was translated to "The occupied lands Horovitz".
The National has contacted Oppenheimer's regional distributor Majid Al Futtaim, but has not received a response.
0 comments
Wednesday, August 09, 2023
HASIDIC JEWS URGED NOT TO GO TO UKRAINE FOR PILGRIMAGE
Ukrainian local authorities urge Hasidic jews not to go to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. Cherkasy Oblast Military Administration warns of possible provocations from Russia and shelling.
"At the same time, we understand that some believers, like last year, will still dare to come. Therefore, the security and defense sector, all specialized services, we are already working preventively together with the city government," the Cherkasy Oblast Military Administration added.
Security measures will be strengthened. "The key priority remains the same – the safety of residents and visitors," the representatives of local authorities say.
Earlier, Ukraine's ambassador to Israel, Yevhen Korniychuk, called on Jerusalem to provide Kyiv with anti-aircraft defense to protect Jewish pilgrims.
"Thousands of [Jewish] pilgrims are expected to arrive in Uman [for the Rosh Hashana], but all the talk on green corridors is meaningless because we are unable to vouch for their security," Yevgen Korniychuk, the Ukrainian ambassador to Israel, said.
Kyiv is looking for systems to protect against ballistic missiles – anti-aircraft defense, which will be effective against Russian weapons. "If Israel doesn't want to help protect Ukrainians, perhaps it would like to protect its citizens?" Ukraine's ambassador to Israel concluded.
The Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is celebrated in the fall. This year, the pilgrims will come to Ukraine in September. Last year, 23,000 Hasidim visited the grave of the righteous rabbi (teacher) Nachman in Uman, despite warnings about the danger of staying there.
0 comments
Monday, August 07, 2023
Israeli tourist attacked in Berlin in possible antisemitic incident
A group of men attacked a 19-year-old Israeli tourist in Germany's capital on Saturday evening, in what authorities are investigating as a possible antisemitic hate crime.
The Israeli teen was taking a stroll in the Berlin's Kreuzberg district with his 18-year-old girlfriend while speaking on the phone in Hebrew, according to the Jüdische Allgemeine weekly.
A car pulled up alongside the couple and three men exited the vehicle. One of them tried to converse with the Israelis in German, which police said they did not understand.
The men subsequently punched the male victim to the ground. The group proceeded to hit and kick the Israeli while he was down before fleeing the scene.
The tourist was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries to his arm and face. His girlfriend reportedly escaped unharmed.
Local officials said that an investigation had been opened for assault with a possible anti-Jewish motive.
The unidentified suspects were men between 20 and 23 years old, police announced.
Israeli Ambassador to Germany Ron Prosor condemned the attack.
"Another Israeli is brutally attacked in the German capital. This is unacceptable!," the envoy wrote on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
"Israelis and Jews should not feel unsafe walking the streets of Berlin or any other German city.
The German authorities must take every measure to stop these attacks and incitement against Israel and Jews before it is too late," said Prosor.
A recent report on antisemitism in Germany showed a slight decrease in overall incidents, though at the same time highlighting nine instances of "extreme violence"—the most since the country's record-keeping began in 2017.
The Kreuzberg district, which has a large immigrant Muslim population, has seen several violent attacks on Jews in recent years.
0 comments
Friday, August 04, 2023
Rapper Cardi B tweets, then deletes, picture of Orthodox Jews after legal triumph
Soon after Cardi B learned that police in Las Vegas would not charge her in connection with an incident at a recent concert, she turned to Wikipedia.
The rapper tweeted a picture that illustrates the digital encyclopedia's entry for "Jewish religious clothing." The picture shows two Hasidic Orthodox Jewish men walking in Borough Park, Brooklyn. One wears a fur hat called a streimel as well as a tallit, a prayer shawl, over his clothes; the other has long peyos, the sidelocks worn by some Orthodox men.
"Remember … " she wrote.
Fans immediately connected the post to a lyric in her 2018 song "Bickenheld,' in which she sings, "Lawyer is a Jew, he gon' chew up all the charges." Jewish lawyers are a sustained theme in rap music, and Cardi B's legal team on the Las Vegas incident included multiple Jewish attorneys.
But even as some interpreted the tweet as praise for her Jewish lawyers, others decried it as offensive because Cardi B appeared to attribute her attorneys' success to their Jewish identity, not their skills. (The men in the picture are not Cardi B's attorneys.)
"Appreciate you @iamcardib, but tweeting out a vague picture of a visible minority that has been subject to rising hate crimes in NYC to your 31 million followers is just not acceptable," tweeted David Bashevkin, a prominent Orthodox voice on social media. "When hate is an option don't leave anyone guessing what you meant."
Amid a social media backlash, the tweet was removed without comment. "Lawyer is a Jew" continued trending on X, the platform that was until recently called Twitter, for some time.
0 comments
Thursday, August 03, 2023
Squirrel Hill Jewish community and victims’ loved ones welcome end of a long chapter
The verdict in the trial of the man who shot and killed 11 members of three synagogues all housed in the Tree of Life building on Oct. 27, 2018, did not bring closure to the victims or their families.
But it did bring relief.
For the last four years and nine months, residents of Squirrel Hill and members of the Jewish community had the trial looming over their heads and had repeatedly asked each other "Are they ever going to try that guy?"
The three-phase trial, which began in late May, lasted for nine weeks. In previous phases, the jury found the shooter guilty of 63 counts, including 22 capital counts, then ruled that he was eligible for the death penalty. On Wednesday, Aug. 2, the jury returned its verdict that the shooter, Richard Bowers, 50, should be put to death rather than spend the rest of his life in prison.
"It was just a feeling of relief, not with the sentence, but just that there was an outcome," says Lauren Apter Bairnsfather, the former executive director of the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, who has served as the voice of the Squirrel Hill community during commemorations and to the media.
Bairnsfather notes that the neighborhood was deeply divided over whether the shooter should be sentenced to life in prison or death, but there was unanimity in the sense that "everybody just wants some type of end to the story."
Earlier in the process, two of the three congregations, Dor Hadash and New Light, asked the U.S. Department of Justice, which was prosecuting the case, to accept a guilty plea and allow Bowers to spend the rest of his life in prison in order to avoid a lengthy trial that would retraumatize the victims.
"It wasn't so much that we were opposed to the death penalty, we were opposed to a trial," Stephen Cohen, president of New Light Congregation, says.
Now he says he was wrong about that.
Cohen explains that the trial answered questions that many of the victims had about the attack and about the man who attacked them.
Without the trial, he says, "we never would have known the depth of his hatred."
Cohen says he had believed the attack on worshipers stopped once the police arrived, not realizing that the shooter ran back in and killed more people in the Pervin Chapel where the Tree of Life congregation had assembled.
"He didn't see them as people. He saw them as targets."
The worshipers killed in the attack were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; Cecil Rosenthal, 59; and his brother David Rosenthal, 54; Bernice Simon, 84; and her husband Sylvan Simon, 86; Daniel Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 88; and Irving Younger, 69. Two other worshipers were shot and injured and five police officers were injured.
Cohen says his congregation is divided on whether the shooter should have been sentenced to death, but the trial, he says, was important.
"This is a chapter of a book that as of [the official sentencing on Thursday] the chapter is closed. The book isn't over."
After the verdict, survivors of the attack and the relatives of the victims who were killed gathered at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill for a press conference. It was the first time the survivors and the relatives of the victims have been able to publicly speak about the trial and they thanked the community for the support, as well as U.S. Attorney Eric Olshan and the jury, whose members gave up their time for nine weeks to sit through the trial and then consider the evidence. They also thanked the members of the media for giving them a voice in the story.
"This morning when we heard the verdict, the thought that came to my mind was 'baruch dayan emet' 'blessed is the judge of truth' or 'blessed is the true judge,'" said Rabbi Doris Dyen, formerly the rabbi for Dor Hadash and a survivor of the shooting.
She then added, "This is a sentence that we say at a funeral. But we were not at a funeral this morning, but we had to, our community, our society, had to commit the life of another human being to death because of what that person did to others' lives. And I had found myself feeling relieved, very relieved, and sad at what needed to happen. And yet there can be situations in which someone forfeits the right to live in society because they didn't respect life themselves."
When asked what they would do on Thursday, Aug. 3, Audrey Glickman, a survivor of the attack, said they would be back in court delivering their victim impact statements before the shooter is formally sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert J. Colville.
After that, Tree of Life Rabbi Jeffrey Myers said, "We can't answer what that next page is going to be. But ask us in a year and we can answer what does that chapter now look like, because we can't answer that right now; we're still writing that book."
0 comments
Wednesday, August 02, 2023
After Texan who posed as Hasid charged with sex crimes, son charged with abuse too
A man in Texas has been charged with sexual assault and human smuggling, months after his father, who posed as a Hasidic Jew with a "unique family" of nine adopted sons, was arrested for a slew of sex crimes.
Hayim Nissim Cohen, 39, fabricated his Jewish background and used the fake persona to help him adopt nine boys. He paraded the family on social media and in the news, receiving glowing coverage from Jewish and mainstream US media outlets.
Behind the sunny facade, however, he allegedly sexually abused some of his own adopted sons and a foreign exchange student who stayed with the family.
He was arrested in March on 11 charges of child sexual and physical abuse and remains in custody.
His eldest adopted son, Avshalom Cohen, 22, was arrested last month and charged in Houston with felony sexual assault of a child. He remains in police custody and his lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
Avshalom Cohen sexually assaulted one of his younger adopted brothers in 2020, according to charging documents, an accusation that surfaced while investigators questioned his father's alleged victims.
Avshalom Cohen allegedly coerced the victim into sexual abuse, and bribed him with nicotine vapes and energy drinks. The victim also feared repercussions if he refused the advances due to the threats inside the home, he told investigators.
In a separate incident, Avshalom Cohen also violently beat one of his younger adopted brothers who had been arguing with their father. Avshalom, who was 20 at the time, intervened in the argument, shoved the smaller child to the ground, beat him into submission and insulted him, saying, "That is what you get, you little ass kid," according to charging documents.
Investigators have also determined that father Hayim Cohen kept the children locked in their rooms at almost all times before his arrest, except for the two eldest. The younger children were only allowed out of their rooms once or twice a day to use the bathroom and to eat a single meal. On social media, Hayim Cohen said the children were home-schooled.
After Hayim Cohen's arrest, his six adopted sons who were still minors were transferred to Child Protective Services. The elder three sons, including Avshalom Cohen, were already adults.
Avshalom Cohen was also arrested earlier this year for human smuggling in a town in Texas next to the border with Mexico. He was found driving a van transporting eight undocumented migrants, and in possession of a firearm and fake police badge, local media reported.
Hayim Cohen's arrest earlier this year garnered widespread attention due to the family's prior media presence and unusual composition, and exposed a lack of oversight by state authorities and a private company that placed exchange students in the suspect's home, critics said. The case also fed into antisemitism and perturbed the local Houston Jewish community.
Cohen presented himself as a single Hasidic man, and he and his adopted sons chronicled their lives as a religious Jewish family on social media and on a website he hosted, branding themselves "Our Unique Family." The family's TikTok channels had hundreds of thousands of followers and videos with more than 5 million views. Videos showed the children dancing, doing skits, cooking kosher food and celebrating holidays.
The family also received fawning press coverage from local media and Jewish news outlets in recent years.
Evidence, however, indicates that Cohen fabricated his Jewish background and that of his adopted children, who he claimed were all born Jewish.
He claimed in interviews to have been born into the Jewish community and grown up speaking Yiddish as a Hasidic Jew in New York City, but legal documents and school records showed that he was born Jeffrey Lujan Vejil and raised in Odessa, Texas. A member of Houston's Jewish community said Cohen did not actually speak Yiddish.
Cohen legally changed his name multiple times, and used a series of aliases, including some Jewish names, eventually landing on Hayim Nissan Cohen.
There is no evidence he converted to Judaism and he never claimed to have converted, except when he requested to adopt a Jewish name in court.
He also contradicted himself in various interviews when describing his sons' and his own Jewish background.
The discrepancies were first reported by Za'akah, a New York-based group that combats sexual abuse in Orthodox Jewish communities and has been tracking the Cohen case.
Cohen also said that all of his adopted sons were born Jewish, but a lawyer who viewed the adoption records said this was false, and that none of the children came from Jewish families, but that Cohen had them take on Jewish identities after adopting them. The lawyer said Cohen had used his false persona as a rabbi to win people's trust and respect, and facilitate adoptions.
Cohen told media he began the adoptions while he was working as a social worker and was contacted about two Orthodox boys in foster care. He claimed he had started to help the boys by bringing them kosher food, and later adopted them.
"Once I got licensed to adopt, I became a go-to adoption destination for Orthodox boys in the foster care system," he said in a 2019 interview.
A member of Houston's Orthodox Jewish community told The Times of Israel earlier this year that Cohen had approached the community around 2010 with a complex backstory about his Jewish identity.
Orthodox community members quickly realized Cohen was a fraud and shunned him for his deceit, but he had moved to a neighborhood associated with religious Jews in Houston, and presented himself as Orthodox at secular Jewish events, where he was able to pass himself off as Hasidic. He did not appear to be a member of any synagogue. Several Jewish communities in Houston said he was not affiliated with them and an Orthodox rabbi in the city said that as far as he knew, Cohen was not connected to any congregation.
It's unclear why Cohen became fixated on Judaism in the first place. A rabbi from the lone synagogue in his west Texas hometown of Odessa said he had no knowledge of the case.
Cohen also allegedly faked medical problems to generate sympathy and dodge legal punishments, and appeared to be connected to several scams. He also has a criminal record for several theft misdemeanors.
Cohen's claim of being Jewish has been picked up by white supremacists, with online posts linking his crimes to antisemitic tropes about Jewish deviance.
Cohen's arrest received widespread coverage in US and international media, but most news reports about his case, and those about his son's arrest, do not note that the father fabricated the family's Jewish identity.
It's unclear how Cohen was allowed to adopt nine children, as well as host multiple foreign exchange students, one of whom he allegedly also abused. At one point there were 11 boys and Cohen in his four-bedroom house. He never reported having an income-producing job and at one point listed his workplace as a "foundation" and his profession as "rabbi."
The case came to light after one of the sons called into a podcast anonymously to describe the abuse, and said authorities had repeatedly investigated the family, but had not taken any further action. Investigators were able to identify the caller by details he revealed during the podcast.
0 comments
Tuesday, August 01, 2023
Police thwart 'mass shooting' at Jewish school by taking down 'former student' gunman
A man attempted to break into a US Orthodox Jewish school with a gun to carry out a "potential mass shooting" but was thwarted by police and a set of locked security doors.
The man in his 40s attempted to enter the Margolin Hebrew Academy in Memphis, Tennessee on Monday.
The incident occurred at around 12:20pm. The suspect fired shots after he couldn't get into the building before leaving in a maroon truck.
He was later shot after being found by police and was rushed to hospital, where he remains in a critical condition.
According to local media reports, a Jewish security group said the suspect was a former student and that the incident appeared to be personal in nature.
A spokesman for the Memphis Police Department, who have not released the identity of the suspect, said officers had "mitigated a potential mass shooting situation."
Assistant Police Chief Don Crowe said: "Today is a great example of very alert, vigilant officers trying to protect the city.
"I personally truly believe that we have avoided a tragedy. I think the suspect was going to harm somebody before the day was over.
He added: "Thankfully, that school had a great safety procedure and process in place and avoided anyone being harmed or injured at that scene."
US Republican Congressman Steve Cohen, whose district includes Memphis, said in a statement that he was "shocked" to hear about the incident at the school and noted that acts of "violent antisemitism" were on the rise across the country.
Senate minority leader Raumesh Akbari, a Democrat representing Memphis, demanded tougher gun control.
He said: "With the new school year approaching, this is the second shooting at a school campus in Memphis in less than a week.
"'No family and no community should have to live in constant fear that gun violence may claim the lives of their children or loved ones.
0 comments
